"I'm just careful," I said lightly. "Nothing wrong with careful."
“Yeah, there's nothing wrong with careful," Ivy agreed. "But there's a difference between careful and closed. And I'm not sure you know which one you are anymore."
The silence sat between us for a long beat.
"Goodnight, Ivy," I said softly.
"Goodnight." Her voice was gentle now. Less teasing, more tender. "Love you, Mags.” She hung up. I stared at my phone for a long moment.
Then I turned back to the proposal, to the section that needed Jack's expertise, to the professional conversation I was going to have to arrange with a man whose thumb on my collarbone had nearly undone four days of perfectly constructed restraint.
We'd talk about horses. Only horses.
And I would absolutely, under no circumstances, think about the way he'd looked at me in that barn—like he'd been waiting, and waiting, and was very close to being done with waiting.
I pulled up the Raven Spur bloodline data and started typing.
One thing at a time, Blackwood, reminded myself.
First the dream.
Then... whatever came after.
6
Jack
Maggie told me about the Driscoll trip like she was assigning a chore.
"There's a mare outside Driscoll I want to evaluate. Ninety minutes each way. I need someone with breeding experience. Be ready at seven."
No eye contact. No discussion. Just a directive delivered over her shoulder while she was already walking somewhere else, clipboard in hand, ponytail swinging like a metronome counting down the seconds until she was out of range.
I watched her go.
Six days I'd been at Blackwood Ranch. Six days of working beside this woman, learning the rhythm of her, and she still treated direct conversation with me like a timed event. Get in, deliver information, get out before anything caught fire.
I'd have found it insulting if it weren't so transparent.
Maggie wasn't avoiding me because she didn't want me around. She was avoiding me because she did—and the wanting was making her reckless in ways she couldn't control. I'd seen it in the barn during the storm, when she'd let me put my hands on her shoulders and hadn't pulled away. The way her breath hadchanged. The way her whole body had leaned into the contact before her brain caught up and slammed the brakes.
One touch. That's all it had taken to crack the professional facade she'd been building for four days.
And now she wanted to put us in a truck cab together for three hours.
I smiled to myself and went to get ready.
She was already behind the wheel when I got to the truck at seven, engine running, coffee in the cupholder, a folder of papers on the bench seat between us like a barricade. Sully jumped into the back seat of the crew cab and circled twice before lying down with his head on his paws.
"Morning," I said, climbing in.
"Seat belt."
"Good morning to you, too, Maggie."
She shot me a look that could've peeled paint, then pulled out of the yard before I'd finished buckling. The woman drove the way she did everything—fast, decisive, like the road owed her something and she was here to collect.
The first twenty minutes were all business. She ran through the mare's pedigree like a briefing—dam lines, sire history, temperament reports from the seller, conformation photos she'd studied. She was thorough. Clinical. Completely in control.
