Chapter 2
CONNOR
The mare shifted under my hands, her warmth seeping through my work gloves as I ran the brush down her flank in long, steady strokes.
Cinnamon's coat was the color of burnt sugar in the weak morning light filtering through the barn windows, and she leaned into the grooming with a contented huff that made white clouds in the cold air.
The barn smelled like it always did of hay, leather and horse, with undertones of wood shavings and the faint mineral tang of the salt licks hanging in each stall.
My breath fogged in front of my face despite the relative warmth.
Wyoming in February was brutal, but the barn held heat better than most places on the ranch, the horses' bodies and the thick walls keeping the worst of the cold at bay.
I'd been out here since before dawn. Five in the morning, when the world was still dark and silent except for the occasional stamp of hooves and the wind whistling through gaps in the barn siding.
I was working through morning feeding, mucking stalls, checking hooves, and replacing water that had frozen overnight in the troughs despite the heaters.
Anything to keep my hands busy and my mind off things I couldn't have.
Off her.
Stop.
I moved to Cinnamon's other side, focusing on the rhythmic motion of grooming.
The brush rasped against her coat with each stroke, a sound that usually soothed me.
The three-year-old quarter horse I was training for the Hendersons was docile under my hands, trusting, her dark eyes half-closed as I worked.
At least someone around here was content.
“You hiding from someone, or just yourself?”
I didn't turn at Felix's voice, I knew he was here from the sound of his motorcycle that he was determined to ride through winter pulling up outside. When I’d asked him once before about getting a winter vehicle he’d just shrugged and said it didn’t make sense for him to have a second vehicle when he was just going around the ranch.
If he needed to go to town he could just borrow one of the other hands’ trucks or mine.
I kept brushing Cinnamon’s coat although my shoulders tensed despite my best efforts to stay relaxed. “Neither. Just working.”
“Right.” Felix's boots crunched across the barn aisle floor, each step echoing slightly in the enclosed space. “Because you always start your Saturdays at five, working yourself into the ground for no reason.”
“Ranch doesn't run itself.”
“Ranch has three hired hands who show up at seven.” Felix appeared at the stall door, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed.
He was already dressed for the day in work jeans and a thermal shirt under his jacket, his dark hair sticking up like he'd rolled out of bed ten minutes ago.
Knowing Felix, he probably had. “You're out here alone, in the dark, like you're trying to outrun something.”
I didn't answer and continued to move the brush to Cinnamon's mane, working through tangles with more focus than necessary.
Felix studied me for a long moment. “Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Is it Harper?”
My hands stilled and Cinnamon huffed, annoyed at the interruption. She shifted her weight and I forced myself to resume the grooming, gentling my touch.
“It's always Harper.” Felix's tone carried that knowing edge that meant he'd decided to be annoying today. “Has been for years, man. You going to do something about it, or just keep torturing yourself?”
“There's nothing to do.” I moved to Cinnamon's other side, putting her body between me and Felix's too-perceptive gaze. I put more force into the brush strokes than necessary until Cinnamon shifted uncomfortably and I had to dial it back. “It's complicated.”
“It's only complicated because you're making it complicated.” Felix pushed off the stall door.
His footsteps moved to the neighboring stall, followed by the sound of him grabbing another brush from the grooming kit, then the quiet click of a stall door latch.
“You ended things with Morgan. Harper's single.
You're single. You've known each other for six years. What's complicated about that?”
Everything.
The word burned in my throat, but I didn't say it. Instead, I focused on Cinnamon's coat, the way the brush caught the light, on anything except the ache in my chest that had become constant over the past few months.
“She was always pushing me to break up with Morgan.” My voice came out rougher than intended. “Maybe she just didn't like Morgan, and I read more into it.”
Felix snorted, the sound inelegant and echoing slightly in the barn. “You can't actually believe that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I've seen the way she looks at you, Connor. Everyone has.” A pause, then the sound of Felix's brush against Duke's coat, rhythmic and steady. “Hell, Morgan probably noticed too. Might be part of why she never fully committed.”
My chest tightened. The brush suddenly felt heavy in my hand, the wooden handle worn smooth from years of use pressing into my palm. I wanted to argue, to deny it, but Felix had been around for most of my relationship with Morgan.
He'd probably noticed things I'd been too blind or too afraid to see. Like the fact that I was dating the wrong woman while the right one watched me make a fool of myself.
“Everyone could see Morgan didn't want what you wanted. Everyone except you.” Felix's voice was matter-of-fact in that way he had when he was stating uncomfortable truths. “Harper tried to tell you, gently at first. Then more directly. And you just kept making excuses.”
My jaw clenched. He wasn't wrong. I’d thought Morgan and I were building toward something, that eventually she'd want to make things official, move forward, talk about a future. Instead, she'd kept me at arm's length for a year, always saying she wasn't ready, wasn't sure, needed more time.
I need to focus on my career right now.
I'm just not ready for that level of commitment.
Why do we need to define it? Can't we just enjoy what we have?
Excuses I'd accepted because I'd been desperate for it to work and prove to myself that I could have a relationship. That I wasn't going to end up alone on this ranch like my father had after my mother died.
I'd been an idiot. Blind and desperate for something that was never going to happen. And Harper had watched it all and tried to warn me with those expressive green eyes getting sadder every time Morgan blew me off or changed plans or made it clear I wasn't a priority.
Green. Like jade in sunlight, or like the pine forest after rain when everything looked fresh and alive.
Stop thinking about her eyes.
“I wasted a year.” The words came out quietly, more to myself than to Felix. “A year I could have—but I was with Morgan, and Harper was just my friend, and now—”
“Now what?” Felix's voice came from Duke's stall, slightly muffled. “Now you can't even be in the same room with her? I heard you walked out of Jaxon's last week without staying for dinner. What was that about?”
Shame heated my face despite the cold. I was glad Felix couldn't see me, glad for Cinnamon's bulk between us. “I don't know. It's just every time I see her I want to—”
I cut myself off.
Want to what? Kiss her? Tell her I've been an idiot? Beg her to give me a chance even though I'd wasted a year on the wrong woman? Admit that I thought about her constantly, that I missed her laugh and her stories and the way she used to show up at my ranch with takeout and terrible wine?
“Want to what?” Felix pressed.
“It doesn't matter.”
“It clearly does.” The sound of grooming stopped.
I could feel Felix's attention on me even through the stall wall.
“Connor, I've known you for five years. And I've never seen you like this.
Not with Morgan, not with anyone. This thing with Harper, it's not new.
You've been circling each other for years.”
“We're friends.” The lie tasted stale, bitter. “Were friends.”
“Were friends. Past tense.” Felix's voice was quiet but firm.
“Because you can't be around her without wanting more, and she can't watch you want more from someone else.
So you've both been miserable for months.
And now that you're finally free to do something about it, you're, what? Hiding? Hoping it goes away?”
“I'm not hiding.”
“You are.” A pause, then Felix appeared at Cinnamon's stall door again, Duke apparently finished.
His expression was gentle but knowing. “You're scared.
I get it. You put yourself out there with Morgan, and she didn't want what you wanted.
That sucked. But Harper isn't Morgan, and punishing yourself, and her, because you're afraid of getting hurt again? That's not fair to either of you.”
I wanted to argue, tell him he was wrong, that he didn't understand, that it was more complicated than he was making it sound.
But he wasn't wrong.
It had been almost a week since I'd walked out of Jaxon's cabin rather than sit through dinner with Harper watching me with those sad, beautiful eyes that made my chest ache. Eyes that had once been so full of life and now looked at me with a dullness I couldn't stand to see.
So I'd left and hidden at the ranch, avoiding what I'd been feeling for longer than I wanted to admit.
“I don't know why you're being so pushy about this,” I said, my voice low and defensive. “Every time she's here, you flirt with her right in front of me.”
Felix had the grace to look slightly sheepish. “Yeah, well. That was mostly to see if you'd react. Which you did, by the way. Every single time.”
Heat crept up my neck. “I didn't—”
“You did. Got all quiet and tense. Started finding reasons to stay busy instead of hanging out with us. It was pretty obvious, man.” Felix leaned against the stall door, his expression turning more serious. “Look, I saw her in town on Thursday. She looked stressed. Tired. Not like herself.”
My hands stilled. “What do you mean?”