Chapter 8 #2
Rose still kept the professional distance. The boundary between ranch owner and guest remained. But the hostility had gone out of it, replaced by a wary truce.
Late Friday night, I almost made it to my cabin before the light in the main house stopped me.
The lounge should have been empty. The team had gone to bed an hour ago. Dex on a call with NorthFace’s European office, Jamie editing the next video, Olivia turned in after dinner. The main house should have been dark.
But there was Rose, curled into the corner of the leather couch by the fireplace, boots kicked off, feet tucked under her. She was watching something on her phone with earbuds in, and she hadn’t heard me come in through the side door.
I should have turned around. Every smart instinct I had told me to keep walking.
Instead I stopped in the kitchen doorway and watched her face.
Whatever she was watching had her completely. Her expression was unguarded in a way I’d never seen. Soft around the eyes, lips slightly parted, the permanent tension in her jaw gone. She looked like a different person when she wasn’t armored up.
She looked like someone I could get in serious trouble over.
She glanced up and saw me.
For one second, one unguarded, uncontrolled second, warmth flared across her face before she caught it and shut it down.
She pulled out one earbud. “I thought everyone was asleep.”
“Couldn’t sleep.” I nodded toward the kitchen. “Came for water.”
A lie. I’d come because the light was on and I was a moth.
“Pitcher’s in the fridge,” she said, and went back to her phone.
I got the water. Drank it slowly. Didn’t leave.
Sat down in the armchair across from her instead.
Rose’s eyes flicked up. “That’s a bold move.”
“I’m feeling reckless.”
“Clearly.” She pulled out the other earbud and locked her phone, screen down on the cushion beside her.
Not before I caught a flash of what she’d been watching.
My face. On her phone. One of the Iceland videos, from the look of it.
I said nothing. Kept my expression absolutely neutral. But my pulse kicked so hard I could feel it in my fingertips.
She’d been watching my videos.
Rose must have seen a shift in my face because her jaw tightened. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
The fire cracked. Wind pressed against the windows.
“Can I ask you something?” Rose said.
“You don’t need to ask first. Just ask.”
Her mouth twitched. “Fine. The video Jamie posted. The one in the pasture at dawn, with Brutus.”
“What about it?”
“You were talking to him, but it was overdubbed with music. What were you saying?”
I hesitated. Not because the answer was bad. Because it was honest.
“I was telling him about you.”
Rose went very still.
“I was telling him that his owner is the most stubborn, infuriating, impressive woman I’ve ever met.
” I kept my voice light but the words weren’t light at all.
“And that she has every right to hate me, but I’m hoping she doesn’t.
Because I’m running out of ways to pretend I’m not completely gone for her. ”
The fire popped. Neither of us blinked.
“You said that,” Rose said slowly. “To a horse.”
“He’s a good listener.”
“He’s a twelve-hundred-pound animal who tried to eat your jacket.”
“Nobody’s perfect.”
Rose set her phone on the side table. Uncurled her legs. Stood up.
I thought she was leaving. Thought I’d pushed too far, said too much, shattered whatever fragile truce we’d built over the past week.
She didn’t leave.
She crossed the room and stopped in front of my chair, looking down at me with an expression that wiped every thought from my head.
“Stand up,” she said.
I stood.
We were close. Too close for people maintaining professional distance. Close enough that I could smell her. Soap and hay and something warm underneath.
“I’ve been trying not to do this,” she said. Her voice was low, rough at the edges.
“I know.”
“I’ve been trying for days.”
“I know that too.”
“It’s not working.”
“No,” I agreed. “It’s not.”
She grabbed the front of my shirt and kissed me.
Not carefully. Not testing. She kissed me like she’d made a decision and was furious about it. Fierce and demanding, her mouth hot against mine, her fist twisted in my shirt like she was daring me to pull away.
I didn’t pull away.
I kissed her back the way I’d wanted to since the storm. One hand in her hair, the other at the small of her back, pulling her flush against me. She made a sound against my mouth, low and frustrated, and I was going to hear it every time I closed my eyes for the rest of my life.
Her hands moved from my shirt to my jaw, her fingers spread along the sides of my face, holding me like she was claiming something she hadn’t decided to keep yet.
I backed her against the arm of the couch and she went willingly, her fingers sliding into my hair, pulling me closer. Her back arched and I dropped my mouth to her jaw, her throat, the soft skin below her ear. She made a sound that went straight through me.
“Graham—”
“Aye.”
“This is still a terrible idea.”
“The worst,” I murmured against her neck.
She pulled my mouth back to hers.
The kiss slowed down. Got deeper. Her teeth caught my bottom lip and I groaned against her mouth. Would’ve been embarrassing if I’d had any pride left.
I didn’t. She’d taken all of it.
I could feel her pulse hammering under my thumb where my hand curved around her throat.
Feel the heat of her through both our shirts.
Feel the moment her body stopped holding back and pressed into mine instead, and Christ, I wanted her so badly my hands shook with the effort of not taking this further than she was ready for.
When we finally broke apart, breathing hard, her forehead resting against mine, the fire had burned down to embers and neither of us had noticed.
“I should go,” she whispered.
“Probably.”
Neither of us moved.
“Goodnight, Graham,” she said finally.
“Goodnight, Rose.”
She stepped back. Picked up her phone, her boots. Walked toward the door barefoot, and I watched every step because I couldn’t help myself.
At the threshold she paused. Glanced back at me over her shoulder.
“For the record,” she said, pulling on her boots, “the Iceland series was very good.”
Then she was gone.
I stood in the empty lounge with the dying fire and the taste of her still on my mouth and the absolute certainty that I was falling for this woman.
And the equally absolute certainty that this was going to destroy me.
I gave myself a few minutes. Let my pulse settle. Let the adrenaline fade just enough that I could walk straight.
Then I headed for the side door.
I was almost to the exit when I heard a voice.
It came from the office, door cracked open an inch, light spilling in a thin line across the floor.
Denise.
I stopped.
“—yes, I know,” she was saying, her tone low and clipped. Nothing like the bright, helpful voice she used around Rose. “But we need to give it time. The YouTuber situation changed things.”
A pause. Someone on the other end.
“No, she doesn’t suspect anything. She’s too distracted. Between the video and him and—” A short, ugly laugh. “Exactly. It’s actually working in our favor.”
Every part of me went cold.
“Next week the bank’s going to start asking questions, and then we just... let it play out.”
I pressed my back against the wall. Barely breathing.
A creak from inside. A chair shifting. Denise’s voice dropped to a murmur I couldn’t catch.
Then: “I’ll call you tomorrow. Same time.”
I moved to the dark hallway just as the office light went off.
I remained there until I heard the office door close fully, then quietly slipped out the side door and across the property to my cabin on legs that didn’t feel reliable.
Locked the door. Sat on the edge of the bed. Stared at my phone.
She doesn’t suspect anything. She’s too distracted.
It’s actually working in our favor.
Every part of me wanted to call Rose. Right now. Tell her what I’d heard. But tell her what, exactly? A fragment of a phone call through a cracked door?
Ten minutes ago, Rose had kissed me. Ten minutes ago, the wall had finally cracked. I’d spent a week earning back a fraction of her trust, and she’d handed me something tonight that I knew, knew, she didn’t hand out easily.
If I went to her now with an accusation against her closest friend and I was wrong, I’d lose her. Permanently. She’d see it as jealousy, manipulation, another lie on top of all the others.
I needed proof. Concrete proof. The kind she couldn’t argue with.
I set the phone facedown on the nightstand and lay back and stared at the ceiling.
Sleep didn’t come.
Every time I closed my eyes, I heard two things on a loop: Rose breathing my name between kisses. And Denise’s voice in the dark, nothing like the warm, helpful woman who kept telling Rose not to worry, she’d handle everything.