Chapter 45
Bridlepath Farm — Dusk
Grant stood at the porch railing, his silhouette a sharp, dark edge against the fading gold of the pastures. He looked like he belonged to the land—rugged, unyielding, and entirely too far away.
Izzy sat sideways in the wooden chair, her bare feet tucked under her.
She wasn’t looking at the mountains anymore; she was tracing the line of his shoulders, remembering the weight of them as he’d leaned over her in the dark.
Her skin still hummed with the memory of his hands—rough, calloused, and unexpectedly reverent.
No one had ever kissed her like that, as if he were trying to memorize the very soul of her.
A slow, deep hunger climbed her neck, her pulse fluttering as she recalled the jagged, broken sound of his breath against her ear when he finally let go of his iron-clad control.
“What?” Grant asked, turning his head suddenly. He’d caught her in the middle of the memory.
“Nothing,” she lied, her voice thin and breathless.
“You’re doing it again,” he murmured. He stepped away from the railing, not stopping until he was standing over her—his presence a warm, solid weight that seemed to pull the air right out of her lungs. “You look at me like you’re searching for something I already gave away.”
He leaned down, his large hand hovering before he finally let his thumb graze the sensitive curve of her jaw.
The contact was electric, a jolt that made her eyes flutter shut.
He saw the way her throat worked as she swallowed, the way her chest rose and fell in a shallow, uneven rhythm.
He thought about the fire in her eyes that night and the bitter, Sam Talley–shaped regret he’d let poison the morning after.
He’d had heaven in his arms, and he’d traded it for a ghost.
“Grant,” she whispered, her hand rising to cover his, her fingers lacing through his own.
She looked up at him, the polished version of herself completely gone.
There was a confession sitting right on the edge of her lips, a terrifying honesty about how much she didn’t want to leave this porch. “I need to tell you—”
The phone rang.
* * *
Grant’s phone was still vibrating against his palm as Izzy pulled her hand back.
The loss of her warmth was immediate, like a fire being doused.
She didn’t wait for him to find his voice; she stood up, her denim shorts and simple tee making her look more like a part of the mountain than she ever had in the city.
She didn’t look back as she disappeared through the screen door.
“Yeah, Burke,” Grant rasped into the receiver, his eyes locked on the empty doorway where she’d been.
He paced the length of the porch, only half-listening as his brother laid out the morning briefing.
His mind was still on the porch steps. He could still feel the phantom pressure of her fingers laced through his and the look in her eyes—that raw, terrifyingly honest look that said she had been seconds away from shattering the distance he’d worked so hard to build.
The heavy thud of her bedroom door echoed through the house, followed by the definitive slide of the latch.
Grant hung up and walked inside, his boots sounding hollow on the hardwood.
He stopped outside her door, his hand hovering over the wood.
He wanted to knock. He wanted to ask her to finish that sentence, to tell him exactly what she had been about to say before the world intruded.
But the memory of the black SUV and the surveillance in town surged back, cold and sharp.
He didn’t open the door. He leaned his forehead against the frame before stepping back.
“Iz?” he called, his voice low and jagged.
“Yes?” Her voice was muffled by the heavy wood, stripped of the vulnerability from the porch. She sounded composed and guarded again.
“I’m heading out at dawn to meet Burke,” he said.
“We’re going to start checking those mapped property tracts one by one, trying to find where they hid that cargo.
” He paused. “You have to promise me you’ll stay put tomorrow, Izzy.
No trips to town, no Hollis estate—none of it.
They were watching you today, and this farm is the only place I feel you’re safe until this is over.
Can you do that for me? Stay here tomorrow and relax while we keep digging.
You can help Naomi or watch the lessons, just no town. Promise me.”
“I’ll stay, Grant,” she said finally. “I’ll be here.”
Grant stayed there a moment longer, staring at the grain of the wood, before turning toward his own room. He shut his door, the click of the latch sounding like a final verdict on the night.