He nods. “You’re right.”
“You don’twantto know me.”
At that, Crew’s nostrils flare. “Knowing and trusting don’t always go hand in hand. My first priority is and always will be the safety of this ranch and all the people on it.”
“And you think I’m a threat to that?”
“I’m not saying you are, but like you said: I don’t know you.”
“Ask me something, then.”
He tilts his head, a flash of amusement crossing his face. “What?”
Grace nearly shrugs but manages to stop herself before she lands in a world of hurt from moving her shoulder. Instead, she raises her brows questioningly. “You don’t know me because you haven’t tried to know me. Ask me something.”
He seems to consider her challenge for a moment, and then briefly looks like he isn’t going to give in, but then he scoots backward and settles himself on the opposite side of her bunk. He releases a long breath through his nostrils and then asks, “Where were you before Braxton?”
Grace is already starting to regret this little game she’s introduced, but itwasher idea. “I lived with my parents until I was sixteen” is all she gives him.
Crew waits for her to continue, and when she doesn’t, he says, “And?”
“And what?”
“What happened when you were sixteen?”
There’s a thing that always happens when Grace thinks about that night. Akin to someone leafing through a scrapbook, pictures with varying degrees of gore and terror begin to take shape and start shoving themselves to the forefront of her brain. She can hardly even see Crew anymore, because her vision is too clouded by a red so dark it’s almost purple, viscous and rollingdown the faded wallpaper in fat, slow drips. It coats the rusty blade of the kitchen knife sitting atop a peeling vinyl floor.
“Grace?”
She comes back slowly and then all at once. The word falls out of her mouth before she has a chance to even process what just happened in her head. “What?”
Crew’s eyebrows tug together. “Are you okay?”
Grace clears her throat, glancing around the room quickly, assessing where she is. Halcyon. Bunkhouse. Bed. Safe. She nods, then turns back to him. “I left home when I was sixteen. My parents couldn’t care for me anymore,” she says.
It’s not a lie, but it also isn’t the whole truth. Besides her uncle, she’s never givenanyonethe whole truth.
Seemingly satisfied with this, and possibly—shockingly—emotionally intelligent enough to know not to poke that soft spot any further, Crew nods slowly. In a strategic pivot, he asks, “Why’d you stay at Braxton as long as you did?”
And there it is. The question she knew he’d ask, and the one question she can’t answer. She reaches for the palatable, civilized answer that has gotten her through other probing conversations similar to this one. “I wasn’t good in school. Dropped out when I was a sophomore. Hal—Braxton’s horse trainer at the time—took me under his wing. I was shit at math and English and science, but horses…I understood horses. I never looked back after that. I did leave once, but he—” Grace stops herself. She blinks, looking away from Crew, and shakes her head. A quick release of an onslaught of painful memories. “My uncle has power in that part of Texas. I couldn’t go anywhere without people knowing exactly who I was, knowing exactly what wascoming for them if they showed me any sort of kindness. I ran out of money eventually, so I went back.”
Crew listens quietly, intently. When she’s finished speaking, his eyes dart back and forth between hers—almost as if they’re seeing her for the first time. It’s oddly endearing when he responds not with sympathy or apologies, but with “He’s a piece of shit.”
Grace barks out a laugh. “Understatement of the century.”
A half smile forms on Crew’s lips. His eyes, sparkling slightly in the warm light of the bunkhouse, carry more of the joy of his smile than his mouth does. “Look,” he says, tapping his thumb against his jeans. “I don’t think you’re a bad seed.”
She huffs. “But you still don’t trust me.”
“It doesn’t matter. Not really,” he counters, but there’s no malice in his voice. He’s almost gentle about it, like he’s trying to—comfort her? A preposterous, pain-induced assumption. “The fact is, you’ve done well with the horse. Better than any of these idiots could do. Better than I could do.”
The honesty catches her off guard and makes her heart squeeze a little in her chest. She gives him a quick but sincere smile. “Thanks.”
“But you’re not gonna be able to keep at it if I don’t fix that shoulder,” he says plainly, all soft comfort gone. “Now, may I?”
She can almostfeelthe pain that’s waiting for her if she agrees to this, but he’s right. Irritatingly so. If she doesn’t regain full mobility, she can’t get in the pen with Waylon. The quicker it gets reset, the quicker she can recover and get back to work—so she concedes. “Fine.”
Crew nods, then jerks his chin toward the pillow at her side.Standing up from the bed, he commands, “Lay down. On your stomach.”
