“Don’t do that. Don’t start overthinking this. We’ll figure it out. We’ll make this work,” Jack says, voice encouraging, eyes clear.

  “It’s just a lot, and what if we don’t deliver? What if they get here and see we’re nowhere in the realm of Hickman?”

  “I sold them on our personal service and our attention to detail. That’s why they agreed to it on a one-year probationary period. These four guys like what they see while they’re here, then we’ll be set.”

  “And they’re okay knowing you won’t be here the whole time? They know that, right?” I ask.

  “Tate.” He uses my name to soothe me. “Don’t you trust me?”

  Doubt tries to win a war I’m sick of waging so I push it back down and answer him with an even. “Yes.”

  And I do.

  Only, I’m not sure if that should excite me or scare me.

  Especially after realizing he never answered my question.

  35

  TATE

  There’s an excitement to the chaos that engulfs the ranch over the next few days. An organization to the madness as we work around the clock to make my little ranch look like it’s bigger and better than it’s ever been.

  Sure, the doubt still reigns.

  Of course, the worry over finances is never far from my mind. The fear that despite Sheryl’s phone calls, the lender might send who-knows-who out here while the Steely employees are here, lingers.

  Still, we work hard and we get the job done.

  Music plays from somewhere in the far stables where Will is busy setting up each stall for the studs. It’ll put them far enough away from the mares that it doesn’t cause problems, but close enough for them to smell the females in heat.

  Talk about a tease if I’ve ever heard one.

  “Whose idea was it to have them bring all those horses?” I groan with a smile on my face as we repair the rails of the ring we stopped using years ago.

  “Gotta get them ladies pregnant,” Jack says with a smirk. His hair is plastered to the back of his neck, drenched through with sweat long ago. I’m sure mine isn’t much better where I have it tucked beneath my baseball hat. He has a smear of dirt on his cheek, the stubble on his jaw is the length of however long we’ve been at this, and the tear in the stomach of his dark blue shirt is from where it caught on a nail as he walked by.

  “What are you staring at?” he asks, still in great spirits despite how freaking exhausted we all are.

  “Just thinking I might work a little faster if I had some motivation.”

  “Motivation?” He stops and turns toward me, tipping the front of his hat up and off his eyes.

  “You without a shirt on is a good start.” I’m only partially teasing him.

  “And you on your back is a good start for me too,” he says with a laugh that tells me his comment holds about the same amount of truth as mine.

  My laugh is soft, and I just shake my head. “If this girl is on her back, I think the only thing she’ll be thinking about is sleeping,” I joke.

  “We’ll see about that.” He hammers a nail, and I watch him. “Get to work, Knox.” He glances my way and flashes those dimples of his, making my heart skip a beat.

  We work side by side, sometimes in silence and sometimes singing to the song Will has playing. It’s brutal labor, physically tiring, mentally draining, and so much more than I’ve ever done before, but there’s something so satisfying about working hard to accomplish something.

  With Fletcher, I was nothing more than a window dressing. I was present but shielded from everything he was hiding. I was sequestered in this house to prevent me from going into town and knowing the truth.

  But right now? I feel like I’m a part of this. Yes, Jack negotiated this whole deal, but I’m helping to make it happen.

  “I’ve seen you taking pictures,” Jack says after we move onto the smaller pens where we’ll put the female in estrus and add the stallion raring to go.

  “Hmm?” I glance over to him and then back to where I’m grading the dirt with a rake.

  “Nothing. Just something I noticed, and I wanted to say I’m glad. You should reach back out to that gallery.”

  “That was years ago.” I reject the idea immediately.

  “And talent is talent. It doesn’t fade with time.” When I start to refute him, he cuts me off. “At least consider it.”

  It’s my turn to snort. “Yeah. Sure. Right after I get through entertaining four men and twelve extra horses for a month.”

  “Who knows, you might have some new subjects to shoot.”

  He stands to his full height so the sunlight casts him in a silhouette.

  Click.

  I’d kill to grab my camera and capture him like this. Sweaty and exhausted and sexy.

  “What?” He angles his head when he catches me studying him.

  “You’re the subject I want to shoot.”

  Jack’s laugh rings out, and Will looks over to us. He’s too far away to hear our conversation but he’s close enough to hear Jack’s reaction.

  “Only if I get to take some of you while you’re, uh, on your back.”

  I roll my eyes and sigh. “Such a guy.”

  We continue hour after hour, completing task after task. My muscles ache, my eyes are blurry, and my body is so exhausted that I can’t even think coherent thoughts.

  “Take a break, Tate. We’ll get the rest,” Sylvester says. “Jack just gave me a rundown of what’s left.”

  I look at Sylvester and know his old body is tiring, which makes me feel horrible that he’s here. No matter how many times we told him we had it covered, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. We couldn’t hurt his feelings by telling him he was actually slowing our progress, so we gave him what tasks we could.

  “I need to make sure the bunkhouse is all set up first.”

  “I can do that,” Jack says.

  “Nah. I got it.”

  I walk toward the bunkhouse, my head down, my mind so tired I have to mentally count the steps I’m walking as a means to keep my focus. I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard in my life, and yes, I’m beyond tired, but I’m also so very satisfied, which makes zero sense to me.

  Voices in the paddock have me looking toward the sounds of Jack and Will razzing each other, and it’s when I do that I notice them in my periphery toward my house.

  The pops of reds and pinks and purples spilling over the sides of the galvanized planters on my verandah. The planters that have been filled with dead flowers and weeds since Fletcher died are now full of vibrant colored blooms. The life stops me in my tracks momentarily.

  I know I have mountains left to do, but I’m drawn to the stark contrast against everything else around them. It’s so simple that it’s breathtaking.

  Absently running my fingers over the petals, I walk from planter to planter.

  When I turn and see Jack standing at the end of the walkway, his thumbs are hooked in his belt loops and his head is angled to the side just watching me.

  “You planted flowers.” I don’t hide my smile. “They look good. They’ll give the Steely guys the impression that we’re put together around here. Nice touch.”

  “I didn’t plant them for the Steely guys,” he says.

  “No?”

  “No.” His expression tells me he’s trying to work through something in his mind. His lazy grin slow and lopsided. “They’re for you.”

  “You planted me flowers?” Every skeptical part of my body melts into a puddle at my feet.

  “They’re wildflowers.”

  “They’re pretty,” I murmur as I lean over to smell them.

  “I thought they fit you. I thought they fit your wild.”

  And if I had dismissed my earlier thoughts of how he had taken a little piece of my heart, blaming them on my exhaustion, I now know I was wrong to do so.

  Now I know he has.

  36

  JACK

  “I don’t think I can move.”

  Her groan is as loud as the sky is colorful. When I roll my head on the grass where we’re lying to look over at her, her eyes are closed, her hair is a tangled mess on top of her head, and she’s covered in dirt and grime.

  She’s fucking beautiful.

  “We’re still not done,” I murmur as I close my eyes and exhale. I need a beer. I need Tate beneath me moaning. I definitely need some food. And I fucking need my phone to stop vibrating text alerts from my sister.

  But I don’t necessarily need those things in that order.

  “Almost through.” She groans again. “Just a few more things. But, hell, I’m impressed with how much we’ve gotten done.”

  “This place looks incredible,” I say and fight the urge to roll onto my side and kiss her soundly.

  If I do that, there will be no stopping me, and the last thing Will and Sylvester need to see is us rolling around naked.

  Her unexpected laughter bubbles up, delirium edging its sound. “Do you have any idea just how many Jack Suttons there are in the world?”

  Internally I freeze and hope she didn’t just catch the hitch in my movement her question caused. Has she made the connection somehow?

  “You looking me up, Knox?” I ask, trying to make the playful tone drown out the sudden worry I have.

  Another soft chuckle as she reaches out and grabs my hand, threading her fingers through mine. “You aren’t exactly an open book.”

  “Says the woman who’s more guarded than a goddamn vault.” When I squeeze her hand, the cool grass beneath them feels nice. It’s odd for me to even notice that, but I do.

  “You’ve been here almost three months now.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Where is she going with this?

  “We worked together for one. We’ve been sleeping together for the other two . . .”

  “And?” I ask without looking at her. She wants to know what happens when the next three months finish and my contract is up.

  When I have to tell her the truth about why I’m here and break her heart . . . and her trust.

  “And nothing. Never mind. I’m just tired and hungry and thinking way too much.”

  “I told you who I was, Tate.”

  And I did.

  I just never told her who I wasn’t.

  She laughs and waves her free hand in the air in indifference. “Jack Sutton. Rancher. Seeker of helpless females he thinks need help.”

  “You’re far from helpless,” I say as my phone vibrates, yet again, in my pocket. “You hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  “I need to run into town to get a few more things. How about you can ask me anything you want when I come back bearing food.”

  “Food?” she asks, and I allow the rare treat of eating out to change the subject I’m not ready to broach. A few hours won’t change the inevitable that I’m not sure how I’m going to fucking deal with, though.

  “Yep. Food. I’ll pick some up. What do you want?”

  “Anything. Everything. And chocolate. Definitely chocolate,” she murmurs with a smile turning up the corners of her lips.

  “Everything it is,” I say and give in to the temptation at my fingertips. Leaning over, I brush my lips against hers.

  “No! I’m gross,” she says, pushing against my chest but then fists her hands in my shirt and kisses me back.

  It takes every ounce of strength I have to pull away from her soft tongue and gentle sighs, but I have to take care of a few things before we can get to this.

  “Food. You’re distracting me,” I murmur against her lips. “I need to go get food.”

  “And chocolate,” she says, and I can feel her lips smile against mine.

  “And chocolate.”

  “LAUREN,” I say and groan internally as I lean my head back against the seat of my truck. I’m parked on the shoulder of the road about a mile away from the ranch so I can have this conversation in private, but the smell of the Italian food next to me is making me hungry, and I just want to get off the phone so I can get back to Tate. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  Tate is probably still busting her ass getting the bunkhouse ready while I’m out here trying to get my sister sorted out. My sister. My burden.

  “Haven’t you been playing this long enough?” she gripes as my niece sings shrilly in the background. “At what point are you going to stop playing this game, Jack? You did what you said you were going to do. You can say you fulfilled the promise. Hand over the check. Don’t hand over the check. The only thing I care about is that you get your ass back home.” Where her tone starts out playful, it ends angrily.

  “Fulfilling the promise is more complicated than I thought,” I murmur and wonder if that’s technically a lie.

  “I’m ignoring that you said that. I’m pretending that I don’t hear the tone in your voice that, God knows, I’ve heard it before. You better not be—shit, Jack. There’s so much wrong with this. Don’t you know that?”

  I do know it, and I don’t want to fucking talk about it.

  “How was your meeting tonight?” I ask, playing on her need to be the center of attention.

  “I didn’t have time to go. There—”

  “Goddamn it, Lauren. Why the hell not? You promised me you’d go.”

  If I could crawl through the phone and strangle her, I would. She wonders why I took off? Between our dad needing to control my every move and her sucking all of the oxygen out of every room, there wasn’t enough space or air for me to breathe.

  “And you promised me you wouldn’t fall in love with her.”

  “No, the promise I made you was that I’d be home in time for the calving season. My word is good. You know that.”

  “And so is mine.”

  “I love you madly, Lauren, but you also drive me up a wall,” I mutter as I start the truck and shift it into drive. “I need to go back to work, and you need to call your sponsor. I’ll be home when my contract here is up. Good night.”

  The bunkhouse is lit up like Christmas when I walk into it. The space is nothing fancy, with four bedrooms that branch off the common area. The kitchen is in the middle with a large table where I have binders that detail the history of each of our forty horses laid out. Old-school rodeo posters are framed and hung on the walls, and a television sits on the far side in front of a worn couch.

  The binders are a visual reminder of what lies ahead of us in this coming month. All the hard work we’ll have to put in and the schmoozing along with it to make someone believe in us enough to give us the contract.

  I walk from room to room, looking for Tate. There’s mine with my stuff strewn about the small space. The beds in the others are still unmade, but the fresh sheets sit folded atop of them.

  “Tate?” I call out as I move about looking for her.

  “She ran up to the house,” Will says when I poke my head into the stable. He and Sylvester are sitting on the floor, backs against the wall, and a beer in their hand.

  They look as exhausted as I feel.

  “Pizza’s on the table,” I say. “I’m going to go bring Tate hers.”

  The house is quiet when I enter. Tate’s boots are by the door, clumps of dried mud scattered around them.

  “Tate?”

  Gracie’s tail thumps somewhere, and when I step into the hall, I see her lying on the floor, looking at me with her head cocked, her eyes eager.

  “Hi, girl,” I say as I walk toward her and am just about to call out for Tate again when she comes into view.

  She’s sitting on her couch, arm propped on the side, hand under her chin, and completely sound asleep.

  And fuck if my chest doesn’t constrict at the sight of her.

  The dark fan of her lashes on her dirt-smudged cheeks. The curls of hair that have fallen out of her ponytail. Her full lips just slightly parted.

  She’s busted her ass the past few days.

  When I first showed up here, I wondered how this place had stayed afloat. I questioned how this pixie-sized woman could be the one doing it.

  Now I know she can.

  Now I know she has the determination of a giant and the grit of a titan.

  I’m not sure how long I stand watching her before I set the food down on the table. With her soft snores filling the house, I get Gracie some food and fresh water and take her out. I pick up the kitchen some and wash our coffee cups that were still sitting on the table from when we went over what was left to do before the delegation gets here.

  Since when do I have cups of coffee with Tate as if we are a couple? When did that happen?

  When I started spending most nights here, that’s when.

  “Convenience,” I murmur, denying the truth to myself as well as the air around me.

  It’s only when I go to let Gracie back in that I see Tate’s camera sitting on the table by the front door. I pick up the expensive piece of equipment with no other purpose than to put it in her studio so it doesn’t get knocked off by a rambunctious Gracie.

  But when I walk into her office and set it next to its case, I’m stopped by the stack of black-and-white images sitting atop the workstation.

  Fletcher’s face greets mine. His smile is wide, and his eyes are clear. There is a subtle dusting of freckles across his nose, and faint lines at the corners of his eyes.

  The photo hits me like a sucker punch. The man who started all of this stares back at me, and I’m not sure how I feel about it, about him.

  That’s a lie.

  I feel in droves: hate, uncertainty, spite, jealousy that he had Tate first. So many emotions and yet I want to feel absolutely none of them.

  Bastard.

  I can’t bring myself to look away for the longest of times as I sort through them all and know it won’t do a damn bit of good to me if I do.

  Liar.

  None. Because I can’t confront him over what he’s done and I can’t make amends for the trail of hurt he left behind.

  Cheat.

  When my eyes blur from the rage, I force myself to flip to the photos beneath it. The ring finger on Fletcher’s left hand and the light mark where a ring should be. At one of him from behind, just his cowboy hat and his hair curling over his collar. At another one of just his eyes staring straight at me, telling me to back the fuck off.