Chapter 11
WYATT
I’m up before dawn, which isn’t unusual. What’s unusual is the reason.
The interview with Daisy is at nine. I’ve got hours yet, but sleep gave up on me around four, so instead I’m mucking out stalls in the dark like the horses give a damn what time their bedding gets changed.
They don’t. But my hands need something to do, and my mind won’t stop replaying yesterday on a loop.
Since your ex got loud enough for the whole Inn to hear about red dresses?
I drive the pitchfork into the soiled hay harder than necessary.
Six years of keeping a promise to a dead man, and those goddamn feelings haven’t dimmed a single degree.
Son of a bitch!
I sigh as I haul the loaded wheelbarrow out to the pile and dump it, the physical work doing about as much good as spitting on a wildfire.
She probably thinks I’m an asshole. Better that than the alternative. Better she writes me off as rude than start wondering why I give a damn who she’s been seeing.
And tonight, at the fundraiser, I’m going to have to stand in a tent full of people and watch men bid on a date with her, and I’m going to have to act like it doesn’t bother me.
Because it can’t bother me.
She has an ex who sounds like a whole lot more. She has a life in Denver. She’s here to write an article and then she’ll be gone. Not to mention the promise.
But she’s been trying to make me smile all week. Poking at me, teasing me, watching my face like she’s waiting for something to crack. And the hell of it is, it’s been working. Not on the outside—I’ve kept my expression locked down tight—but underneath, the wall has thinned.
Hope.
Stupid, reckless hope. That damn useless emotion somehow wormed its way into my chest, despite my best efforts.
Then yesterday happened. That motherfucking phone call. His voice carried across the lobby, talking about some red dress he wanted her to wear when she got home.
Red. Dress.
Like those two words don’t have teeth. Like they didn’t rearrange my entire goddamn life six years ago when she walked into the main house and I forgot to breathe.
He tossed it out like nothing. And I stood there like I’d been gut-punched, because to him, it’s a dress.
To me, it’s the night everything went sideways.
And hearing him claim it—claim her—the hope didn’t just die. It curdled into jealousy. Hot and ugly and completely unjustified.
She’s not mine. But hearing him talk to her like that, confirming my suspicions about the goddamn friend thing, I couldn’t think straight.
Couldn’t keep my mouth shut the way I’ve trained myself to do.
So when she asked me what was wrong, I threw his words in her face like it was her fault I’d let myself feel something I had no right to feel.
Real mature, Hartley.
I move to the next stall. Boone nickers at me, shoving his nose against my shoulder like he knows something’s wrong. Horses always know.
“Mind your business,” I mutter, but I scratch behind his ears anyway.
In three hours, I have to sit across from her and act like yesterday didn’t happen. Like I didn’t show my hand to the one person I’ve spent six years hiding it from.
By the time the sky starts to lighten, I’ve cleaned every stall, reorganized the feed room, and checked tack that doesn’t need checking. Rhett finds me oiling a bridle that’s already supple as butter.
“You’re up early.” He leans against the stall door, coffee in hand.
“Long night.”
He doesn’t push, just nods before taking a sip of his coffee and heading off to start his own morning rounds.
The ranch comes to life around me. West appears in the training paddock with one of the younger horses. Colt’s truck rumbles past toward the south pasture. Normal morning. Normal day.
I just have to get through the morning, answer her questions, and keep my distance.
Been doing it for six years. One more day shouldn’t be too hard.
* * *
By eight-thirty, I’ve showered, changed, and barricaded myself in my office with paperwork I have no intention of actually reading. The coffee June brought me thirty minutes ago has gone cold. I’m staring at a supply invoice without seeing a single line.
On the shelf above the desk, there’s a picture of Mom and Dad on the porch. Dad’s got his arm around her, kissing her cheek, and she’s laughing at something behind the camera. The last photo anyone took of her, near as we know.
Most days I don’t notice it. Some days it’s the only thing in the room I can see.
The knock comes at 8:57.
Early. Of course she’s early.
I take a breath. “Come in.”
The door swings open, and there she is.
Jeans, a light pink sweater, her hair pulled back in that ponytail. Notebook tucked under one arm, two cups of coffee balanced in her hands.
She looks professional and put together. Like the tension in the truck yesterday never happened.
Good. We’re going to pretend. I can do that.
“I said I’d bring coffee.” She sets one cup in front of me. “Black. June told me.”
“Thanks.”
She settles into the chair across from me, crossing one leg over the other as she flips open her notebook.
The morning light slants through the window and catches her face, highlighting the curve of her jaw and the way a loose strand of hair has escaped her ponytail to curl against her cheek.
She tucks it behind her ear without thinking, and my chest aches.
I look away. Focus on the coffee cup. The desk. Anything else.
She clicks her pen, glances up. “Ready?”
“Let’s get this over with.”
The words come out harder than I intended, and her pen stills for a beat.
Good job, asshole.
But she doesn’t take the bait. Just lifts her chin slightly and moves on like I didn’t say anything worth acknowledging. Most people shrink when I get short with them. She just straightens her spine and keeps going.
I shouldn’t find her tenacity so fucking sexy. But God help me, I do.
She takes a breath and sits up a little straighter.
“Okay. Let’s start simple.” She taps her pen against her bottom lip while she scans her notes.
Just a small, absent thing she probably doesn’t even realize she’s doing.
But my eyes follow the movement before I can stop them, settling on the soft curve of her mouth, the way the pen drags slightly as she pulls it away.
Suddenly my jeans get a whole lot less comfortable, and I shift in my chair before I can stop myself.
“Walk me through a typical day running an operation this size.”
Focus, idiot.
The interview limps along. She asks about cattle rotations and I give her numbers. She asks about seasonal challenges and I give her a list. Every answer is clipped and professional, nothing she couldn’t find in an agriculture textbook.
After twenty minutes, she sets her pen down and leans back in the chair.
“Okay. New approach.” Her voice softens, and she uncrosses her legs to lean forward. “Forget the article for a second. Just tell me—what do you love about this place? What makes you get up before dawn every single day?”
The question catches me off guard. No one’s asked me that in years. Maybe ever.
“It’s home.” The words are out before I can swallow them back.
“It’s in my blood, is all. The land, the work, the way the valley looks at first light when the mist’s still sitting in the low places.
The sound the creek makes in spring when the snowmelt’s running so high you can hear it from the house.
Riding the ridge my great-great-grandfather named and seeing the same view he saw a hundred years ago.
The way the mountains look at dusk when the light turns everything gold and you can’t believe anyone would choose to live anywhere else—”
I stop. Clench my jaw.
She’s watching me with those brown eyes, warm and intent, like I’ve just handed her something precious.
Her voice is quiet, barely above a whisper. “That’s what I want in the article. Not statistics. That.”
I look away. “You got what you’re gettin’.”
When I look back, the softness in her expression has faded. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Open up for half a second and then slam the door in my face.”
I don’t answer. I can’t answer.
She holds my gaze for a long moment, and I brace myself for more pushing. But then she exhales and sits back in her chair. She stares at her notebook for a few seconds before flipping to a fresh page with a little more force than necessary.
“Fine. Let’s try something else.” Her voice is steady again, professional, but there’s a tightness underneath. “The article is about multigenerational ranching. Legacy. So let’s talk about the future. What does the next generation look like for Glacier Ridge?”
“Colt and West are both here. June too, most of the time. Maggie’s in town. The ranch stays in the family.”
“And after them?”
“That’s their business, not mine.”
She taps her pen against the notebook. “You’re the oldest. You run the operation. Presumably you’ve thought about what happens down the line—who inherits, how the land gets divided, whether there’ll be anyone to pass it to.”
“Presumably.”
“So?”
“So that’s not what this article is about.”
“It’s exactly what this article is about.” Her pen hits the notebook with a sharp tap. “Multigenerational. That means past, present, and future. I can’t write about legacy without asking what comes next.”
“Write about the cattle. Write about the land. Write about a hundred years of Hartleys breaking their backs to keep this place running.” I keep my voice flat. “That’s plenty.”
“It’s not enough.”
“It’s going to have to be.”
“Why?” She’s not backing down. “Why won’t you give me anything real?”
“I’ve answered every question you’ve asked.”