Chapter 7 #2
He didn’t move right away. He stood there looking at me with an expression I couldn’t afford to read. Not regret exactly, not despair. Quieter than both. Like he’d already accepted the damage and was calculating what came next.
“You’re right about all of it,” he said.
“Every word. I lied. I was a coward. I’m not going to stand here and make excuses.
” His gaze held mine, and his voice shifted into conviction.
“But the video’s coming down. My legal team is sending takedown notices to every repost. And I’m putting out a statement making it clear the video was posted without my knowledge or consent, that your ranch had nothing to do with it, and that anyone who shows up here uninvited will be hearing from my lawyers. ”
I hadn’t expected that either.
“I don’t need your PR team to—”
“It’s not PR. It’s the least I can do.” He paused at the threshold. “I know you don’t believe me right now. That’s fair. But what happened in that barn, what you told me, what I told you, that wasn’t Fraser Kincaid. That was me. Graham.”
He walked out before I could respond.
Which was infuriating, because I’d had the last word planned and he’d stolen it right out from under me.
I closed the door. Locked it. Pressed my forehead against the wood and stood there breathing until my hands stopped shaking.
My eyes burned.
I did not cry.
Ten seconds. I gave myself ten seconds to feel everything, the betrayal, the loss, the hot stupid ache of wanting someone who’d lied to me, and then I shut it down.
Washed my face. Laced my boots. Went to work.
The ranch didn’t care about my feelings. It never had. Horses need feeding. Stalls need mucking. Fences need fixing. The work doesn’t pause because your heart got stomped on.
By early afternoon, I was in the barn aisle refilling vitamin supplements when I heard Denise’s car crunching up the gravel drive.
She found me in the feed room. Door open, sleeves rolled, sweat on my neck. I looked like someone who’d been working hard, which was true, and not like someone who’d been gutted by a conversation, which was also true.
“Hey.” Denise leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, sunglasses pushed up on her head. Put-together the way she always was. Clean jeans, fitted jacket, nails done. “So. Fraser Kincaid.”
“You saw the video.”
“Everybody saw the video.” She stepped inside and perched on the grain bin, crossing one ankle over the other. “I’ve been putting out fires all morning. Beth Whelan from the Gazette wanted a comment. I told her Gracen Ranch values guest privacy and has nothing to add.”
My stomach turned. “The Gazette.”
“The Gazette, the feed store, half the lunch crowd at Milly’s.
” She pulled out her phone and scrolled.
“Pete from the hardware store texted asking if you were okay. Linda at the post office cornered me wanting to know if ‘that YouTube fella’ is still on the property. And some celebrity gossip site called the ranch line. I let it go to voicemail.”
“A gossip site.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m handling it.” She pocketed her phone.
“I turned off comments on our socials, blocked the fan accounts that tagged us, and drafted a statement for the website. Short and professional: ‘Gracen Ranch values the privacy of all guests and staff. We have no comment on personal matters.’ Wanted your approval before I posted.”
I set down the supplement bucket. She’d been out there all morning taking calls and blocking accounts and managing the fallout while I’d been in here hiding with the horses and my bruised pride.
“Thank you,” I said. My voice came out rougher than I wanted. “Seriously, Denise. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’d figure it out.” She shrugged. “You always do. But you don’t have to, because I’m here.”
I nodded. Swallowed hard. Moved on before the gratitude could crack me open.
“His team is staying through the booking,” I said. “I already told him.”
“You talked to him?”
“He came to my cabin this morning. I told him his group stays, but he and I are done. Guest and owner. Period.”
Denise watched me for a moment. “Smart. Keep the income, keep the routine.” She paused. “Want me to be the go-between? I can handle all communication with them so you don’t have to deal with him directly.”
“Yes.” The word came out too fast, too relieved. “Please.”
“Done.” She pulled her phone out again. “One more thing. That Ridgeline Supply invoice finally came. The fencing materials.”
“How much?”
“Twelve even.”
I frowned. “The quote was eighty-five hundred.”
“Rush surcharge plus extra hardware, they say. I’ll call them today. They need to itemize the invoice.” She was already putting the phone away, already moving past it. “Don’t worry about it.”
Twelve thousand dollars. Thirty-five hundred over budget, on top of the feed increase, on top of the insurance premium due next month.
“The Rousseau’s are coming next month. Their deposit,” I said. “Did that ever come through?”
“Still processing. Their bank’s being slow.” She waved a hand. “I’ve got a follow-up scheduled.”
I opened my mouth to push. Then closed it.
Because Denise was the person who’d spent her morning handling Beth Whelan and Pete and Linda and the gossip site and the fan accounts.
Denise was the one who’d drafted the statement and blocked the trolls and driven out here to check on me.
Questioning the one person actually helping felt like biting the hand that was holding me together.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me know what Ridgeline says.”
“Always do.” She hopped off the grain bin and brushed off her jeans. “You focus on the horses. I’ll handle the rest.”
“Thanks. Really.”
She smiled. Warm and easy.
I watched her walk back to her car, and a faint unease pricked at me. The invoice. The deposit that hadn’t cleared.
I shook it off. Went back to work.
I was measuring out the last of the vitamin supplements when Hank’s voice crackled over the walkie.
“Rose. Fence rail down in the north pasture. Brutus pushed through. He’s loose.”
My stomach dropped. The north pasture bordered the county road.
I grabbed a halter and a lead rope and ran.
The October air hit my lungs like ice water as I cut across the east field toward the tree line.
I could see the damage from fifty yards out.
Rail splintered clean, Brutus’s hoofprints churned deep into the mud on the other side.
Beyond the fence, the county road curved blind around a ridge. A horse on that road was a dead horse.
I ducked through the gap and spotted him right away, standing in the drainage ditch on the far shoulder, ears pinned, nostrils flaring. He’d spooked himself getting through the fence and now he was too rattled to move.
“Easy, boy.” I slowed my approach, halter behind my back, voice low and steady. “Easy. You’re okay.”
Brutus snorted and shifted sideways. Toward the road.
“Don’t—”
A truck rounded the curve. Not fast, but fast enough. Brutus bolted, not toward me, not away from the road, but straight down the gravel shoulder like it was a runway.
I sprinted after him. Stupid, because you can’t outrun a horse on your best day and you definitely can’t do it in barn boots on loose rock. I made it maybe thirty yards before my foot caught a rut and I went down hard. Palms, knees, the halter flying out of my grip.
Before I could push myself up, someone blew past me at a dead run.
Graham.
He’d come from the pasture side. Vaulted the broken fence rail like it wasn’t there and hit the shoulder at full speed, angling wide to get ahead of Brutus without driving him into the road.
I scrambled to my feet and watched, heart slamming.
He didn’t chase the horse. He got in front of him, thirty feet ahead, off to the side, and then he just stopped. Stood still. Let Brutus see him.
The gelding slowed. Trotted. Stopped.
Graham didn’t move. Didn’t speak. One hand extended, palm down. The exact technique I’d shown the group during their riding assessment on day two.
He’d been paying attention.
Brutus huffed. Took a step. Another. Then dropped his head and walked straight to Graham like he’d been heading there all along.
Graham caught the halter, the leather one Brutus was already wearing, thank God, and held him steady, murmuring something low in that accent that worked on horses and women with equal and infuriating effectiveness.
I picked up my lead rope and walked over on legs that weren’t entirely cooperating.
“You okay?” Graham asked. His eyes were on me.
My palms were scraped raw. My left knee was bleeding through my jeans. I was breathing like I’d sprinted a quarter mile, which I had, and my heart was doing something that had absolutely nothing to do with the running.
He was sweating. Shirt damp, forearms taut where he gripped the halter. A streak of dirt across his jaw. He pushed his hair off his forehead with his free hand, casual, unconscious, and the gesture did weird things to my insides.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Your knee’s bleeding.”
“I said I’m fine.”
I clipped the lead rope to Brutus’s halter, and my fingers brushed Graham’s in the handoff. Half a second. Skin on skin.
Instantly, I felt...
Everything.
“Thank you,” I managed to say, because I wasn’t so far gone in my own pride that I’d let it override basic decency. He’d just saved my horse. “For catching him.”
“Anytime.”
We stood there on the shoulder of the county road with a fifteen-hundred-pound animal between us and not nearly enough distance.
He was right there. Close enough that I could smell him, sweat and dirt and something underneath that was just him, and my body remembered exactly what it had felt like when his arms were around me in the barn.
I turned and led Brutus back through the broken fence without looking back. I didn’t need to. I could feel Graham watching me the same way I could feel a shift in barometric pressure. Invisible. Undeniable.
Hank was waiting at the fence with repair supplies and the expression of a man who’d seen everything and would say almost nothing.
“Nice catch,” he said to Graham.
“Nice horse,” Graham replied.
Hank glanced at me. I didn’t meet his eyes.
I walked Brutus back to the barn with my scraped palms stinging and my pulse still running too fast and the taste of something reckless sitting in the back of my throat like a dare.
I was in so much trouble.