We pulled up to the ranch at dusk. Maggie killed the engine but neither of us moved.
The cab was dim. Quiet. The whole day was sitting between us—every conversation, every almost, every moment where the distance between professional and personal had blurred until you couldn't see the line anymore.
Maggie turned to say something. Goodnight, probably. Or a task for tomorrow. Or some deflection sharp enough to cut through whatever was building in this small, enclosed space.
Our faces were closer than either of us had planned.
Close enough that I could see the exact green of her eyes in the fading light. Close enough that I caught the slight part of her lips, the way her breath changed. Close enough that I watched her gaze drop to my mouth and stay there a beat too long.
My whole body went taut. Every instinct I had—and I had instincts about this woman that went bone-deep—was telling me to close that distance. Two inches. Less. I could feel the pull of itlike gravity, like something physical, like the air between us had weight, and it was collapsing.
Maggie's eyes came back to mine. Wide. Aware. Not scared—deciding.
I didn't move.
Not because I didn't want to. Christ, I wanted to. I wanted to kiss her until she forgot every reason she'd built for why this was a bad idea. I wanted to pull her across the center console and find out if she tasted the same as I remembered, or better.
But this wasn't Wild Creek. She wasn't a stranger in a bar, making a choice with no consequences. She was a woman with a family and a ranch and a dream that was finally within reach, and if I kissed her now—in her family's truck, on her family's land—she'd spend the rest of the night convinced she'd made a mistake.
I wasn't going to be her mistake.
"That was a good day, Maggie," I said.
My voice came out rougher than I intended. Lower. The kind of low that gave away exactly how much restraint it was taking to sit here and not touch her.
She swallowed. I watched her throat move. "Yeah," she said. "It was."
Neither of us moved for another three heartbeats.
Then Maggie reached for the door handle, and the spell broke.
She got out. Walked toward her cabin. Didn't look back.
I sat in the dark cab and let myself breathe.
Sully's wet nose pressed against my neck from the back seat. Grounding. The dog always knew when I needed anchoring.
"Yeah, Sul," I murmured. "I know."
I sat there for a long time. Longer than I should have. Letting the engine tick as it cooled. Letting my heart rate come down from wherever Maggie Blackwood had sent it.
Something had shifted today. In the truck, in the Driscoll paddock, in the silence after Montana. Something between us had moved from if to when, and we both knew it.
I got out of the truck, and Sully dropped down beside me, pressing his shoulder against my leg as we walked through the dark toward the bunkhouse. The ranch was quiet. Stars scattered thick across the sky, the kind of sky you only got out here, away from everything, where the dark was honest and complete.
A light came on in Maggie's cabin.
I didn't stop walking. Didn't look back.
But I smiled.
7
Jack
I lasted four hours.
Four hours of lying in the bunkhouse staring at the ceiling with Sully's head on my boot.
