12. BECKETT
BECKETT
The sound of my door creaking open stirs me awake, my ears perking up as I listen to the soft footsteps headed toward my bed. Quinn’s fragrant scent hits me, confirming that it is indeed her, but I don’t move. I’m still groggy with sleep, and my room is pitch black, so I can’t see much.
“Up and at ’em, Morgan,” she whispers, like this is some big secret mission.
I groan and bury my face deeper into my pillow. “What the hell, Quinn? It’s the middle of the night.”
“It’s morning,” she insists, tugging at my arm.
“Morning doesn’t happen till the sun’s up,” I grumble into the pillow. “This is a crime. You’re committing a crime right now.”
“Come on,” she shakes me awake, pulling the blankets off me.
I turn over to lie on my back to find her frozen in place, blinking at me. I look down to see what she’s looking at, smirking when I realize that she’s ogling my bare chest.
“Like what you see, sweetheart?” I tease, flexing my pecs as I pull my arms behind my head.
Heat rushes to her cheeks, but she’s quick to cover it up and glare at me. “Get up, Beck, or I’m dragging you out by your ankles.”
“It’s too early. Come back in three hours,” I protest.
My body feels like lead, my eyes are glued shut, and every bone in me screams to go back to sleep.
She ignores me—of course she does—and keeps pulling until I’m half out of bed. “Come on, you promised.”
“I promised nothing. Only crazy people are awake at this hour. Crazy people and farmers. Which one are you?”
“Both,” she snaps, yanking harder.
I let out a long, dramatic sigh, flopping around, resisting her. “No sane man is conscious at this hour unless something’s on fire.”
“Beck.” Her tone is a bit sharper.
I sigh like a man on his deathbed and throw the blanket off me. “Fine. But when I keel over in the street, you’re explaining it to my family.”
I drag my sleepy self to the bathroom to freshen up while she raids my closet looking for something “run-worthy”—her words, not mine. When I agreed to work with Quinn, I should have known it would come to bite me in the ass.
On the itinerary she gave me, we’re supposed to go on a run with a jogging club, comprising of some old ladies who meet up a couple of times a week to go for a run up Wrangler Creek hills, which border Iron Stallion.
They run right past the gate, which is where we’re supposed to be meeting up with them.
I have no idea how this idea is supposed to help with my reputation and why we have to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to do so. But Quinn is right—I did give her my word, so I have to honor it, no matter how much I want to crawl back in bed and forget this whole thing.
The air bites harshly the second we step outside. It’s cold enough to make my lungs protest and my skin pebble. Quinn, of course, seems like she’s been training for the Olympics her whole life, looking all bright-eyed, ponytail swinging, the picture of smug satisfaction.
I drag my feet on purpose, every step louder than it needs to be. “This is abuse,” I mutter. “Straight-up torture. My lawyer will be in touch.”
She doesn’t even look at me. “Keep up, slowpoke,” she demands as we jog up the driveway toward the main gate.
“Keep up?” I scoff, shoving my hands deeper into my hoodie pocket. “With who, exactly? You? Or the geriatric brigade you conned me into meeting?”
Her smirk flashes over her shoulder, quick and cutting. “They’ll outrun you if you keep whining.”
I snort, though it comes out rough with the cold. “If I freeze to death out here, you better put ‘killed by cardio’ on my tombstone.”
By the time the gate comes into view, my thighs are barking and my calves feel as though they’ve been swapped with someone else’s. “Nope. That’s it—I’m turning back.”
Quinn wheels around so fast her ponytail smacks her cheek. Her glare could fry an egg. “You take one more step back, Beck, and I swear—“
I grin, just to watch her get heated. “Swear what? You’ll drag me by the ear? Carry me?”
Her nostrils flare, and for a moment I think she just might. But then, the guards open the gates to let us out, and there they are. A whole flock of them.
Cheerful, bright-colored windbreakers, reflective armbands, and sneakers that have probably logged more miles than my truck. They’re already stretching, chattering like a damn henhouse.
Quinn lights up, all smiles and waves. “Morning, ladies!”
They chorus back her name with warm familiarity. Me? I get silence. No—worse than silence. I get side-eyes. The kind of slow, measuring glances that make a man feel as though he showed up to church without his pants on.
One of them, a spry little thing with short silver hair, squints up at me. “When you told us a Morgan would be joining us today, we didn’t think you meant this Morgan.”
Her words are spiteful, and I know that look only too well. I’ve been getting it for the past decade, so I’m used to it by now. Or I should be, since she leaves me feeling ashamed, like I should crawl into a small hole and die. Believe me, old lady, I tried—they didn’t let me.
“I know, because if I told you the truth, you would have said no. Please, be nice, ladies—he’s not who you remember,” Quinn explains, coming to my defense.
It leaves me feeling all warm inside, that she has my back against these total strangers.
“We’ll see about that,” another pipes up, cocking her head. “You think you can keep up, cowboy?”
I chuckle nervously, rubbing the back of my neck. “Ma’am, at this hour I can’t even keep up with myself.”
They cackle, and I swear it’s not kind laughter—it’s the knowing, we’ve-seen-it-all kind. As if they already know I’m gonna eat dirt by mile two.
“This feels similar to an ambush,” I mutter under my breath.
Quinn hears me. She smirks, wicked as the devil. “Welcome to the gauntlet.”
The pack takes off at an easy jog, and I do my best to blend in. Which lasts all of ten seconds.
My new running shoes, which have not been broken in yet, hit the pavement hard, my breath saws out of me too loud, too fast, and my arms—hell, I can’t even figure out what they’re doing. Too stiff, too loose.
“Relax your shoulders,” one of the ladies calls back kindly.
“Relax?” I wheeze. “Pretty sure if I relax any more, I’ll collapse.”
They all laugh, like I’m the entertainment of the morning.
Quinn’s grinning too, not even winded. “You’re doing great,” she says, voice full of sugar and smugness.
“I hate you,” I shoot back, half tripping over the curb.
Her laugh rings out, bright and sharp, and damn if it doesn’t hit me square in the chest. She’s enjoying this—my suffering, flailing, and making a fool of myself.
“This is actual hell,” I mutter loud enough for them all to hear.
One of them glances back, still jogging steady. “Careful, cowboy. We’ll lap you if you keep complaining.”
The rest hoot, and Quinn nearly doubles over from laughing. I push harder, pride pricking, but it only makes the wheezing louder.
Somewhere between mile one and me contemplating faking an ankle injury, something changes.
The cold eases, my lungs stop clawing for air, and my legs—hell, they actually remember what they’re supposed to do. The rhythm evens out. Step, step, breathe. Step, step, breathe.
One of the ladies falls in beside me. “Not bad, cowboy,” she says, like I’ve just passed some secret test.
I huff out a laugh. “You’re just saying that so I don’t quit.”
“Quitters don’t make it this far.” She winks before jogging back to her friends.
My mood shifts from frowning to grinning. The chatter around me shifts from background noise to something… easy. Funny, even. They’re gossiping about their grandkids, teasing Quinn about dragging me out, and I don’t feel left out anymore.
For the first time since this ungodly run started, I’m not counting the steps back home. I’m actually having fun.
Quinn catches my eye, and her smile falters just a bit, like she wasn’t expecting me to settle in. Like she doesn’t know what to do now that I’m not suffering.
Which makes me want to keep going. Just to see her squirm.
By the time the sun finally drags itself over the horizon, I’m sweating buckets. My hoodie’s plastered to me, heavy as sin, and every stride makes it worse.
“To hell with this,” I mutter, grabbing the hem and yanking it over my head. The cold morning air smacks my skin, but it feels damn good.
The reaction is immediate.
“Ooooh, my,” one of the ladies cheers, not even bothering to hide it.
“Mercy,” another fans herself dramatically. “If I’d known this was part of the package, I should have invited him to join us earlier.”
They burst into laughter, tossing compliments at me. The words handsome, lumberjack, and fine specimen get thrown around, and I can’t help it when my grin stretches wide.
Quinn, on the other hand, looks like she wants the earth to swallow her whole. Her cheeks flare pink, eyes narrowing at me.
I tilt my head, flashing her a wicked smile. “What do you think?”
“Put your damn shirt back on,” she hisses, quickening her pace.
But the other ladies are eating it up, and I’m not about to waste an opportunity. “Aww, don’t be jealous, sweetheart. Even these ladies know the good stuff when they see it. Jealous?”
Her glare could melt steel, and it only makes me laugh harder. “Ha! You wish,” she scoffs, running a bit faster to avoid me. I’ve teased her enough, so I let her be.
By the time the run winds down, I’m loose and buzzing. I’ve actually enjoyed myself, which is a damn inconvenient truth.
The ladies clap me on the back, toss me a few more compliments for the road, and promise Quinn they’ll “see her next time.” A couple even wink at me before heading off. I swear, if they were thirty years younger, I’d be in real trouble.
Quinn practically bolts the second we’re clear, her ponytail bouncing furiously.
I fall into step beside her, still grinning. “So, not bad, huh?”
She doesn’t look at me. “You were unbearable.”
“I was charming.”
“You were soaking up attention like a peacock on parade.”
I laugh, loud and unbothered. “Can I help it if I’m a hit with the ladies?”
Her glare cuts sideways, sharp as a blade. “You’re insufferable.”
“And yet, you dragged me out here. Which means you are to blame for them liking me,” I drawl, bumping my shoulder into hers.
She groans like I’m the bane of her existence, but she doesn’t pull away.
I’ll be caught dead before I admit it out loud, but I’ve had fun—the part where I was not fighting for my life.
There’s a lot more on Quinn’s extensive itinerary, and I know that even if I might not enjoy it at first, she knows what she’s doing, if today is any proof.
Now I understand why she wanted to bring me along on that run.
Those ladies run the gossip mill in Wrangler Creek, so if they start singing my praises, everything else will be much smoother.
Such a smart cookie, this one. She deserves all the praises my family are singing about her.
The guards let us back in, and we jog slowly back down to the house. The sun is spilling gold over the horizon, and for a second it feels easy. As if we’re not two people who are constantly at each other’s throats.
Of course, I can’t let her know that. So I grin, cocky as ever, and say, “Same time next week?”
The look she shoots me could kill, but her lips twitch—she’s holding back a smile.