Chapter 5 Maggie
Maggie
Four days in, and I'd almost convinced myself I was handling it.
Almost.
Jack and I had settled into a rhythm that was professional, efficient, and completely, mercilessly civilized.
He showed up before dawn. I showed up five minutes after, because showing up first felt like trying too hard and showing up later felt like avoidance, and the razor-thin difference between the two was the kind of thing that kept me awake at night.
We worked. We talked about horses. He called me "boss," which could have been respect or flirtation or some unholy combination of both, and I chose not to examine which because that way lay madness.
The problem with Jack wasn't that he was pushing, it was that he wasn't. He was just there—quiet, competent, impossibly good at his job—and my body had apparently decided that calm professionalism was foreplay.
On day two, his hand had brushed mine reaching for the same halter. I'd flinched like I'd touched an electric fence. He'd stepped back without a word. I'd wanted to die.
On day three, I'd walked into the barn and found him with his shirt damp from exertion, stuck to his back in a way that outlined every muscle, and I'd turned around and walked right back out to have a conversation with myself behind the feed shed.
On day four—today—I was fine.
Totally fine.
"Dancer's moving better this morning," Jack said as we walked the fence line of the training paddock, a professional distance between us. "That shoeing adjustment made a difference."
"Good. I told the farrier what you suggested. He grumbled about it for ten minutes, then admitted you were right."
His eyes met mine, and the usually warm brown was clouded with concern. “He gave you a hard time?"
“Not like that,” I assured him, ignoring the warmth blooming in my chest over him feeling defensive of me. “Dennis has been shoeing our horses since before I could drive. He doesn't love taking advice from the new guy."
"Fair enough." Jack watched Dancer move through the paddock with that focused attention I was learning to recognize—not staring, not casual, just seeing.
The way he took in information about a horse was almost unsettling.
Like he was reading a language most people didn't know existed.
"She's compensating less on the turn. Another week and she'll be moving clean. "
I made a note on my clipboard. Tried not to notice how the early light caught the line of his jaw. Failed.
"The yearlings need working this afternoon," I said, all business. "Rio's been testing boundaries with everyone, and Penny's still head-shy on the left side."
"I'll take Penny. You want to handle Rio, or should I—"
"I've got Rio." The colt was bold and bratty and exactly the kind of challenge I needed to keep my mind occupied. "He responds to me."
"He responds to everyone. He just likes testing to see who'll blink first."
"And I don't blink."
The corner of Jack's mouth twitched. Not a smile. Just that ghost of one that made my stomach do something inconvenient. "No, you don't."
We stood there for a beat too long. The paddock was quiet. Dancer was grazing. Sully was lying in the shade of the barn with his chin on his paws, watching everything with that one-ear-up vigilance he never fully dropped.
I opened my mouth to say something professional—next task, schedule update, anything to fill the silence—
"Mags!"
Saved by the brother.
Wyatt was crossing the yard toward us, his stride purposeful but his expression... different. Not his usual business face. Something less certain, which on Wyatt looked almost uncomfortable, like wearing a shirt a size too small.
"Got a minute?" he asked, his eyes flicking to Jack and back to me in a way that said privately.
"Sure." I turned to Jack. "Check on the broodmares? I want a condition report on all four before lunch."
"Done." He gave Wyatt a polite nod and walked toward the mare pasture without hesitation. No lingering. No loaded look. Just a man going to do his job.
I watched him go for exactly one second longer than necessary, then turned to my brother. "What's up?"
Wyatt rubbed the back of his neck. Tell number one that he was about to say something that cost him. "I looked at your numbers."
"And?" I kept my voice neutral, but my heart was hammering. I’d been waiting for this moment, preparing for it ever since Ivy told me she left the plans on Wyatt’s desk.
Wyatt squinted at the horizon like it held the answers to life's harder questions. "They weren't bad."
Coming from my brother, that was a fucking standing ovation.
"The three-year profitability timeline is aggressive," he continued, "but I ran the numbers myself and the margins hold. Especially if you're right about the demand for ranch-bred working stock."
"I am right about the demand."
"I know." He said it simply. No argument. No qualifier. Just I know. And something in my chest cracked open a little.
"What are you saying, Wyatt?"
He met my eyes. "I'm saying put together a formal proposal.
Realistic budget, timeline, everything. The cattle expansion will eat our capital for the next eighteen months, but if the horse program can be phased in alongside it—" He held up a hand before I could interrupt.
"I'm not promising anything. But I'm listening. That's what I'm saying. I'm listening."
I stood very still, because if I moved, I might do something undignified like cry or hug him or both.
"The Fort Worth auction," I said carefully. "Next month. There's a stallion—"
"Raven Spur line. Yeah, Ivy mentioned that too." The ghost of a smile. "She's been thorough."
I arched a brow, my lips curving with an unstoppable smile. “She’s been meddling."
"She's been advocating. There's a difference." Wyatt shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable with his own sincerity. "I should have asked sooner what you needed. Instead of just assuming you were fine with waiting."
There it was. Not a grand apology. Not a dramatic reversal. Just my brother, standing in the morning light, admitting he hadn't been paying attention.
It was enough.
"I'll have the proposal on your desk by Friday," I said.
"Make it Thursday. Dad's coming to dinner, and I want him to see it."
I nodded. Swallowed hard. "Wyatt?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
He looked at me for a long moment, something tender and guilty and proud all tangled up in his expression. Then he did the most Wyatt thing possible—squeezed my shoulder once, nodded, and walked away before either of us had to feel anything too deeply.
I stood in the yard and let myself breathe.
For the first time in two years, the horse program wasn't just a file on my laptop I opened at midnight. It was a conversation. A possibility. A door cracked open instead of locked shut.
I wanted to tell someone.
My brain, helpful as ever, immediately supplied the image of Jack's face when I'd told him about the stallion auction. The way his eyes had sharpened with interest. The way he'd talked about the Raven Spur line like it mattered to him, too.
Later, I told myself. Professionally. During a work-appropriate conversation about breeding stock.
My brain snickered at "breeding stock."
I told my brain to shut the hell up.
The storm rolled in around three o'clock.
Texas weather had a way of going from "nice afternoon" to "biblical wrath" in about twenty minutes, and this one followed the playbook to the letter.
The sky to the west turned the color of a bruise—that sick yellow-green that meant business.
Wind picked up in gusts that smelled like ozone and trouble.
The temperature dropped ten degrees in the time it took me to get from the office to the barn.
"Storm's coming in fast," Clay said from the barn entrance, his usual grin replaced by something more focused. My brother could be an irresponsible ass about most things, but weather and livestock brought out the rancher in him. "Radar's showing rotation."
"How long?"
"Thirty minutes. Maybe less."
I was already running calculations. The main herd was in the near pastures—easy to shelter. Barn horses were covered. The broodmares had the run-in shed.
Dancer.
"Shit." I grabbed a halter from the rack. "Dancer's still in the far paddock."
"The nervous filly?" Clay's eyebrows went up. "In this? She's going to lose her goddamn mind."
He wasn't wrong. Dancer was already spooky on a calm day. A full-blown thunderstorm with wind shear and lightning was going to send her through the fence or into it, and neither option ended well.
"I've got her," I said, already moving.
"Mags, the wind's picking up—"
"Then I'd better be fast."
I was halfway across the yard when I saw Jack coming from the mare pasture at a jog, Sully tight at his side, both of them reading the sky with the same sharp assessment.
He spotted me and changed direction without breaking stride. "Dancer?"
"Dancer."
One word. One nod. No discussion needed.
We moved together toward the far paddock, leaning into a wind that was starting to mean it. The first fat drops of rain hit the dirt, raising the smell of dust and wet earth. Behind us, I could hear Clay shouting instructions to the hands about securing equipment.
By the time we reached the paddock, Dancer was already gone.
Not gone-gone—she was in the far corner, running the fence line with her head high and her eyes showing white.
Every gust made her flinch. Every crack of distant thunder sent her wheeling in a new direction.
The fence groaned where she'd hit it—not through yet, but the top rail on the east side was splintered and bowing.
"Fence is about to go on the east side," I shouted over the wind.
"I see it." Jack was already moving, circling wide to approach from the downwind side. "I'll get to her. You get the gate open. We funnel her toward the barn."