Chapter 8 Maggie
Maggie
I woke up alone.
For approximately three seconds, this was fine. Normal. Expected. I always woke up alone. I was a woman who had her own cabin and her own space and absolutely no need for—wait.
There was a dent in the pillow next to mine.
The sheets that smelled like leather and pine and him.
The pleasant ache in muscles I'd forgotten I had.
Oh no.
I sat up so fast the room spun. Morning light was streaming through my curtains—later than I usually slept, which meant I was already behind schedule, which meant—
Focus, Blackwood. Priorities.
Priority one: Jack was gone. Good. That was the deal. Professional. Discreet. No lingering, no awkward morning-after conversations, no pretending this was anything more than what it was.
Priority two: I had apparently lost my entire goddamn mind last night.
I stared at the empty space beside me and conducted a ruthless mental inventory of every single decision that had led to this moment.
The knock on my door. The conversation on the porch.
The way he'd looked at me and said, “I want to be the place you put the weight down,” like that was a normal thing to say to someone, like those words wouldn't crack open something inside me I'd spent years keeping locked.
The way I'd stepped back from the doorway without much thought behind the consequences.
The way he'd pinned my wrists against the wall and told me he was in charge tonight, and instead of shoving him off or telling him to go to hell, I'd said, “Yes, Jack,” like it was the easiest thing I'd ever done.
Because it was. God help me, it was.
Nope. Not going there. Not reliving that. Not thinking about his hands or his mouth or the way he'd whispered good girl against my skin and my whole body had lit up like a—
“Stop!” I groaned.
I threw off the covers and stalked to the bathroom, where I proceeded to brush my teeth with the intensity of someone trying to scrub the previous twelve hours from existence.
It didn't work.
Because Jack was thorough. Attentive in a way I’d never experienced before. And my body—my traitorous, well-satisfied body—was not interested in forgetting a single second of what that thoroughness felt like.
I caught my reflection in the mirror and wanted to scream at her.
What were you thinking?
I wasn't thinking. That was the problem.
"This is fine," I told my reflection. "This was a lapse. A momentary weakness."
My reflection looked skeptical.
"It won't happen again."
Now she looked downright unconvinced.
"Shut up," I told her, and stepped into the shower.
The hot water helped. A little. Enough to get my brain back online and my priorities in order. By the time I was dressed—practical jeans, work shirt, hair in a tight braid that said I am a professional who definitely did not spend last night doing unprofessional things—I had a plan.
New rules. Effective immediately.
Rule One: No more nights. Wild Creek was forgivable. Last night was a lapse. There would not be a third time, no matter what I’d agreed to on my porch.
Rule Two: No lingering looks. No charged moments. No situations where we might end up alone together in spaces small enough to touch.
Rule Three: At work, he was an employee. I was operations director. That was the beginning and end of our relationship.
Rule Four: Under no circumstances was I to think about the way he'd said, “Eyes on me, Maggie,” while he—
Moving on.
I grabbed my hat and headed for the main house, armored in efficiency and denial.
Momma was in the kitchen when I walked in. Because of course she was.
Louisa Blackwood had a sixth sense for moments when her children were trying to avoid her. She'd probably felt a disturbance in the force the second Jack knocked on my door last night and had been lying in wait ever since.
"Morning, sweetheart." She didn't look up from the coffee she was pouring. "You're up late."
"Slept hard." Not a lie. After Jack had finished with me, I'd slept like the dead. "Long week."
"Mm." She handed me a cup of coffee, her eyes doing that thing they did—scanning, assessing, cataloging every detail of my appearance like she was reading a book only she could see. "You look rested."
"I feel rested.” That wasn’t a lie either. I hadn’t felt this rested in…well, since the last time I’d slept with Jack.
"That's good." A pause. Deliberate. "How's the new hand working out?"
I took a sip of coffee to buy myself time. "Fine. He's good at his job."
"Your father's impressed with him.” Daddy absolutely would not be impressed with him if he knew what Jack was doing to his daughter last night.
"Daddy's easily impressed."
"No, he isn't." Momma's voice was mild, but her eyes were sharp. "Your father is one of the hardest men to impress I've ever known. If he says Jack Remington is something special, that means something."
Something special. The words sent a flutter through my chest that I ruthlessly suppressed.
"He's good with horses," I said, keeping my voice neutral. "That's what we hired him for."
"Mm." She took a sip of her own coffee, watching me over the rim. "You know, I was up early this morning. Couldn't sleep. Thought I saw someone walking back from the direction of your cabin."
My heart stopped.
Then restarted at approximately twice its normal speed.
"Probably one of the dogs," I said, and I was genuinely impressed by how level my voice came out. "They wander at night sometimes."
"Probably." Momma's expression didn't change. "Must have been a big dog. Looked like it was walking on two legs."
Shit.
"I wouldn't know anything about that." I set down my coffee cup with exaggerated casualness. "I slept straight through. Didn't hear a thing."
We stared at each other for a long moment—my mother with her knowing eyes and her patient silence, me with my crumbling composure and my desperate need to change the subject.
"I have to check on the irrigation contractor," I said. "He's supposed to be at the north pasture by nine."
"Of course." She stepped aside, letting me pass. "Oh, and Maggie?"
I paused at the door, my heart in my throat. “Yeah, Momma?"
"Whatever you're not telling me—" She smiled, soft and infuriatingly understanding. "I'm here when you're ready."
I fled before she could say anything else.
Work. Work was safe. Work was controllable. Work didn't make me feel things I wasn't prepared to feel.
I threw myself into the morning with the intensity of someone trying to outrun her own thoughts.
Checked the cattle count. Reviewed the expansion timeline.
Made three phone calls about equipment rentals and one very satisfying call to a contractor who'd been dodging my messages for a week.
The man had sounded genuinely afraid by the time I hung up.
Good. Fear was useful. Fear got things done.
The distraction lasted about an hour.
Then I rounded the corner of the main barn and saw Jack.
He was in the training paddock, working with Dancer.
The filly was calmer than she'd been even a few days ago—still cautious, but willingly following his lead now, letting him direct her through turns with nothing but body language and voice.
A week ago, she wouldn't let anyone within ten feet.
Sully lay near the fence, chin on his paws, one ear cocked.
Jack looked up as I approached.
And smiled.
Not a big smile. Not an obvious smile. Just a slight curve of his lips, a warmth in his eyes that said I remember last night and I liked it, and I'm not going to say a word about it unless you want me to.
"Morning, boss."
Boss!
He said it the same way he'd been saying it for a week. Polite. Professional. Giving absolutely nothing away.
Which was exactly what I'd asked for.
Which made me want to throw something at his head.
“Mr. Remington." My voice came out clipped. Sharper than I intended. "How's the filly?"
"Coming along. She's trusting the process."
I know the feeling, I thought, and immediately wanted to slap myself.
"Good. Keep at it. I want a full progress report by end of week."
"Yes, ma'am."
There it was again. That ma'am. Delivered with perfect respect and not a trace of irony, even though twelve hours ago he'd had my wrists pinned above my head and told me I didn't get to run the show.
I turned and walked away before my face could betray me.
The morning became a blur of movement and distraction.
I checked fence lines—including the section Jack had patched after the storm, which was solid work I refused to be impressed by.
Reviewed feed schedules. Reorganized the supply shed for absolutely no reason except that it gave me something to do with my hands.
When a stable hand asked me a simple question about hay delivery, I bit his head off so thoroughly that he actually backed away with his hands raised.
"Sorry," I muttered. "Long morning."
"It's only ten o'clock," he pointed out.
"I'm aware."
I was aware of everything. The sun on my face. The wind through my hair. The exact location of Jack Remington at every single moment, even when I wasn't looking at him directly.
He was in my peripheral vision like a splinter I couldn't extract. Working with Dancer. Talking to my father by the cattle pens. Crouching down to check on Sully.
I watched him work a nervous mare who'd been giving us trouble for weeks. His hands moved slow and sure, never rushing, never forcing. Just waiting. Letting her come to him on her own terms. The way he smiled—that barely-there curve—when the mare finally dropped her head and let him touch her face.
The same way he'd handled me last night—right up until he'd decided waiting was over and taken charge so completely I'd forgotten my own name.
Stop. Comparing. Yourself. To. A. Horse.
He knew what it meant to love something and lose it. And he was choosing to love something again anyway.
That was braver than anything I'd ever done.
I shook myself out of it and threw myself back toward productive thought.