Page 32 of 11 Cowboys

“Not like Corbin. Nora walked out… she’s an alcoholic.”

“I’m sorry.” The pity in her expression raises my hackles.

“It wasn’t you,” I reply with a shrug that’s fooling nobody. “Nothing for you to be sorry for.”

She nods back, like she understands the shape of loss, even if the details are different.

The rain pounds harder, drumming on the roof like furious fingers on a table.

We stand in that quiet, in the soft scent of hay and warm animals, with an unspoken crackle between us. It’s too early for it to be tension, but it could turn into it more if I was someone different, and she wasn’t a reporter here to expose the weird shit we’re planning.

“I need to check the cameras, and then we should get back.”

“Sure.”

“You okay here for a minute?”

She smirks. “I have all the company I need.”

I work to get the camera working, and when I’ve fixed the loose cable, I return to Grace, finding her nose to nose with the foal like a fairy weaving mischief and magic.

“Ready?”

She strokes Chestnut and follows me back out into the night.

We run across the yard as the water pelts us, trickling down the back of my neck and drenching my jeans to the knees. Grace manages to keep up despite the ridiculous footwear, and I make a mental note to get her something better to wear when I’m next in town, then think better of it. She won’t be around for long, and I have no business getting fanciful ideas about taking care of her in even the most basic of ways.

On the porch, I shuck off my coat and give it a shake,looking down at the rivulets of dark-stained fabric across my chest. Grace is drenched. Her legs are slippery with rainwater and splattered with dirt, and her hair is wet through, but she laughs brightly when she catches my mortified expression.

“I haven’t run through the rain like that in years,” she says, grinning, wiping her face with her sleeve. “That was awesome.”

“Lucky you.” I grab one of the towels from the crate by the door, stored there for muddy boots and wet dogs, mostly, and toss it over her shoulders.

She catches it with a soft “Thanks” but remains still, soaked and smiling, like the storm rinsed something heavy off her shoulders, too.

I step closer, acting on instinct and the unfamiliar pull she seems to have on me. The desire to take care of her rises in me, flexing an unused muscle.

“Hold still,” I say, and I start blotting the towel over her hair.

She tilts her head, encouraging me. Her breath catches when my hand brushes her temple. I notice how fine the hair at her nape is, curling against her skin. How warm her shoulders feel, even through the wet cotton. How close we are.

Too close.

But she doesn’t step back.

Neither do I.

I move the towel down, gently dabbing at her jaw and the side of her neck. She’s watching me, unmoving, barely breathing. The tension that wasn’t there in the barn is here now, hanging in the space between us, pulsing quiet and steady like a third heartbeat.

“I should probably…” she says, voice catching.

“Yeah,” I murmur, still holding onto the towel. “Me, too.”

Her hand finds my chest and rests there. Is she feeling something? Maybe sensing if I’m feeling it, too.

And I am, even though I wish I weren’t.

We stand like that, suspended in something I don’t name, and won’t act on. The storm rages on, but the quiet between us is louder. She shifts like she’s about to step back, but before she can, the kitchen door creaks open behind us.