Chapter 4
RACHEL
I stayed.
Slade moved off after the conversation with Roman, muttering something about chute construction, and I followed long enough to keep up the appearance that I was still focused on the story he wanted to tell.
When his phone rang for the fifth time, he waved me off with a distracted nod, already pulling his phone out.
I took the opportunity to double back toward the working side of the arena, the part that didn't make it into promotional videos.
A crew of contractors hammered platform seating on the west end, their voices carrying in bursts of instruction and complaints.
Two men in matching supplier jackets unloaded feed bags near the stock pens, moving with an efficiency that said they’d done it a hundred times before.
I watched them for a minute and noted the way they checked their surroundings before speaking to each other.
People talked differently depending on who was listening. I'd learned that early.
I moved past the main pens toward the smaller holding areas, where the dirt was churned from constant use and hay and manure mixed with sawdust. A cowboy stood near the gate with a clipboard in his hands and a radio clipped to his belt, scanning a list like he was looking for a problem.
“Excuse me.” I pulled out my notebook. “Hi, I’m Rachel Grable. I'm writing a piece on the rodeo—”
“I know who you are.” He didn't look up. “Ruby mentioned you'd be poking around.”
I let that sit for a beat and watched his pen move down the list. He circled something, frowned, then crossed it out.
“Are you coordinating stock?” I asked.
“Among other things.” He looked up, his expression neutral, not hostile. “Jace Walker. I’m pitching in with logistics.”
“What kind of logistics?” I asked.
“Whatever they need from moving stock to checking medical clearances. It’s an all-hands on deck operation around here right now, Ms. Grable.”
“I can imagine. Can you tell me more about the medical clearances? Is that when a vet signs off on an animal?”
“It’s a requirement. We can't run stock without current health documentation.”
I nodded and made a note. “And if something comes up last minute? Like the mare Roman was working with this morning?”
His pen stopped moving. “Then we adjust. If we have to, we’ll pull her and shift things around. It happens more than people think.” He offered what was probably meant to be a reassuring smile.
“Does it happen often enough to worry about?”
“Often enough to plan for.” He clipped the pen to his clipboard and turned toward the gate. “If you'll excuse me, I've got a few deliveries to handle.”
He headed off before I could ask a follow-up question, but his answer stayed with me. Behind the banners and fresh paint, the rodeo was still being held together by quick decisions, tight timelines, and people trying not to show how much pressure they were under.
I kept moving. The holding pens were quieter, set back from the construction noise. Horses shifted in their stalls. I passed three handlers near a water trough, and their conversation dropped off as I got close. One nodded. The other two watched.
I didn't stop. Didn't push when people went quiet, but I listened.
“—supplier's been cutting corners for months—”
“—doesn't matter what Roman says if Kincaid won't pull her—”
“—just hope nobody gets hurt before they figure it out—”
Everyone spoke in low voices, meant to stay between them.
I kept walking like I hadn't caught a word, but I had.
And what I'd heard wasn't the story Slade had pitched me about community spirit and local pride.
This sat underneath that… compromises… risks…
people making calls they weren't entirely comfortable with.
I turned the corner past the last row of pens and stopped.
Roman was working with the mare again inside a smaller enclosure.
She was calmer than she'd been earlier, making slower circles and not moving as fast. Roman stood near the center, letting her orbit him without crowding her space.
He had one hand loose at his side. The other held the lead rope with just enough tension to keep them connected.
I leaned against the rail and watched.
He knew I was there. I could tell by the way his shoulders shifted slightly before his attention went back to the mare. She came closer, paused, then moved past him in a wide arc.
“She looks better,” I said.
“She's figuring it out.”
“Is Slade going to pull her?”
“That's his call.”
I watched the way she kept checking back to him, recalibrating her distance based on where he stood. “Do you think he should?”
Roman didn't answer. The mare completed another rotation, moving slower now, and he turned with her, his body angled just enough to guide her without being intimidating.
“People don't like being told their plan won't work,” he finally said.
“Even when it won't?”
His jaw tightened. “Especially then.”
I filed that away without writing it down. He wasn't just talking about the horse. “How long have you been doing this?”
“Long enough.”
“That's not an answer.”
“It's the one you're getting.”
The mare drifted closer. Close enough he could have touched her shoulder. He didn't. He waited until she chose to stay, then ran his hand along her neck before he stepped back and gave her space again.
I watched the way he moved, slow and steady, like he'd worked out a long time ago that patience was the only tool that actually stuck.
“You don't like questions,” I said.
“I don't like unnecessary ones.”
“What makes a question unnecessary?”
He turned his head, just enough to look at me over his shoulder. “When the person asking already knows the answer.”
I opened my mouth to push back, and then the mare spooked. Something I hadn't seen or heard had set her off. She lunged sideways against the lead rope and barreled toward the rail. Toward me. I'd leaned too far forward without thinking and there was no time to correct it.
Roman crossed the space in two strides. He put himself between me and the horse before I'd registered the danger, caught her by the halter and said something low I couldn't make out.
She stopped. Her nostrils went wide and her sides heaved, but she stopped.
He held her there and worked her down with that same unhurried focus until her breathing slowed and her weight settled back on all four feet.
He didn't look at me. His attention stayed on the horse, but his body remained between me and the danger. It took me a second to understand what that meant. He hadn't paused to weigh the risk or decide whether I was worth protecting. He'd just moved.
When he finally stepped back, the mare calm, he still didn't turn around. “Stay behind the rail,” he said.
My throat tightened. I stayed where I was, watching the set of his shoulders and the way he kept himself so tightly controlled. Everything about him seemed deliberate. Everything except the way he’d stepped in front of me.
Roman didn't speak again. He led the mare across the pen in slow, measured steps until her breathing evened and her ears stopped flicking back.
Then he guided her toward the gate, opened it with one hand, and led her through without rushing her.
She followed with her head low, calmer now, but still watching everything around her.
I followed him into the barn. He didn't acknowledge me. Just kept walking toward the row of stalls set back from the main pens, his stride long enough that I had to work to keep up.
“What happened to her?” I asked.
“Nothing I can prove.”
“But you suspect something.”
His boots kicked up dust, and he picked up his pace.
“Roman?” I asked, sure that he’d heard me.
“Let it go.”
Letting it go was the last thing I intended on doing. My assignment was to do a community piece about the rodeo, but my instincts were screaming that there was something going on. Something worth investigating. “If there's a problem with the supplier—”
“There’s always a problem with someone.” He stopped at the mare’s stall, unlatched the door, and led her inside. She hesitated once, then stepped in and turned toward the back wall. He unclipped the rope, checked her water, ran his hand once along her flank, then backed out and secured the door.
I waited. “Slade's going to run her anyway, isn't he?”
“That's his call.”
“You already said that.”
“Then you already have your answer.”
He started walking again, toward the far side of the grounds where the construction noise faded and the land opened into scrub grass and scattered cottonwoods. I stayed with him. His shoulders tensed when he realized I wasn't dropping back.
“You don't think she's ready,” I said.
“I think she'll do what she's told until she doesn't.”
“And when she doesn't?”
“Someone gets hurt. Maybe her. Maybe the rider.” He didn't slow down. “Maybe both.”
“Then why not pull her?”
“Because pulling her means admitting the supplier sent bad stock. Means reworking the entire lineup. Means making calls Slade doesn't want to make.”
“So he's going to risk it.”
Roman stopped in his tracks, and I almost walked right into him before I caught myself. He turned. It was the first time he'd looked at me directly. He made full eye contact, and my chest registered it before my brain did.
“You think that's news?” His voice was low and controlled, but with something underneath it I hadn't heard before. “You think I'm going to hand you a scandal so you can write about how small-town cowboys cut corners and put people at risk?”
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't have to.”
I held his gaze, refusing to look away from the scar slicing up his cheek or the expression that dared me to keep pushing. “I'm not writing a hit piece.”
“Then what are you writing?”
“The truth.”
“Whose truth?”
“Yours,” I said. “If you'll let me.”
His expression shifted. It didn’t soften, but he didn't step back. He was close enough that I could see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes… the tension in his jaw… the slow rise and fall of his chest.
Neither of us moved, but something shifted between us. My pulse kicked up hard, every nerve in my body lit up. The effect he had on me was inconvenient but undeniable. His gaze dropped to my mouth for just a second. Then he stepped back.
“Stay out of my way, Rachel.”
The careful way he said my name did something to my pulse I wasn’t ready to examine out here in the dirt. I should have nodded and let him walk away, but I’d never been good at backing down from a challenge.
“Or what?” I asked.
His jaw tightened. “Or you're going to find out that some people come to places like this because they're done answering questions.”
“And some people follow stories because they're done accepting non-answers,” I shot back.
He stared at me, and something moved through his expression. It might have been frustration. He probably wasn’t used to being met with resistance. Or it could have been something close enough to respect that I squared my shoulders and held my head higher before he turned and walked away.
I didn’t follow him this time, but I didn’t leave either. His control had shifted for one brief second before he pulled it back into place. Like he’d looked at me and found something he hadn’t planned for.
So had I. But that wasn't the part I was writing down. I flipped to a clean page and moved my pen across the page. It wasn’t the story Ruby wanted about community pride and fresh starts.
It was the real one taking shape in the conversations I’d heard and the ones that had only been hinted at.
About compromises and calculated risk, and men like Roman Maddox who worked in the margins because no one else would.
Whatever this story was, it ran straight through him. And the moment I’d chosen to follow, I’d stopped being able to look away.