"Why not?"
"Because—" She stopped. Started again. "Because this is complicated. You work for my family. We have to see each other every day. If people found out?—"
"Then they'd find out two adults made choices about their own lives." I leaned against her doorframe, not entering, not pressing, just present. "I'm not ashamed of what happened between us, Maggie. Are you?"
The question hung in the air.
"No," she said finally, quiet. "I'm not ashamed. I just… I don't know how to do this."
"Do what?"
"This." She gestured between us, a frustrated sweep of her hand. "Whatever this is. I don't do messy. I don't do complicated."
"I know." I straightened, closing just a little of the distance between us. Close enough to see the pulse jumping in her throat. Close enough to catch her scent—clean, simple, the same shampoo that had been driving me slowly insane every time the wind shifted in the barn. "You're good at control, Maggie. At managing everything and everyone. At putting yourself last and pretending you don't mind."
Her breath caught. "Jack?—"
"I'm not here to be managed. I'm not another problem for you to solve. And I'm not going to pretend I don't want you just because it's inconvenient."
Her gaze swept over me, her eyes darker than before when they met mine again. "What do you want, then?"
"You. Same as I wanted you in Wild Creek." I reached up, slow enough that she could pull away, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She didn't pull away. "I want to be the place you put the weight down."
She was trembling. I could feel it—the slight vibration in her body, the tension coiled tight beneath her skin.
"And at work?" she asked, her voice a little breathless. "How does this work?"
My thumb glided along the soft curve of her cheekbone. "At work, you're my boss. I follow your lead. Nobody needs to know anything you don't want them to know."
"Just like that?"
I nodded, eyes locked on her mouth. “Yeah, beautiful, just like that."
She studied me for a long moment, searching my face for lies or angles or hidden agendas. I let her look. I had nothing to hide.
"This is a bad idea," she said.
“I beg to differ.” This was easily the greatest idea I’d ever had, and I was kicking myself for not walking over here my first night on this ranch.
She wetted her lips. Swallowed. “If anyone finds out?—"
My heart pounded against my ribs as if I were running a marathon and the finish line was just around the bend. "They won't. Not until you want them to."
"I don't know what I want."
"Yeah, you do. You've known since the truck. Since you were bold at the Bull Pen.”
Something in her expression cracked. Not broke—cracked. A fissure in the wall she'd spent six days reinforcing, letting just a sliver of light through. The night was quiet around us, nothing but crickets and starlight and the weight of everything we'd spent a week not saying.
Then Maggie stepped back from the doorway. "Get inside before someone sees you."
The cabin was small and warm, and it was Maggie in a way the ranch wasn’t—personal, another layer stripped back. Books were stacked on nearly every surface—horse breeding manuals mixed with dog-eared paperback novels. A quilt thrown over the couch that looked handmade. Photos on the walls—family shots, horses, a sunset over land I recognized as Blackwood property.
And on her desk, laptop still open, the horse breeding proposal glowing on the screen. Charts, projections, bloodline data. She'd been working on it when I knocked.
That woman. Building her dream at ten o'clock at night, alone in her cabin, because that was the only time no one needed anything from her.
Sully had stayed on the porch without being told. Brad used to joke that the dog was a better wingman than most humans.He knows when to give a guy privacy, Remington. More than I can say for you.
