But when I opened my mouth, what came out was:
"Any chance I could borrow those clothes? I could use a shower."
Ethan studied me for a beat. Something moved behind his eyes—the quiet recognition of a man who'd heard the question that wasn't asked and was choosing to let it arrive on its own schedule.
"No problem," he said. "I'll have someone set it up. And the room's there if you want it tonight."
Then he walked away, his boots crunching on the gravel, his stride unhurried, a man who understood that some things couldn't be rushed and wasn't going to pretend otherwise.
I watched him go. Then I turned back to Valentine.
The horse was standing exactly where I'd left him—crossties loose, head low, eyes half-lidded in the post-ride calm that was the equine version of a man sitting in a hot tub after a hard day. I picked up the hose, turned on the water, and started rinsing the sweat from his coat. He leaned into the spray, shifting his weight with a contentment that was almost human.
"Valentine," I said, quietly, working the water along his neck. "Let me ask you something."
The horse flicked an ear toward my voice. Listening, or doing a convincing impression of it.
"When a man says the wrong thing to a woman—the absolute wrong thing, at the absolute wrong time, in the worst possible way—what does he do?"
Valentine turned his head and looked at me. Full on. Those dark, intelligent eyes, holding my gaze with the patient, unblinking directness of an animal that had just spent an hour testing me and had decided I was worth its time.
He didn't answer. Obviously. He was a horse.
But the look on his face—the quality of equine judgment, thousand pounds of opinion delivered without a single word—said everything I needed to hear.
Figure it out, stupid. You're a man, aren't you?
I turned off the hose. Stood there in the stable with the water dripping and the late afternoon light coming through the high windows and the horse beside me, warm and real and mine in a way that nothing had been mine in a very long time.
Yeah. I was a man.
Time to start acting like one.
21
LOUISA
The afternoon had gone gold by the time Izzy called.
I was at my kitchen table—the actual table, not the floor, which felt like progress—with my laptop open to the TTB's online portal and three legal pads covered in notes. The DSP application was more involved than I'd anticipated and less impossible than I'd feared, which was the best possible outcome for a regulatory process.
My phone buzzed and I picked it up without looking, expecting Dennis.
Izzy D—sourdough and intel.
I answered.
"How are you?" she said. No preamble. The directness of a woman who'd already decided small talk wasn't what this call was for.
"Working," I said. "Which is either a good sign or avoidance, and right now I'm choosing to believe it's a good sign."
"It's a good sign," she said. Firmly. "Working is always a good sign." A beat. "I heard today was hard."
I set down my pen. "You heard."
"I own the hotel," she said. Which wasn't an answer and was entirely an answer.
I thought about Sasha at the front desk. About the way Izzy had watched us at the rodeo, at the base of the VIP stairs, with the expression of a woman running a longer game than anyone around her realized. Aboutyou're in good handsand what it had carried underneath.
