“I wasn’t hiding,” I shot back, keeping my eyes on Pepper’s glossy coat.
Lincoln plucked the brush right out of my hand and set it on the rail. Then he tilted my chin up with one finger, forcing me to look at him. “Yeah, you were.”
My breath hitched. His eyes weren’t angry now, not like on the porch earlier. They were steady, certain, like he’d already made up his mind about me, about us, and no amount of teasing from Lexie or sidelong grins from Ryder was going to shake it. His closeness made the air feel charged, heavy with unspoken things.
“They’re always gonna talk, Kristin,” he said, softer now. “That’s what people do. But what happens between us? That’s ours. Nobody else gets a say.”
Something in my chest unraveled at those words. The tension that had been wound tight all morning started to give.
“Lincoln…” My voice wavered, but he didn’t let me look away. His thumb traced the edge of my jaw, his eyes locked on mine.
“You don’t owe them shame,” he murmured. “You don’t owe them explanations. You’re my wife. That’s all that matters.”
I swallowed hard, then nodded. “Okay.”
His mouth curved, slow and sure. “Okay.”
He kissed me then, it wasn’t raw and consuming. This was gentle, grounding, like he was stitching the frayed edges of me back together. The press of his lips was warm, patient, and full of quiet certainty.
When he pulled back, I couldn’t help smiling. “You’re impossible, you know that?”
“And you like it,” he said, that smug tilt to his mouth.
I rolled my eyes, but the truth was, he wasn’t wrong.
We spent the next hour side by side, working through the stalls. He mucked while I tossed fresh bedding, and it was easy, the scrape of shovels, the rustle of hay, the warm, familiar snorts of horses shifting in their pens. Every motion settled something restless inside me.
“You know,” I said, hefting a bale toward him, “for a guy who glared a whole table into silence this morning, you clean stalls pretty quiet.”
“That’s because I’m not here to impress anybody,” he drawled, stacking the bale like it weighed nothing. “I’m here to keep you from running yourself ragged.”
I gave him a look. “I wasn’t running.”
“Working,” he finished for me, smirking. “Yeah, you said that already. Doesn’t make it true.”
I shook my head, but a laugh slipped out anyway. Somehow, in the quiet rhythm of the barn, with sunlight spilling through the gaps in the boards and his big frame moving steadily beside me, the knot of tension inside me started to ease.
By the time we finished, I was sweaty, sore, and covered in hay, but lighter. Like maybe, just maybe, I belonged here. The horses had settled, their breathing slow and even, the barn peaceful again.
Lincoln caught my hand as we left the barn, his rough fingers wrapping around mine like it was the most natural thing in the world. The light had softened outside, gold spilling across the yard.
“Breakfast circus or not,” he said, tugging me closer, “I’m not letting you walk away from me.”
I squeezed his hand back, heart thudding. “Good. Because I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.”
And just like that, the noise of the morning, the teasing, the smirks, the weight of eyes on me, didn’t matter anymore. Because he was right. This thing between us was ours.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
KRISTIN
Everton always felt like neutral ground to me. A place where I could breathe without everyone’s eyes on me, without the constant hum of ranch gossip. The streets were calm that afternoon, sunlight glinting off the shop windows, the faint smell of rain still clinging to the air. My shop wasn’t much, just a converted brick-front space on Main with a bell that jingled whenever someone came in and the faint scent of leather and cedar lingering long after closing. It was mine. Every nail in the wall, every scrape in the floorboard carried my fingerprint.
I was sweeping near the front when I noticed it.
At first, I thought it was just another flyer wedged into the crack of the door. Probably a lost-dog notice or an ad from the feed store down the street. The kind of thing that appeared after lunch rushes when Main Street went quiet. But when I bent to pick it up, the world tilted.
A single sheet of paper. The handwriting was jagged and ugly, pressed into the page so hard it looked carved instead of written.
