“Stop what, specifically?” Her voice stayed even. “Asking questions? Doing my job? Making you uncomfortable?”
“All three.”
“You haven't been honest with me since I met you. You worked with that mare like she mattered more than anything else, then told Slade to pull her, knowing he wouldn't, and walked away. Now you're standing in a back hallway telling me to back off a story you won't explain.”
My jaw tightened, tugging at my scar the way it always did when my control started to slip. Most people had to look away when that happened. But not Rachel.
Her gaze stayed glued on mine like my scar wasn’t a distraction. That threw me worse than her pity would have.
“I'm not the story,” I said.
“Then why do you keep showing up in it?”
“Because you keep pointing your questions in my direction. And I'm telling you, clearly, that what you think you're finding isn't what you think it is.”
I took another step toward her. My body moved on its own and closed the gap until the scent of her coffee filled my nose. Underneath it, I could just make out something fresh and light and citrusy. Maybe her soap. Whatever the fuck it was, I liked it too damn much for my own good.
“Then tell me what it is.”
“No.”
Her chin lifted. Just that fraction of an inch that turned her face toward mine instead of away from it. We were close enough now that I could see the flecks in her brown eyes and pick up on the slight catch in her breath.
“You know what I see when someone tells me to stop looking?” she asked. “I see something worth finding.”
“What you'll find is a mess. Not a conspiracy. Not an exposé about corrupt rodeo officials.” I planted my hand on the shelf next to her head. I hadn’t planned to crowd her, but I needed something solid to hold because the rest of me was getting sucked in by her presence, and I hadn't figured out how to make it stop. “You’ll find people stretched too thin, making calls they shouldn't have to make, because the money ran out months before the deadline did.”
Her breath had gone shallow. I could see it in the slight rise of her chest, and the pulse at the side of her throat. But her eyes never left mine.
“So there is something wrong,” she said.
“I didn't say that.”
“You just described it in detail.”
My fingers tightened on the shelf. The wood creaked under them. The air between us had gone still in a way I hadn't given it permission to. I was aware of every inch of the space — the buzzing light, the dust on the boxes behind her, her mouth half a foot from mine, and her body hadn't retreated a single inch.
She wasn't afraid of me.
That was the problem. That had been the problem since the night we met. Since she'd stood in the dark with a dead battery and looked at my face like it was just a face, like I was a man she planned to understand whether I cooperated or not.
My gaze dropped to her mouth. I let it linger for half a second, maybe even less before I stepped back.
The distance opened between us, and I pulled my hand off the shelf and flexed my fingers at my side. I forced my breath to settle, then forced the rest of it back down into the place where I kept things I didn't want to deal with. The last thing I needed was Rachel Grable. The actual last thing.
“If you keep digging in public,” I said, my voice rougher than intended. “The people who get hurt won't be the ones who made the bad calls. It'll be the ones standing too close when it comes apart.”
Something flickered in her eyes. Not retreat. Recognition. She'd heard what I hadn't said. “Is that a threat?”
“It's a fact.” I took another step back. Reset my shoulders. “The rodeo story is the story. Write that. The town needs the coverage, the event needs the attention, Slade and Dawson deserve the spotlight for what they’ve built. Leave the paperwork alone.”
She didn't say yes, but she also didn't say no. Just studied me with that same focus, her mind turning something over behind those beautiful brown eyes. Then she walked past me, close enough that her shoulder brushed my arm, and disappeared through the doorway back into the store.
I stood in the hallway for a long time. Longer than I should have. Long enough for the fluorescent buzz to fill the silence she'd left and settle into something that felt like a verdict.
Through the gap in the doorway I watched her set her coffee cup on Ruby's counter. Watched her smile at something Ruby said. Watched her tuck her hair behind one ear and pull the leather journal from her bag, flipping to a page already covered in handwriting.
She wasn't going to stop.
