Chapter 5
DAWSON
I woke before dawn with Lilah's taste still on my tongue and the image of Hades pressing his massive head against her thigh burned into my brain.
Temporary, I told myself. This whole thing was temporary.
The lie sat heavy in my chest as I pulled on clothes and headed downstairs. Coffee first. Then work. The kind that required focus and left no room for thinking about how Lilah's curves felt pressed against me or the way she'd looked at me like I wasn't already halfway to breaking.
She was a complication I couldn't afford. She'd leave in a few weeks. I'd stay here, same as always. The facts were simple. Except nothing about this felt simple anymore.
I grabbed my mug and headed to the office before the sun peeked over the mountains. The paperwork wouldn’t do itself, and Ruby's deadlines weren't going to fade away just because I'd kissed a woman who made me forget why I kept to myself.
Stock verification forms covered my desk. There were insurance requirements and ownership documentation for every animal we planned to use in the rodeo… exactly the kind of tedious work that usually settled my mind.
Today it just reminded me how much was riding on getting everything right.
I pulled the filing cabinet open and started digging through old records.
Birth certificates for the horses. Vaccination logs.
Purchase receipts going back years. Ruby needed proof of lineage for half the stock, and the insurance company wanted more documentation than I would have had to provide to a federal auditor.
Two hours in, my coffee had gone cold and my neck ached from hunching over faded ink and water-stained pages.
That's when I found it.
Tucked between a stack of breeding records from the eighties, I came across a leather-bound ledger I'd never seen before. The binding cracked when I opened it, and the pages smelled like dust and old paper and something that made my gut clench before I'd read a single word.
There were cattle transactions with dates running back to the early 1900s. That didn't surprise me as much as the names. Kincaids and Hollisters were listed together. There was proof of shared ownership. Receipts for cooperative sales.
I flipped through page after page, my pulse ratcheting up with each entry. This wasn't some clerical error or coincidence. This was systematic. It was proof of years of partnership between families that were supposed to have hated each other for generations.
The feud everyone talked about like gospel was full of boundary disputes and property lines and bad blood that defined half the relationships in this valley. But I held the evidence that there was a lot more to it than anyone realized.
My hands shook as I set the ledger down.
This wasn't just history. This was a live wire that could blow up ownership claims, insurance coverage, maybe the whole damn rodeo if someone decided to dig into it.
Stock eligibility hinged on clean lineage and clear ownership.
And I'd just found proof that nothing about the family histories was clean. When the paperwork went sideways, it wouldn’t be a Kincaid or a Hollister answering for it. It would be me.
My phone buzzed on the desk.
I ignored it at first. Whatever it was could wait. I was still staring at the ledger, my fingers pressed into the cracked leather like I could force the truth back into the page if I held on hard enough.
My phone buzzed again.
I swore under my breath and picked it up.
Someone had left a voicemail. I didn’t recognize the number, but the area code was local. My gut tightened before I even hit play.
“Mr. Griffith, this is Donna Brown with Mountain States Rodeo Insurance. I’m calling regarding the Mustang Mountain policy application. We’re finalizing underwriting, but we need confirmation on stock lineage documentation before the policy can be bound.”
I closed my eyes.
“There are a few discrepancies we need cleared up before approval,” she continued, her voice calm, professional, and completely unaware she’d just lit the fuse on a problem that could blow up the whole damn rodeo.
“We’ll need all verification submitted within the next two weeks.
If we don’t receive it by then, the policy will be withdrawn, and the committee will need to reapply. ”
Two weeks.
I stared at the ledger again, the names glaring back at me like they’d been waiting to be found.
“If you have any questions, feel free to call me back,” the voicemail finished. “Otherwise, we’ll keep an eye out for the documentation.”
The line went dead.
I didn’t move for a long moment. Didn’t breathe much either.
If I sent the paperwork, everything would fall apart fast. Insurance didn’t care about family feuds or buried history. They cared about clean lines and clear ownership, and this ledger was proof that neither existed the way everyone believed they did.
If I didn’t send it… the rodeo would lose coverage. Stock would get pulled. Sponsors would walk.
I set my phone face down on the desk.
Not yet.
I slid the ledger back where I’d found it and closed the filing cabinet, the click of the drawer sounding louder than it should have in the quiet office.
Two weeks. I’d figure it out. I always did.
I scrubbed a hand over my chin and tried to think. Who knew about this? Who'd buried it? And what the hell was I supposed to do with information that could fuck up everything?
Movement by the door caught my attention.
I looked up and found Lilah standing in the doorway, her hair pulled back and her expression concerned. She had on a pair of jeans and a thermal that hugged her curves, and for half a second I resisted the irrational urge to put my hands where they didn’t belong.
"You look like you've seen a ghost." She stepped inside and gave me a tentative smile. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." I answered without thinking.
Her eyes narrowed. "Try again."
I should've brushed it off. Should've told her it was ranch business and changed the subject. That's what I would've done yesterday. Last week. Any time before I'd kissed her and felt the ground shift under my boots.
Instead, I pushed the ledger toward her.
"I found this in the old files. They're cattle records from before my grandfather's time." I waited for her expression to change as she opened it. "Look at the names."
She scanned the first page, then the second. Her eyebrows inched up. "Kincaid and Hollister. Together."
"For years."
"But everyone says—"
"I know what everyone says." I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ledger like it might change if I looked long enough. "Doesn't make it true."
Lilah flipped through more pages, her finger tracing the entries. When she looked up, her expression had gone serious. "This could affect the rodeo."
"Yeah."
"The stock eligibility. The insurance."
I met her eyes. "All of it."
She set the ledger down carefully, like it had turned into a live grenade. "What are you going to do?"
"I don't know." The admission tasted bitter. I always knew what to do. That's how I'd survived this long. Control the variables. Manage the outcomes. Keep everything running smooth. But this wasn't something I could control.
"Does anyone else know?" Lilah asked.
"Not that I'm aware of."
"Are you going to tell them?"
I looked at her standing there, steady and clear-eyed, not flinching from the mess I'd just dropped in her lap. She deserved honesty. More than that, she deserved to know what she was walking into if she got tangled up with me.
"I don't know," I said again. "But it's going to get messy either way."
Lilah didn’t flinch. Didn’t step back. Just exhaled through her nose and leaned against the edge of my desk, her arms crossed.
"Okay. Let’s break this down." Her voice was steady, like she was assessing a tricky jump rather than a document that could unravel half the town’s history. "First, does this actually contradict current ownership, or just the story of the feud?"
I rubbed my jaw. "Both. Some of these entries list shared herds. Joint sales. If someone wanted to challenge the bloodlines—"
"—they could argue the stock isn’t pure Kincaid or pure Hollister." She nodded. "Which affects eligibility. And if eligibility’s in question—"
"Insurance voids. Permits get pulled." The words tasted like vinegar. "The rodeo doesn’t happen."
She was quiet for a long moment, staring at the ledger like it was a puzzle she could solve if she just looked hard enough. “And no one else knows, just us.”
Us. The word burned like she’d branded it into my chest. Us. Like she was already in this, her boots planted next to mine, no question about it.
I should’ve shut the file. Should’ve told her this was ranch business and nothing she needed to worry about.
That was how I usually handled things… contained, controlled, handled alone. Problems stayed manageable when I didn’t give them room to breathe or share them with anyone else.
Instead, I stood there with the truth spread out between us, and Lilah looking at me like walking away hadn’t even crossed her mind.
That was the part that rattled me.
I worked with animals because they followed rules. I put in the work and I got predictable results. People didn’t operate that way. People complicated things just by showing up.
And Lilah… hell, she hadn’t asked to be let into my world. She hadn’t pushed. She hadn’t demanded answers or reassurance. She’d just stayed there, steady and unflinching, like she’d already decided this mess was worth facing.
I’d opened the door myself.
That truth settled heavy in my chest. I couldn’t blame circumstance or timing or her damn persistence. I’d offered space. Offered trust. Offered her a voice in things I’d never shared with anyone else.
I gripped the edge of the desk harder than I needed to. Control had always been my shield. Keep things clean. Keep them moving. Don’t let anyone close enough to disrupt the system. It had worked—until her.