His hand slid down, his fingers teasing the inside of my thigh. “And that’s a problem?”
I laughed, the sound light and easy in a way I wasn’t used to. “Not yet.”
But eventually, we’d have to face the rest of it. The land. The town. The way this would change things. But not yet. Right now, it was just us. Just this. And for the first time in a long time, that was enough.
The drive through town felt different than it had a week ago. The same fences ran alongside the road, the same mountains rose in the distance. But I wasn't the same woman who'd climbed through a window trying not to wake the neighbors. And Torin wasn't just the deputy who'd found me there.
His hand rested on my thigh as he drove, his thumb tracing lazy circles that made it hard to focus on anything but the memory of his mouth on my skin, his body moving inside mine.
I forced myself to look out the window instead.
"You're quiet," he said.
I glanced at him. "Just thinking."
"About?"
"How much this is going to change things." I gestured toward the folder in my lap, the printout of the ledger entry with Bad Habit's name listed under both Hollister and Kincaid ownership. "For the rodeo. For Dawson."
Torin's jaw tightened slightly. "For you?"
I considered that. "Maybe."
He didn't push, just kept his hand where it was, steady and warm. That was Torin. He didn't need to fill every silence with words. He just existed beside me, solid and unshakable.
Wilde Creek Ranch spread out ahead of us, the main barn rising against the valley like it had been there forever. Dawson was already outside when we pulled in, his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze tracking us as we climbed out of the truck.
"Didn't expect to see you two this morning," he said, though his tone carried more curiosity than suspicion.
Torin nodded toward me. "Claire found something."
I stepped forward, opening the folder and holding out the printout. "My father mentioned a bronc named Bad Habit last night. Said he was foundational to the Hollisters in the early 1900s. I thought it might be worth checking against your records."
Dawson took the paper, his eyes scanning the entry. His expression didn't change, but I saw the tension leave his shoulders, saw the way his fingers tightened on the edge of the page.
"March 1912," he murmured. "Hollister and Kincaid stock listed together."
"It’s the same horse," I confirmed. "Which means?—"
"Which means the bloodlines intersect." Dawson looked up, relieved. "This resolves the lineage question."
Torin leaned against the truck. “The stock's legitimate. Rodeo plans can move forward."
Dawson let out a long, slow breath, like he'd been holding it for weeks. Maybe he had. He disappeared into the barn and returned with the old ledger, flipping through the brittle pages until he found the matching entry. He set it beside my printout, comparing the dates, the names, the careful handwriting that had recorded the partnership over a century ago.
"It's the same," he said. "The families were still working together in 1912."
I nodded. "At least until 1914, based on what you showed Torin."
Dawson's mouth pressed into a thin line. "And then it stopped. Completely."
The weight of that hung in the air between us. A partnership that had lasted years, maybe generations, severed so cleanly that no one talked about it anymore. No one remembered. Or maybe they just chose not to.
"Is this what you needed?" I asked.
"Yeah." Dawson's gaze lifted to mine. "This is exactly what I needed. Thank you, Claire."
Something warm bloomed in my chest. Maybe it was pride, or possibly satisfaction. I'd spent years being defined by my last name, by the weight of being a Hollister in a town that couldn't let go of old grudges. But this felt different. Like I'd finally contributed something that mattered. Not because I was a Hollister, but because I'd been willing to dig into the past instead of running from it.
