I’m embarrassed. I feel raw and vulnerable and just want to be left alone and hugged and fixed all at the same time.

  “I’m not Fletcher, Tate.”

  “I know you aren’t, but it’s hard to believe it isn’t going to happen again and even harder to admit that I’m in this position in the first place!”

  He doesn’t react, but instead stares out the window at the guys working with the horses. “How bad is it? Will this deal with Steely fix things?”

  “Most foreclosures take about six months once the ball gets rolling. The ball is already rolling.”

  He chews his bottom lip, and I hate that he won’t look at me. “I’m not letting you sell Ruby, Tate.” His voice is calm and even. “That isn’t the way to go. I’ll get the deal. I’ll finalize it and figure out a way to get Steely to pay you progress payments during the gestation period.”

  I shake my head. “And what if the foals don’t go to term? Then what? Not only will I owe them stud fees but also I’ll owe them for the amount they’ve paid toward the foal that died.” I scrub my hands over my face.

  “Then I’ll float you the goddamn money until you get caught up to current. Christ, Tate. Quit being so goddamn stubborn.”

  “Absolutely not. I won’t take your charity.”

  “Then I won’t accept your half-assed apology about not trusting me.”

  “That isn’t fair.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” He blows out a breath in frustration. “You won’t accept help. You kept this from me so that I couldn’t help. You didn’t trust me. What the fuck are we fighting for, Tate? So we can do all this, the everything”—he throws his hands out to his sides— “and you can lie down and die and lose it all?”

  “That isn’t what I said. I’m not giving up,” I explain because I’m not. I’ve already decided that. My plan is to sell Ruby and do whatever else I have to do to get good with the bank again. I don’t want to do it, but like he said, it’s a last resort.

  He finally turns to face me, but instead of speaking, he just shakes his head with sadness and disappointment pooling in his eyes before he heads toward the front door.

  I suck in a ragged breath as the first sob hits me. Shame and grief and guilt mix and explode like a match to a powder keg in that first wave of tears. I’m mad at myself. I’m angry at the world. I’m furious at everyone but the man I just let down because I didn’t trust soon enough.

  “Hey.”

  He never left.

  When I look up, there’s the silent click of my camera’s shutter.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, feeling violated in the oddest of ways. There’s no way I want my stupidity documented. “Give it to me.” I grab for the camera in his hand, but he pulls it back so I can’t reach it.

  “This.” It’s all he says as he pushes some buttons and then hands the camera to me so I can see what he’s talking about. “This is what I want you to look at. This is what I want you to remember about today. Not that we fought. Not that you were embarrassed that I finally found out the truth. Not that you finally learned to trust me and the sky didn’t fall in. Not any of that.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “Today is the day you stopped being under Fletcher’s thumb. Today is the day you began mapping out your own future and started to break free from everything he weighed you down with.”

  The image on the screen is of tears streaking down my cheeks, stained paths of persistence on my makeup-free face. My lips are parted. My eyes are looking up beneath a veil of thick lashes. It’s the look of shame coated in defiance, resolve winning over defeat, and determination mastering fear that stands out the most.

  “Today is the day you own your wild.”

  I don’t tell him he’s crazy. In fact, I don’t even look up at him because I’m too mesmerized by the picture and his declaration.

  Jack’s feet clomp on the floor.

  The door opens quietly and then closes with a thud.

  But I’m standing in my hallway, staring at an image I love and hate all at the same time.

  Today is the day I own my wild.

  42

  TATE

  The water sluices over my skin with each stroke.

  It’s cool and refreshing and therapeutic.

  One after another.

  Again and again.

  I count each one as a measure of time.

  My head tilts to the side so I can draw in a ragged breath.

  I’ve settled into a cadence to try to put distance between our fight tonight, the truths I finally told him, and the pain I caused him.

  The exertion doesn’t take away the sting that Jack hasn’t answered my texts.

  The emotions ate at me, every single one of them.

  So, I came to the one place I used to use as my meditation to get through my every day. The place I haven’t returned to since the first night I slept with Jack.

  The sun is setting, and the pool is getting dark, but I don’t get out to turn the lights on. I’ve done this enough times to know the length by heart. I’ve found solace here enough times that sometimes the darkness feels so much more inviting.

  No one can see my shame then.

  No one can see me wear the guilt.

  No one can hear my screams underwater.

  I do a flip turn and push off toward the other side, still trying to shake Jack from my mind.

  When someone jumps into the pool in front of me, it’s the last thing I ever expected, and it startles me so much that I choke on a swallow of water as I find my feet beneath me.

  But the cough dies on my lips when I look up to see Jack in the pool with me. His body may be naked, but it’s the apology and the regret and the love in his expression that holds me hostage.

  There are no words as we step toward each other or as he pulls me against him or before our lips meet in a tender kiss laced with desperation. His hands roam over my body as if they are mapping every single curve.

  We speak in actions. His kiss to my neck, my palms running up the plain of his back. His hands digging into the flesh of my hips, my wrapping my legs around his. His fingertips pulling aside my bathing suit bottoms and skimming over me, my teeth sinking into his shoulder in reaction. His cock slowly pushing into me, my accepting every single, thick, hard inch of him.

  “Jack,” I moan.

  “Uh-uh,” he murmurs when his lips find mine again. “I don’t want to talk, Tate.” He uses the buoyancy of the water to push my hips back so his crest slides over the rough patch of nerves within me. “I just need to feel you.” He pulls me back against him roughly so I’m forced to take the pleasure. “Feel us.” Another tantalizing withdrawal that has every part of me begging for him to fill me again. “Just this.” And he fulfills my desire by thrusting back into me. “Just us.”

  We continue this slow, methodical pace until our nerves are as assaulted as our emotions were earlier, and our actions are as devastating to our senses as our words had been. Until we’re left wanting to be together instead of wanting to be apart.

  And so we make up.

  And so we make love.

  43

  JACK

  “You’re avoiding me.”

  “Lauren. Hello.” All the tension of the day seizes up at the sound of her voice.

  “I take it that means you’ve fallen for her?”

  I snort and wonder how many times she’s going to ask me before she realizes I’m not going to dignify the question with a response. “Evan said things are good there,” I deflect.

  “Have you told her the truth?”

  “Not your business, Sis.” I roll my shoulders and dig in for the long haul in this conversation. “He said that the heifers are healthy and doing well so we should expect a good lot of calves this year. It’s always good news when business is good, right?”

  “What’s your end game, huh, Jack-Jack? Are you getting off on being the hired help? Is it a turn on to fuck the boss?”

  “Have you been drinking?” I ask, her belligerence at an all-new level.

  “Nope. This talk is coming to you sober, and sober Lauren isn’t bothered if she hurts your feelings like drunk Lauren is.”

  I sigh at her lie but don’t refute it. “Did something happen?”

  “Did something happen?” She laughs. “Let’s see. You aren’t here doing what you’re supposed to be doing. Dingo was bucked off a horse when it spooked while riding the fence line and was hurt.”

  “But he’s okay.” I know our wrangler is because I already talked to Evan about it.

  “The weather’s relentless. It has been raining for days on end, and I don’t care how big this house is, it isn’t big enough with kids and no escape.”

  “It’s supposed to let up tomorrow,” I tell her, my phone app still alerting me daily of the weather back home. “And?”

  “And this is a lot to do on my own, Jack.”

  “What is? Being a mom to your kids? Watching out the window as Evan runs the ranch for me while I’m gone? Last I checked you’ve never really had a hand in the day-to-day there other than having the Sutton name . . . so am I missing something here?” I ask with a frustrated sigh, not caring that I’m going to hit a nerve with the comment. “You reap all of the benefits and don’t have to do any of the work. Do you want to explain to me why any of that gives you the right to be the raging bitch you’re being right now?”

  She’s silent, and a silent Lauren is almost worse than a drunk Lauren. “You have no right to judge me.”

  “Ditto.”

  A tense silence weighs across the connection, and I roll my shoulders in exasperation.

  “Look,” she starts followed by a shaky inhale. “I get you’re out there supposedly keeping your promise to Dad, but that promise died the minute he died. That promise has already been fulfilled. So, yeah, I get you need to find yourself or make amends for the shitty things you did in your past business life, but at what point is it too much? He was a bastard, Jack. It isn’t your job to find his redemption.”

  “I can’t just walk away. I signed a contract.”

  She snorts. “So what? She’ll get over it.”

  “That’s enough, Lauren.”

  “You fucked her over the moment you slept with her, you know that, right? Women can’t separate this shit like men can. You’re going to make her fall for you and then you’re going to break her heart. How exactly are you making things better for her by doing that, huh?

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “The best thing you can do is come home.”

  “I said I’d be there in time.”

  “Even better, you can distance yourself from her now so you hurt her less then.”

  I end the call without saying goodbye.

  My sister’s already said enough.

  And fuck if ninety percent of it wasn’t true.

  44

  TATE

  The days trudge on.

  Hours upon hours of our normal duties but then the added responsibility of keeping four men occupied and out of trouble as the boredom of a small town hits the Steely crew here at Knox Ranch.

  Last night, tires crunched down the driveway and headlights were flicked off as not to light up my house at well past two in the morning.

  With a five in the morning start time, that isn’t a whole hell of a lot of sleep.

  Maybe it’s a good thing that Jack was occupied last night. Maybe the distance will help me to detach myself some from him and the inevitable that is starting to weigh heavier and heavier every time I see him. Sadness has started to creep in with every slash across the calendar day as it passes because each new mark marches us closer to him leaving.

  The thoughts and emotions that follow soon after are all-consuming, and I hate it. Hate them.

  At the same time, I almost feel as if he’s avoiding me. He has gone from finding ways to pull me into the tack room and steal a kiss to going out of his way not to find the two of us in those situations.

  Then again, maybe I’m just overthinking it.

  But what he said and the picture he took of me have made more than an impression. I forced myself to print the portrait and frame it. It’s the reminder of where I’ve been, what I’ve been through, and how I survived.

  I force myself to focus on the grain I’m mixing instead of the inevitability of him leaving, and I manage to get two batches done before Jack’s shadow crosses in front of the open doors.

  “Hey, you got a minute?” I call out.

  “Not really.” His feet hesitate for a moment before he starts to walk again.

  “Jack!” If my voice makes me sound desperate, it’s because I am.

  This time, he stops. His head is hung down for the briefest of seconds before he nods ever so slightly and turns to face me. “What did you need, Tate?” His voice is clipped with impatience as he looks at me from behind his sunglasses, and it bugs me that I can’t see his eyes.

  “Nothing . . . I just—we haven’t talked much, and I . . . never mind.”

  “I’ve been busy.” Impatience rings in his voice. “What did you need?”

  “Nothing. I guess I wanted to make sure we were okay, is all.”

  “Perfectly fine. Anything else?”

  I stare at him, tears burning in my eyes.

  Blame it on PMS or on exhaustion, it doesn’t really matter. “Nope. Not a thing.” I retreat a step before turning on my heel and heading back into the stable to finish what I was doing, hating how stupid and insecure I feel.

  “Christ.” I hear him hiss the word and then the crunch of his boots on the gravel as he follows me inside. “Look, I’m sorry, it’s just been a rough couple of days.”

  “What happened?” My mind fires to everything on the ranch that could go wrong, which is a long, long list.

  “Just shit back home.” He glances my way, and of course, now I feel like a complete ass. I’ve leaned on him, but I don’t know that I’ve ever really let him lean on me. I don’t think I’m a selfish person, but assuming that his distance was because of me sure as hell makes me feel like I’m the most self-centered person on the face of the earth.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  He looks anywhere but at me. “No. It’s fine.”

  Interesting that we had a giant fight about my not wanting to talk to him about my finances and now he’s avoiding telling me about whatever is bothering him. Pot, meet Kettle.

  “Got it.” I turn back to the counter. “Sorry I bugged you.”

  His sigh sounds like a curse when he emits it. His voice softens. “Don’t be that way.”

  “Be what way?” I counter. “Wanting to know more about the man I’m more or less living with? I mean . . . I know you like your coffee black, your steaks medium-well, and you aren’t ashamed that you like to cuddle, but that’s about it. You had a dad you could never please so you left home, only to regret some of the reasons too late. You have a sister, who puts worry in your eyes more often than not, and a brother, who passed away and you don’t talk about.” My hands grip the edge of the counter as I struggle to control my emotions and the feeling of rejection hearing all of this awakens in me. “Is it sad that Cory probably knows more about your life off this ranch than I do?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ve seen my life, right? Complicated is all I know.”

  And without another word, I slam the pail down on the counter and stalk past him.

  I don’t know if I’m upset or relieved that he doesn’t grab my arm to set things straight.

  That he doesn’t let me in more.

  45

  TATE

  “Grab your camera. We’re going for a walk,” Jack says when I answer the knock on my front door.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Grab your camera, Tate. Or I will. Either that, or I’ll toss you over my shoulder and carry you across the field. Everyone will notice and ask questions. Your choice, Knox.” His voice isn’t warm, but it isn’t frosty either. We haven’t talked since our little tiff earlier, so I’m not surprised.

  I glare at him. The last thing I want to do is obey and, yet, something urges me to believe that he’s asking more than demanding. That if I dug my heels in and refused to go, he would relent and leave me be. That’s the only thing that allows me the permission to do what I really want, which is to go with him.

  Within minutes, I have my camera and Gracie and I are trailing slightly behind him. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking I want to be with him.

  When I actually do.

  We walk across the property as the sun begins to set. Dragonflies dance around us in the warm evening air, and I can’t help but stop to snap images of their wings glistening in the light like glitter floating in the air. Jack keeps walking when I stop, Gracie bounding beside him as if she doesn’t understand the discord between us. Every once in a while, I aim the camera his way and snap a few shots.

  His hand petting her head as the dandelions blow out of focus in the distance behind him.

  Click.

  His untucked red T-shirt against the starkness of his denim.

  Click.

  The strong line of his nose, the rough cut of his jaw, the hard set of his chin as he waits for me to catch up.

  Click.

  We walk in silence until we hit the edge of the pond. Jack takes a seat and stares at the ripple of the water as birds and more dragonflies dance across it to grab a drink.

  I listen to nature’s symphony of birds chirping, trees rustling in the breeze, Gracie panting, and the hum of everything else around me. The longer I listen, the less I sense the tension between us.

  Maybe we just needed to step away.

  Maybe we just needed to distance ourselves from the stress of it all.

  “Jack?”

  His sigh is heavy, and I hate that he doesn’t turn to look at me—not once. “What are we doing here, Tate?” He plays with a blade of grass, pulling it apart and letting the tiny pieces flutter to the ground.