The Front Runner (Gold Rush Ranch, #3)

by Elsie Silver

I respect him enough to let him walk away from the sport while he’s still healthy. Could I run him into the ground for another season and make some cash? Probably. But I refuse to do that to an animal who has run his heart out for me and my business.

Aww hes sweet, of course. Being misjudged all around.

He shakes his head and turns away from me with a disappointed sigh. I make a point not to look around myself. I’m not above feeling some level of embarrassment. And being entirely ignored by some of the biggest names in the business stings. Something I refuse to show.

Animals live their life in the moment. They are eternal optimists—they don’t know any better.

I’m well aware I’m not a comforting person. I’m not a hold-your-hair-back-while-you-barf kind of friend. I didn’t get the nursing gene. But I do know how to make myself useful, and sometimes that’s an okay way to comfort a person, too.

My forehead wrinkles under the pressure of trying to reconcile the two different versions of this man. He’s a walking, talking contradiction, and I can’t help letting my mind wander to the golden manual labor version of him.

“Whatever you say,” he replies smoothly. “I just can’t fall in love with you, right?” I chuckle as I twist the doorknob to leave. “Oh, Stefan. I think you already are.”

But all I really want is for her to see that I’m not a bad guy. I don’t always play by the rules, but I’m not a bad guy. I grew up with one, and I refuse to become him.

I could have just asked him the favor straight out, but he looked so downtrodden. And I’m a sucker for a wounded animal.

His entire persona is sketched in blurry lines, and I’m worried I’m getting lost in that fuzz.

I have a savior complex. You don’t become a veterinarian or medical professional without that facet to your personality. And everything he’s shared over the last several days about his mom, his dad, his upbringing… it’s got a stranglehold on my savior complex.

His hands on my body are making me absolutely insane. I swear my brain is melting right down into my spinal cord.

She’s not afraid to let her claws out, and I’m not afraid to get scratched.

“Just before she died, she told me my biological father used to be the bartender in Ruby Creek.”

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I don’t want to tame her; I just want a front-row seat to watch her win the race.

But the unwanted little boy who lives inside me feels a bit different about that sentiment. It feels like she’s embarrassed. Like I’m a dirty little secret—and I don’t like that.

“You have beautiful hands. Almost as beautiful as your mind and heart. Sometimes I find myself staring at them while you work, so elegant and strong all at once. Hands that heal. Hands that save lives.” His voice drops. “Hands that belong in mine.”

“You missed me?” His eyes are soft, wide—uncertain almost. A look I don’t see on him often. And something about that look undoes me a little.

Somehow, when his arms close around me, the world melts away.

Stefan doesn’t scare me. I don’t see him as a threat. He’s not my enemy. And he looks at me the same way. He looks at me like I’m a dream come true.

“Take it like a good girl, Miss Thorne,”

He’s done everything he can to protect me, and I repaid him by withholding something he’s been killing himself trying to figure out.

Has he been trying to figure it out??

I wonder if the more I pull away, the harder we’ll collide. I wonder if we’ll survive the collision.

Perfect and panty melting.

Cheesy.