There'd been plenty of warning. I'd given it. Repeatedly.
I looked back at the horse. It stood over the spilled grain, its sides heaving, with that flat, dead look in its eyes. It wasn’t fear or fight-or-flight. There was something broken deep underneath.
“Stay away from that horse.” I kept my voice level. “Nobody enters that pen. Nobody.”
The hand nodded, picked up his hat from the dirt, and walked toward the water station on legs that weren't quite steady.
I pulled my phone out and texted Slade. Two words.
Me: Pull it.
The reply came in thirty seconds.
Slade: I can’t reshuffle now.
I stared at the screen for a few seconds, then shoved my phone in my pocket, hating the familiar weight of knowing something was wrong while watching people choose not to fix it.
That's when I saw her. Rachel stood near the main gate with her journal open, talking to a guy on the gate crew. She wore those boots I'd pulled off her twice now, jeans that fit her like she'd been sewn into them, and my flannel shirt. Her hair was down today. It made her look soft in a way that I knew she wasn't.
She glanced toward the pens. Toward me. Then her gaze shifted to where the hand sat on an overturned bucket, his face still pale, flexing his hands.
I watched her clock it. The dropped feed bucket inside the pen, the sorrel still agitated, the hand shaken, me standing between all of it.
She wrote something in her journal.
My chest went tight, and not because she was wrong to notice. But because she was right. And being right, here, today, with five thousand people expected through those gates in a couple of days… Being right could blow this whole thing open in a way that couldn't be contained.
I crossed the grounds without rushing, keeping my stride even and my face neutral. People moved around me — handlers, construction crew finishing last touches, volunteers in matching t-shirts. Nobody looked twice.
Rachel saw me coming. She closed the journal but didn't put it away, just held it against her chest like a shield she didn't need.
“Walk with me.”
She fell into step next to me. I led her past the concession stands still being stocked, past the announcer's booth, around the back of the bleachers where the noise dropped enough to talk without being overheard.
I stopped and turned to face her.
“What happened over there?” she asked before I could speak.
“Nothing that concerns your story.”
Her chin lifted. Those brown eyes locked on mine. “A handler almost got trampled by a horse you flagged days ago. That concerns my story.”
“Your story is the rodeo. The event. The community. Write that.”
“Roman—”
“Rachel.” I stepped closer. Close enough to see the flecks of gold near her pupils, the slight tension in her jaw. For a second, I almost reached for her. Almost said her name the way I had that morning in her cabin. Then I shut it down. “Not today. Whatever you're building, whatever you think you're close to — not today. This is me asking.”
Rachel's fingers pressed white against the journal cover. “You don't get to do that. You don't get to hand me a map and then tell me to stop walking.”
“I didn't hand you anything.”
“Three horses from the same supplier. Records that don't quite line up. A rider dead three years ago because nobody spoke up.” She counted each point on her fingers. “You told me all of it. In my cabin. In my bed. And now you want me to look the other way because opening weekend is almost here?”
The words landed exactly where she meant them to, heavy enough to crush my chest. “That's not what I'm saying.”
“Then what are you saying?”
