"No. But well enough." He held my gaze. "Not everything has to be flawless, Maggie. Sometimes, well enough is well enough."
My throat tightened. "When did this become about more than the auction?"
"It was always about more than the auction." He pushed off the fence, not touching me—we didn't touch during the day—but close enough that I felt the heat coming off him. "Think about it. What you actually want."
He walked away before I could respond.
I stood at the fence watching Dancer work the round pen—calm, confident, trusting the process—and thought about a woman who'd spent ten years putting herself last on every priority list she made.
That night, he came to my cabin.
I was waiting. Had been waiting since the paddock conversation, turning his words over like stones I couldn't stop touching.
I opened the door before he could settle on the porch step.
"You're thinking too loud," he said, stepping inside. "I could hear it from the bunkhouse."
"I'm not thinking."
"Liar." He cupped my face, tilting it up. "Talk to me."
I shook my head and ran my hands along his arms to cradle his wrists. "I don't want to talk."
"Maggie—"
"I don't want to talk." I pulled him down and kissed him.
He let me lead for a few minutes. Let me push him toward the bedroom, let me tug his shirt over his head, let me try to turn this into the simple, physical thing I kept telling myself it was.
But we'd been doing this long enough now that the simple version wasn't available anymore. Every touch carried history. Every kiss tasted like knowing. And when I tried to rush—to get to the part where I stopped thinking and just felt—Jack slowed us down.
He caught my hands at his zipper, and held them against his bare chest. Let me feel his heartbeat—fast, because he wanted this too, but controlled. Present.
"Not like this," he said. "Not tonight."
"Why not?"
"Because you're using me to avoid something, and I'm not going to let you."
The accuracy of that landed like a slap. I tried to pull back, but he held my hands where they were.
"I'm not saying no," he clarified. "I'm saying slow down. Be here with me."
I caressed his chest, soaked in the warmth of his skin. “I am here."
“You're half here, and half somewhere else. You've been somewhere else all day." His thumb traced a circle on my wrist, right over my pulse. "What's going on in that head of yours?"
Instead of deflecting, I told him the truth. "I'm scared."
"Of what?"
"Of this." I pressed my palms harder against his chest. "Of how much I want this. Of how real it's gotten. Of the fact that I can't remember what my life felt like before you were in it, and it's only been three weeks."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he pulled me close—not sexually, not urgently. Just held me. My face nestled in the crook of his neck, his arms wrapped around me, his cheek resting against my head.
"I had someone once," I heard myself say.
Jack went still. “Yeah?" He probably didn’t want to know about my romantic past—I certainly didn’t want to know about his. But maybe if I told him what had happened, he’d understand why I was so hesitant to go all in with him. Why these walls were here in the first place.
