Chapter 12
Big Red Barn — After the Party
As the party started to wind down, Caitlin finally pulled back, her hands still gripping Izzy’s arms as she looked her up and down. The initial shock was fading, replaced by a playful narrowing of her eyes.
“Iz, I can’t believe you guys kept this from me all week,” Caitlin said, her voice a mix of a laugh and a scold. “You’ve been here since Monday? And nobody said a word?”
Izzy looked sheepish, glancing toward Burke.
“We wanted it to be a surprise, Cate. It was the hardest secret I’ve ever had to keep.”
“Well, it worked. I’m still shaking,” Caitlin laughed, then immediately pivoted. “But that’s it. No more secrets. You’re coming back to the cabin to stay with us. I won’t have you tucked away in a guest wing when we have so much catching up to do.”
Burke cleared his throat, caught between a rock and a hard place. “Sweetheart… you’re forgetting about the guest bath.”
Caitlin’s expression went blank, then her eyes widened. “Ohhh, no. I forgot.” She turned back to Izzy, genuinely pained. “Iz, Luke, and Burke have the tile all torn out of the shower. They hit a snag with the plumbing, and it’s a total disaster zone right now. You literally can’t shower in there.”
Izzy waved a hand dismissively. “It’s fine. I can just get a hotel, it’s not a problem. I saw a nice resort near the airport on the way in—Blackwater Lake Lodge?”
Grant, who had been leaning against the tack room door with his arms crossed, finally spoke up. His voice was low and steady, leaving very little room for argument.
“You’re already settled here,” Grant said, his gaze fixed on Izzy. “There’s no need to spend the money or move all your things again. Just stay at the farm.”
Burke shifted his weight, cutting his eyes toward his brother with a sharp, knowing look—the kind of look that said I see exactly what you’re doing. Grant didn’t flinch. He met Burke’s look with a cold, hard stare that effectively ended the conversation.
“That’s settled then,” Burke muttered, hiding a smirk as he turned back to the girls.
Caitlin beamed. “Perfect. Then I’ll be over tomorrow as soon as I’m finished at the museum. We’ll have coffee on the porch, and you can tell me everything.”
Izzy nodded, her eyes lingering on Grant too long. “Good. Because there is something I found… something I have to show you, Cate. I can’t wait.”
* * *
Once the party ended and everyone had left, the short drive back to the main house was a blur of headlights and leftover music, the lingering scent of expensive wine in the air.
She replayed the way Grant had shut down any talk of a hotel, the hard line in his jaw when he said she should stay at the farm.
He’d made it sound practical. She was starting to wonder if there was anything practical about it at all.
“I’m going to get out of this outfit and put on pajamas,” Izzy said, her voice a touch rougher than it had been an hour ago. She stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked back at him. “Will you pour me another wine, Grant? I’m not quite ready for the night to be over.”
As she turned and took the stairs, she felt his gaze on the silk at her back, a low, humming awareness that made the idea of sleep feel very far away.
“I’ll have it waiting,” Grant rumbled.
He watched her walk away, teal silk swaying with every step.
Ten minutes later, he was in the kitchen when he heard her call his name. It wasn’t a scream—just a frustrated sound from the hallway.
“Grant? I’m… I’m stuck.”
He set the wineglass down and walked into the hall.
Izzy stood with her back to him, hands reaching behind her neck in a tangle of silk and dark hair.
He didn’t say anything at first. He just stepped in close, heat rolling off him as he closed the last bit of space between them.
“Can you get it?” she asked, a little laugh in her voice, a little something else.
His fingers brushed hers as he reached for the zipper.
She stilled.
Didn’t move away.
Didn’t ask him to.
Grant dropped his hand to her shoulder instead, turning her just enough that her palm met the wall. His mouth was suddenly right at her ear, his body a solid line against her back.
“You have no idea,” he whispered, his voice a low, dangerous vibration, “the things I’ve been thinking about doing to you in this silk all night.”
Her stomach flipped.
“I might,” she managed.
He dipped his head, pressing a slow, searing kiss to the sensitive curve where her neck met her shoulder before finally catching the zipper.
He dragged it down—slowly—the sound of the teeth parting loud in the narrow hallway—until the silk fell open to her waist.
He didn’t pull back.
His hand slipped beneath the loosened fabric, rough palm skimming over the soft skin of her waist, then higher, tracing the curve of her ribs. He should stop there. He didn’t.
She arched into him on instinct, the small of her back finding the hard line of his body.
“Grant…”
He cupped the weight of her breasts, thumbs brushing over lace.
Izzy’s head fell back against his shoulder, eyes fluttering shut on a jagged, broken sound. The cool press of the wall at her front and his heat at her back was a lethal combination. They were a heartbeat away from losing it all right there in the hallway.
Then Grant went still.
Every muscle locked.
He dragged a hand through his hair and stepped back like distance might fix it.
“This—” his voice came out rough. “This is a bad idea.”
He shook his head once.
“I can’t.”
Izzy didn’t move.
Her breast was still rising too fast, silk barely clinging to her shoulders, his touch ghosting everywhere.
“Then why didn’t you stop?” she asked quietly.
The question hit.
He didn’t answer.
Didn’t look at her.
Something in her snapped.
She gathered the fabric at her front and turned, closing the space he’d put between them.
Her fingers caught his shirt.
“Don’t,” he said, low.
But he didn’t step away.
Her voice dropped.
“You don’t get to do that.”
His eyes came back to hers—dark, rough, barely holding.
“Do what?”
“Touch me like that,” she said, steady now, “and then act like it didn’t happen.”
A beat.
“You don’t get to leave me standing in it alone.”
That landed.
Hard.
For a heartbeat—just one—she saw it.
The crack.
The want he hadn’t buried nearly as well as he thought.
He leaned toward her—barely, like his body forgot the rules his mind was trying to enforce.
And that was the dangerous part.
Because she wanted him to break.
Consequences be damned.
Him.
Right there.
“Say it,” she whispered. “Say you don’t want this.”
Silence.
Then—
He stepped back.
Not hesitation this time.
Decision.
“I don’t.”
The lie sat between them.
Ugly.
Obvious.
Izzy held his gaze one second longer—searching, just to be sure.
Then she pulled the silk higher across her, her chin lifting just enough.
“Fine,” she said.
A beat.
“Goodnight, Grant.”
She turned and walked away, the soft pad of her bare feet against the hardwood a quiet rhythm that marked every inch of the distance he’d demanded.
She didn’t look back.
Grant stayed in the hallway until the click of her door echoed like a final verdict. Only then did he exhale, his hand finding the wall to steady himself.
* * *
Grant shut his door with more care than he felt, letting the latch catch soft instead of slamming it like his body wanted to.
The room was dark, the only light a thin wash from the porch spilling through the crack in the curtains. He didn’t turn on the lamp. He didn’t need to see the walls to feel how close they were.
He braced his palms on the dresser and bowed his head.
His heart was still going too hard. His mouth still tasted like her—wine and want and something he hadn’t let himself want in a long damn time.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
“Idiot,” he muttered.
The word didn’t even begin to cover it.
He’d made rules for a reason. No complications under his roof. No blurring lines with anyone sleeping under it.
And now here he was—pinning a woman against his hallway wall like some drunk kid who didn’t know what to do with his hands.
Her hands had been shaking on his shirt.
He saw it again, too clearly: the silk slipping off her shoulders, the sound she’d made when he touched her, the way she’d kissed him back like she wanted the ground to give way under both of them.
His stomach twisted.
You don’t get to leave me standing in it alone.
He pushed off the dresser and paced once, twice, the old boards creaking under his bare feet. The house was too quiet. No music now, no party, just the tick of the hall clock and his own ragged breathing.
She was down the hall with nothing between them but a stretch of floor and his own bad decisions.
She was only here for a little while. A guest. A favor to Caitlin that had turned into Izzy’s suitcase in his guest room, her mug in his sink, her laughter in his kitchen. Temporary, he reminded himself.
It shouldn’t have made her harder to resist.
It did.
That was the lie he tried to tell himself.
He could apologize in the morning. Blame the bourbon, the long week, the party. Act like it hadn’t meant anything.
Except it had.
He scrubbed a hand over his face.
Wanting her wasn’t the problem.
Wanting her was the easy part.
The problem was everything that came after. Izzy wasn’t a stray he could let pass through his life without leaving a mark. She was Caitlin’s best friend—more sister than anything—Burke’s friend too, already threaded into the small, fragile balance of the only place he’d ever held on to.
If he reached for her and it went sideways, he wouldn’t just lose a woman he wanted. He’d crack straight through the middle of the people he cared about most.
Burke would feel it.
Caitlin would feel it.
He’d seen what happened when one bad choice turned into a fault line. He’d promised himself a long time ago he wasn’t going to be that man.
Which was why he’d looked her in the eyes and lied.
I don’t.
The words sat like a stone in him. He could still see her face when he’d said it—the way her chin had tipped up, the small, precise way she’d wrapped the silk tighter around herself.
He told himself he just had to want the life he’d built more.
In the hallway, with her pressed against him, it hadn’t felt like much of a contest.
He lay back without bothering to pull the covers up, staring at the dark ceiling until his eyes burned. Sleep didn’t come.
Not for a long time.
Every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was silk and the way she’d walked away from him without looking back.
* * *
Izzy closed her door and leaned back against it like it was the only thing holding her upright.
The room was dim, the bedside lamp casting a soft amber glow across the quilt and the old hardwood floor. Her breath still came too fast. Her skin still buzzed everywhere he’d touched her.
She closed her eyes.
“What are you doing?” she whispered to herself.
The farmhouse felt heavier now. No music drifting up from outside. No laughter. Just the faint tick of the hall clock and the memory of Grant’s mouth against her neck.
You have no idea the things I’ve been thinking about doing to you in this silk all night.
Something hot rolled through her so fast it made her grip the front of the dress tighter.
God.
She pushed away from the door and crossed the room on shaky legs, catching the edge of the dresser when her knees threatened to betray her entirely.
In the hallway, it had felt dangerously easy to forget herself.
The wall cool against her palms.
His chest against her back.
The rough scrape of his hand sliding beneath the silk.
Grant Scott had touched her like a man who’d spent days trying not to.
And that was the problem.
Not the attraction.
Not even the wanting.
It was how real it had felt.
Izzy sank onto the edge of the bed and pressed her fingers hard against her forehead.
“Bad idea,” she muttered softly.
But even now, alone in the quiet room, her body refused to agree.
She could still feel the weight of his hand at her waist. Still hear the rough edge in his voice when he whispered against her ear.
For one reckless second in that hallway, she’d honestly believed he was about to carry her straight into his bedroom and ruin them both.
The thought should have scared her more than it did.
Instead, her stomach tightened with a fresh pulse of desire.
She let out a low, frustrated laugh and dropped her hands.
This was exactly why she didn’t do things like this anymore.
Not blurred lines.
Not messy situations.
Not men who looked at her like they could strip her apart without even trying.
Denver had taught her better than that.
She’d spent years turning herself into someone polished and controlled. Someone who didn’t lose her footing over a voice, a touch, a pair of impossible Carolina-blue eyes.
Then Grant had put his hands on her, and every carefully built wall inside her had cracked straight down the center.
Her throat tightened unexpectedly.
Because underneath all the want and frustration and embarrassment was one simple, awful truth:
He mattered already.
Too much.
Too fast.
Izzy stood and crossed slowly to the mirror.
The silk still hung loose around her shoulders. A faint flush lingered high on her throat where his mouth had been.
Her fingers brushed the mark lightly.
His hands had known exactly where to touch her.
But worse—he’d looked at her like he already knew the parts she kept hidden.
The girl underneath all her carefully built composure.
That was the part that felt dangerous.
She swallowed hard and stepped away from the mirror before she could think about it too long.
Tomorrow there would be coffee on the porch. Caitlin laughing. Sunlight over the pastures. Normal things.
She needed to hold on to that.
Needed to remember this was temporary.
A week.
Maybe two.
Then she’d go back to Denver, and this strange, reckless little bubble in the mountains would collapse back into reality.
Except the thought landed hollow now.
Because somewhere between the silk, the hallway, and the look in Grant’s eyes when he lied to her, Sylva had already started feeling less like a visit and more like something she wasn’t ready to name.
Izzy climbed into bed and pulled the covers up, staring into the dark for a long time.
Every time she started to drift, she felt his hands again—steady, rough, possessive—like her body had already memorized him, whether she wanted it to or not.