Chapter 9
The barn doors are wide open, sunlight pouring through the slats in heavy shafts that cut across dust motes suspended in the still air.
The smell hits first—hay, sweat, manure—all of it thick and raw.
It’s a scent which seeps into your clothes and clings for hours.
A scent I’ve grown up loving. One that gives me peace and balance.
And in the middle of it is her.
Peyton.
She’s hunched over a pitchfork, jabbing at the stall bedding with a stubborn fury that looks personal.
Boots too big for her narrow feet scrape against the hard-packed earth, leaving uneven ruts.
Her thin frame trembles with effort, sweat shining on the hollow of her throat, soaking into the dark strands of hair plastered against her temples.
The cardigan she wore this morning is gone, leaving her in a simple black top clinging damply to her back.
She’s out of place. A city stray dumped in a world which doesn’t forgive weakness. But she doesn’t quit. Not when the wheelbarrow groans under the weight. Not when her hands redden against the wood handle. Not when her chest heaves like she’s about to break.
Most girls would’ve thrown the fork down two stalls ago. She keeps stabbing at the muck like she’s exorcising something out of herself.
I lean into the shadow of the barn post, arms crossed, hat brim low. Watching. Longer than I should.
At first, it’s curiosity. Hell, maybe even pity. But the longer I watch, the more it shifts, my curiosity sharpening, twisting into something else.
She doesn’t move with grace, not like Sutton does, not like the ranch girls who grew up in saddles.
Peyton moves like she’s fighting ghosts, every motion clipped and raw, all teeth and anger wrapped in fragile skin.
There’s defiance in the tight line of her jaw, desperation in the rhythm of her shovel.
She looks breakable, but she refuses to break.
And it pulls at me. Hooks under my skin, sharp and insistent.
I shouldn’t notice the way sweat slides down her neck. Shouldn’t think about the sound she makes when she exhales hard and keeps going. Shouldn’t wonder what else she could survive if someone pushed her.
Obsession starts like this—quiet, disguised as observation. But I know the truth. It’s already rooting in deep, and I can’t rip it out.
Dangerous.
She doesn’t belong to me. Can’t. If I touched her, if I claimed her, I’d be painting a target so big on her back every enemy we’ve got would see it from miles out. They’d use her to gut me. To gut all of us.
And yet I can’t fucking look away.
She grips the pitchfork harder, knuckles white, then drags another load into the wheelbarrow with a grunt that echoes in my chest. She’s fury and fragility rolled into one, and it makes me want to burn down the whole valley to see her look at me.
I force my gaze off her before I do something reckless.
Ace comes up from the far side, wiping sweat with the back of his wrist. He follows the line of my sight, smirks like he knows too damn much, but keeps his mouth shut. Smart man.
“You seein’ what I’m seein’?” he asks, voice pitched low.
“Yeah.” Doesn’t matter if he means the girl or the threat sniffing around the property. The answer’s the same.
I drag in a slow breath, shifting my focus. “Double patrols on Broken Ridge.”
His brows twitch. “Think whoever cut the fence is still pokin’ around?”
“I don’t think.” My jaw clamps tight as my eyes flick back toward Peyton. She pauses, wipes her forehead with the back of her arm, curses under her breath, then keeps shoveling. “I know.”
Ace studies me, then nods once. No questions. No pushback. It is why he’s still standing at my side after all these years.
“Double patrols,” I repeat, voice hard. “No gaps. No excuses. If anyone so much as breathes near Broken Ridge, I want to know before their shadow hits dirt.”
“Done,” he says, already turning away.
I stay put, in the dark edge of the barn, eyes dragged back to her like iron to a magnet. She’s still working. Still fighting.
And I remind myself, for the hundredth time…if I want her, she’s dead.
But want doesn’t listen to reason.
It never fucking does.