I stepped back.
By the time Clay rounded the corner, we were three feet apart. Jack was checking Dancer's legs for injuries, calm and methodical. I was leaning against the stall door with my armscrossed, looking exactly like a woman who'd just handled a crisis and nothing more.
"She okay?" Clay asked, peering into the stall. His eyes moved between us—quick, unreadable. My youngest brother was sharper than people gave him credit for, behind the golden-boy charm and the easy grin.
"She's fine," I said. "Spooked but no injuries. Jack got her out before the fence went."
Clay looked at Jack. Something passed across his face—assessment, maybe. Curiosity. "Nice work, man. That filly doesn't let anyone near her on a good day."
"She just needed someone to make the choice easier," Jack said, not looking up from Dancer's foreleg. "Storm was making the decisions for her. I just gave her a better option."
Clay nodded slowly. Then his gaze slid back to me, and there was something in it that I didn't like. Not accusation. Not even suspicion. Just... noticing. The way he noticed the angle of a bull's charge before it committed, or the tell in a poker player's hands.
"You're soaked, Mags," he said mildly. "Might want to get dried off before you catch something."
"I'm fine."
"You look cold."
"I said I'm fine, Clay."
He held up both hands, backing off with that easy grin. "Alright, alright. I'm just the messenger. Momma sent me to check on you. You know how she gets during storms."
"Tell her the horses are fine. Tell her I'm fine. Tell her to stop sending recon."
Clay laughed and ambled out, and I let out a breath I'd been holding since he walked in.
When I turned back to Jack, he was standing. Watching me with an expression that was carefully neutral and absolutely failed to hide what was underneath.
"You should get dried off," he said.
"Don't start."
"I'm agreeing with your brother."
"That's the first time anyone's said that sentence."
Something flickered at the corner of his mouth. Almost-smile. The dangerous kind. "Go, Maggie. I've got Dancer. I'll check the fence when the storm breaks and patch what I can."
I didn't want to go. I wanted to stand in this barn and let the storm drown out every rational thought in my head and close that one inch of distance that was going to haunt me for the rest of the night.
Instead, I nodded. "Let me know the fence damage by morning."
"Yes, boss."
I left. Walked through the rain to my cabin without hurrying, because hurrying would mean I was running, and I was not running from Jack Remington.
I was strategically retreating.
There's a difference.
I showered, changed, and sat down at my desk with the horse program proposal pulled up on my laptop.
I had work to do. Real work. Important work. The proposal for Wyatt, the stallion research, the five-year projections that could change everything for me if I got them right.
This was what mattered. This was my dream, finally within reach, and I was not going to let it get derailed by a man with good hands and a talent for showing up at exactly the wrong moment.
I typed for an hour. Solid, focused work. Budget projections, mare evaluations, breeding line analysis. I pulled up the FortWorth auction catalog and cross-referenced it with the bloodline research I'd been compiling for years. I was in the zone—the good place where the numbers made sense and the vision was clear and everything felt possible.
