Chapter 2
WAVERLY
Ace's Place was the kind of bar where people already knew your business before you sat down.
I pushed through the door and braced myself for what I might find inside.
A few heads turned my way, and a conversation near the bar stalled.
The bartender, a broad-shouldered, bearded guy with a dishtowel slung over his shoulder, shot a look in my direction then turned away.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t outrun my last name.
It didn't matter that I'd spent the last six years building a career separate from the family ranch, running my own circuit points, and buying my own entry fees.
The only thing anyone in this damn town cared about was history.
And being a Kincaid meant I had eyes on me wherever I went, whether I wanted them or not.
I wanted the attention tonight. Not because I liked having people watch my every move, but because I needed Tanner Hollister to understand that saying no to me out at his ranch with nobody watching was one thing. Saying it in front of an audience was something else.
I spotted him at the far end of the bar. He was nursing a beer and talking to an older man I recognized as one of the Fosters who ran a cattle ranch west of town. He had his hat pushed back and his forearms resting on the worn wood.
For a brief moment, I stood there and watched him.
When he wasn’t frowning at me, he was pretty damn hot.
In another time and another place, I might have been tempted to run my hands over his broad shoulders and tangle my fingers in the dark hair at the nape of his neck.
But Kincaids and Hollisters didn’t mix. That was one rule that the entire valley had always lived by.
I crossed the room and took the empty stool two down from Tanner. When the bartender came over, I ordered a whiskey neat. By the time he set my drink down in front of me, Tanner’s smile had disappeared.
"What are you doing here?" He didn't look at me when he said it.
"Hey, Hollister." I picked up my glass. "Can I buy you a beer?"
His jaw tightened. "I'm fine."
The rancher glanced between us and must have decided he didn’t want to get caught up in whatever might go down between a Kincaid and a Hollister. He said something to Tanner under his breath, then picked up his beer and moved to a table.
Tanner turned to face me. In the low light of the bar, his eyes were darker than they'd been in the afternoon sun. He looked like a man who had already made up his mind about something and didn't appreciate having to say it twice.
"You drove into town to find me in a bar," he said.
"I drove into town for a drink." I set the glass down. "You just happened to be here."
He didn’t respond right away. Someone fed the jukebox at the back of the room, and a slow Luke Bryan song started playing.
"I gave you my answer this afternoon," he said.
"You gave me a reason that had nothing to do with the horses and everything to do with my last name." I tried to keep my frustration from seeping into my voice. "That tells me your answer wasn't really about the work."
"It's always about the work."
"Then prove it."
He took another slow sip of his beer.
"You're supposed to be the best trainer in the county," I said.
"Maybe in the state, if you believe what people say.
The man who can look at a green horse and see what it's going to be before it knows itself.
" I picked up my whiskey again and stared at the amber liquid.
"If that's true, then evaluating horses for a barrel racer shouldn't be a problem.
Unless it's not actually about the work. "
I didn't raise my voice. I didn't need to. The two men at the table nearest us had gone quiet. A woman at the end of the bar was looking at her phone but not scrolling.
Tanner stared at me for a long moment, not reacting, just processing. "You're doing this here on purpose."
"I'm having a drink." I held his gaze. "You're the one making it complicated."
His thumb moved along the side of his beer glass, back and forth. That was the only tell he gave that I was getting to him.
"I won't train your horse." His voice came out calm and deliberate, like he’d actually thought about it and wasn’t willing to negotiate. "That's not changing. But I can look at what you're considering before you buy something wrong and waste a season on it. That's all I can offer."
Instant relief gave way to excitement, but I didn’t let it show. "That's all I need."
"I don’t want any Kincaid business coming through my ranch. No flags, no trailers, none of it."
"My horses have my name on them. Not my cousin's."
He studied me the way he'd studied the mare earlier in the day, like he was searching for weakness. "Fine.”
That one word was all I wanted to hear. I didn't smile and didn't push my luck. Just picked up my glass and finished the last of the whiskey.
"I'll be in touch," I said.
Tanner shook his head slightly like he was already full of regret. "Can’t wait."
I bit back a grin as I set some cash next to my glass, then stood and pulled my jacket tight around my shoulders.
Tanner turned back to face the bar and picked up his beer. We didn't shake hands. Around Mustang Mountain, a man’s—or woman’s—word still counted for something.
I walked back toward the door, making sure to keep the same pace I’d used on the way in. Behind me, it felt like the whole bar let out a collective breath. The jukebox blared a fast-paced country song. Conversations picked up again, and someone by the pool table let out a loud laugh.
By morning, whatever people thought they'd witnessed tonight would already be something bigger. That was fine. I’d gotten what I needed and was willing to suffer the consequences.
The cold hit me the moment I stepped outside. Spring was coming to Mustang Mountain, but not quite yet. The chill in the air was sharp enough to cut through the warmth of the whiskey. I pulled my jacket even tighter as I made my way over to my truck.
I didn't look back. I'd gotten what I came for. Tanner Hollister had agreed to look at horses with me. He’d qualified it six ways to Sunday, sure, but the answer was yes. That was enough. More than I'd had this afternoon when he'd turned me down flat.
But as I walked toward the truck, the keys already in my hand, a weight settled over me that hadn't been there before. I’d put myself out there to get what I wanted, but it had cost me something.
I’d painted a big red target on my back and made myself the center of attention.
Not the good kind that came with winning a run or placing in the top three at a rodeo.
Not the kind I'd earned. This kind of attention had everything to do with being seen in the wrong place with the wrong person.
I unlocked the door and climbed in, setting my bag on the passenger seat.
Through the windshield, I could see the bar—small, familiar, unremarkable except for the fact that it held the entire social structure of this valley inside its four walls.
Everyone who mattered was in there or knew someone who was.
And they'd all just watched a Kincaid walk up to a Hollister and get him to change his mind.
It didn't matter that it was about horses. Didn't matter that it was business. What mattered was that it happened, and everyone who'd seen it would be talking about it.
I turned the key, and the engine rumbled to life. The drive back toward the main road was quiet. Until my phone buzzed in the cupholder.
I glanced down to see a text from my cousin, Slade.
Slade: Heard you were at Ace's.
I didn't pick it up. Another buzz came.
Slade: Call me when you get a chance.
I clenched my jaw and kept driving.
Slade didn't ask questions he didn't already know the answer to.
If he was texting, that meant someone had already reached out to him…
probably someone who'd watched me walk through the door in the first place.
Small towns worked like that. Information moved faster than people did, transferred from one conversation to the next before the door even closed behind you.
And Slade was the kind of man people called first.
I thought about Tanner sitting at that bar, finishing his beer like nothing had changed.
Like the room hadn't just cataloged every second of our conversation and started writing the story before we'd even finished talking.
He knew how this worked. Had to. He'd grown up in it the same as I had. That's why he'd said no the first time.
Not because he didn't think I was capable.
Not because he doubted my skill or my horses.
Because he knew what would happen the moment he said yes.
The second a Hollister and a Kincaid worked together, even on something as straightforward as evaluating a damn horse, it became a thing.
And knowing that, I'd pushed him into it anyway.
The road curved, taking me past the old mill and the turnoff toward the Iron Spur Ranch where my cousins lived. I didn't take it. Not yet. I kept going, following the line of fence posts and open pasture until the lights of town faded behind me and the sky opened up overhead.
Out here, the world felt bigger. Less contained.
But it wasn't.
The valley might stretch for miles, but the people in it lived small and tight, and nothing stayed quiet for long.
What had happened tonight at Ace's would already be moving.
Someone would mention it to someone else.
That person would tell their wife, their husband, their ranch hand.
By tomorrow morning the whole town would know.
Waverly Kincaid went looking for Tanner Hollister. And he didn't turn her down.
My phone buzzed again.
This time I pulled over. The shoulder was narrow, the dirt packed hard from years of use. I put my truck in park and picked up the phone. Slade's name sat at the top of the screen, but it wasn't his message that caught my attention.
It was the one underneath it from Tamsin Crane. We’d competed against each other in junior rodeo, and she now worked the circuit the same way I did.
Tamsin: Girl. Ace’s???
I stared at it. She wasn't asking what I'd been doing there. She was asking what I'd been doing there with him. The question marks did all the work, shaped the whole thing into something else. Something that wasn't just about horses, or training, or business.
My stomach rolled, and I set the phone down. The heater hummed. The engine idled. Outside, the fence line stretched into darkness.
I’d done what I needed to do, but I wasn't fooling myself.
This wasn't something I could control anymore.
Wasn't something I could keep clean and separate.
The moment I'd walked into that bar and sat down two stools away from Tanner Hollister, I'd made it public.
And in a place like this, visibility was the same as vulnerability.
Whatever this was and whatever it was going to become, it wasn't private anymore. It belonged to the valley now. And the valley didn't let go.