Chapter 14
MORGAN
Morgan sat in her silver Lexus across the street from Harper's boutique, her vanilla latte from the coffee shop growing cold in the cupholder beside her.
She'd been parked here for twenty-three minutes. Watching. Waiting.
The leather seat creaked slightly as she shifted her position, manicured nails drummed against the steering wheel in a rhythm that matched her racing pulse. The morning sun slanted through the windshield, warming the car's interior despite the chill outside, making her skin feel too tight.
She told herself it was reconnaissance, smart business. Keeping tabs on a situation that was taking longer to resolve than expected.
But the sick, twisting knot in her stomach that grew with each passing hour told a different story.
It got worse the longer she thought about Connor's ranch. About the property she should have had access to by now.
The property her father's associates needed.
Connor hadn't returned any of her texts since Friday. All three messages were carefully worded to maintain the connection she'd spent a year building. All had gone unanswered. The read receipts showed he'd seen them and chose not to respond.
That was new. Problematic. During their relationship, Connor had always been responsive. Polite, reliable, easy to manage with the right words and the right smiles and the occasional touch that suggested more than Morgan ever intended to deliver.
She'd dated him for one reason: access.
Connor Whitaker owned eight hundred forty-seven acres of prime ranch land that bordered the Montana line to the north.
Remote terrain, minimal oversight, with old logging roads and natural cover that made it perfect for what her father's cartel associates needed.
A route for moving product north and smuggle it across the Canadian border away from official checkpoints and surveillance.
And Connor, with his strong moral code and his predictable honor, would never allow it if he knew. He'd call the sheriff the second Morgan's father approached him directly.
So Morgan had become the solution. The inside woman. The girlfriend who could provide information about ranch security, about Connor's schedule, about weak points in fencing and patrol patterns. Who could eventually provide access when the time was right.
When Connor was properly committed. Properly invested in a future with Morgan that would blind him to what was really happening on his own land.
It had been working perfectly. For a whole year, Morgan had played the devoted girlfriend by attending his ranch events, smiling at his neighbors, pretending to care about horses and cattle and all the things that made Connor's world turn.
All while feeding information back to her father's contacts, positioning herself as indispensable to Connor's life.
Until Connor had ended it with his gentle voice and his careful words about “needing space” and “not being in the right place for commitment.”
Morgan had been patient after the breakup. She maintained contact, stayed visible in his life, positioned herself to slide back in when the opportunity arose.
When Harper Walsh was finally out of the picture.
Because Harper had been a problem from the beginning. Morgan had known it the first time she'd seen Connor look at his “friend” with soft eyes and that expression he'd never once turned on Morgan. The one that said Harper mattered to him in ways that went beyond convenience.
Harper, who'd been hovering around Connor for years and had been at every ranch gathering, every dinner party, every casual weekend barbecue. Who looked at Connor like he hung the moon.
Morgan's jaw clenched and her teeth ground together hard enough to send a spike of pain down her neck.
Getting rid of Harper had become essential. Not just to clear the path back to Connor, but because Harper was the reason Connor had started pulling away in the first place, questioning the relationship. Morgan knew it.
That's why she'd contacted her father for help.
Why she'd agreed to push Harper toward financial ruin with Armand, while Silas assisted with the larger smuggling operation her father needed established.
A mutually beneficial arrangement. Harper would lose her boutique and be forced to leave town, and Morgan would regain access to Connor and his property.
Simple. Clean. Profitable for everyone who mattered.
But two weeks was a long time for Harper to be staying “temporarily” at Connor's ranch. Two weeks of proximity, of shared meals, of opportunities for something to develop that would complicate everything Morgan had worked for.
Two weeks of Connor not responding to Morgan's messages, even just to tell her to leave him alone, while Harper lived in his house.
Movement caught Morgan's eye, pulling her attention from her spiraling thoughts. Connor's black truck turned onto Main Street from the direction of his property.
The morning sun glinted off the windshield, making it impossible to see inside. Then the truck drew closer, and Morgan sank lower in her seat instinctively, her pulse quickening.
Connor pulled up directly in front of Harper's boutique, that pathetic little shop with its hand-painted sign and cheerful window display. His brake lights flared bright red before cutting off.
He climbed out of the driver's side, and Morgan's hands tightened on the steering wheel until her knuckles went white.
Connor was dressed for ranch work in faded Wranglers that fit him perfectly, scuffed work boots with dried mud on the soles, and a canvas Carhartt jacket over a plain blue work shirt.
His brown Resistol cowboy hat shaded his face, but Morgan could still see the strong line of his jaw, the breadth of his shoulders, the easy confidence in the way he moved.
He looked good. He always looked good. Tall and solid and exactly what a Wyoming rancher should look like. It had made him easy to date, easy to be seen with, easy to use as the foundation for getting what she needed.
In another life—one where her father wasn't breathing down her neck about the family business, where she didn't have debts to pay and appearances to maintain, where she could afford to want things just for herself—maybe she could have loved him.
Connor was kind, dependable, the sort of man who would build you a life and never ask for more than you could give.
The sort of man who deserved better than what she'd offered him.
But that wasn't this life. And she'd made her choices.
Connor circled around to the passenger side of the truck, and Morgan's stomach dropped. She's with him.
Of course she was. Of course Connor had driven her here, probably held the door open for her with that gentle courtesy he'd shown Morgan a hundred times.
Except when he looked at Harper, his whole face softened in a way it never had for Morgan.
Even from this distance, she could see it—the way his body angled toward the truck like he was being pulled by gravity, the slight smile playing at his lips, the tenderness in how carefully he opened that door.
He'd never looked at Morgan like that. Not once in the year they'd dated. She'd been an accessory, a convenience, someone to bring to events and introduce to his friends. But Harper? Harper was something else entirely. Someone he actually cared about. Someone he might actually love.
The jealousy that twisted through Morgan's chest wasn't about wanting Connor for herself—she'd never wanted him, not really. It was about watching someone else get the version of him she'd never bothered to earn. The version that looked at a woman like she was the answer to all of his questions.
He opened the door and extended his hand into the cab in that gentleman way he'd been raised with. Harper emerged, taking his offered hand for balance as she climbed down from the high truck.
Morgan's pulse hammered in her throat. Her vision narrowed to the scene unfolding across the street of Connor helping Harper down, Harper's hand in his, both of them standing close on the sidewalk in a way that spoke of familiarity.
Of intimacy.
Harper said something Morgan couldn't hear through the closed car windows and forty feet of distance. Whatever it was made Connor smile, the one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and transformed his usually serious face into something warm and open.
The smile that had been freely given at the beginning of their relationship, before Connor had started pulling away, before he'd started looking at Morgan with questions in his eyes she'd never wanted to answer.
When Connor's hand came up slowly to cup Harper's face, Morgan stopped breathing.
The gesture was tender. Possessive. His palm cradled Harper's cheek like she was something precious, his thumb brushed across her skin in a touch that spoke of permission granted and boundaries crossed.
The kind of touch that said they'd done this before.
That they had every right to be touching each other this way.
Harper's eyes fluttered closed for just a second as she leaned into Connor's touch like a flower turning toward the sun.
No. This can't be happening.
Morgan's breath came back in a sharp gasp as Connor leaned down and Harper rose on her toes to meet him halfway.
Their lips met, and suddenly they were kissing right there on Main Street where anyone could see.
Where Mrs. Patterson might spot them from the coffee shop.
Where the whole damn town would know that Connor Whitaker was kissing Harper Walsh.
The kiss wasn't brief. It was deep and slow and so clearly intimate that Morgan felt rage bloom hot and sharp in her chest, spreading through her veins like poison.
Connor's hand moved from Harper's cheek to tangle in her red hair. His other hand found her waist and he pulled her closer. Harper's hands were flat against his chest, fingers splaying over his heart, then clutching at the fabric of his jacket like she needed something to hold onto.