He turns and heads back up the stairs.
“God, you’re so arrogant,” I mutter, loud enough for him to hear.
He stops at the top, his back to me.
“And you’re an outsider,” he says. “You don’t belong here.”
Then he disappears.
The words land heavier than I expect.
I stare at the plates on the table, throat tight, chest aching. I don’t know what happened to make him this guarded—this closed off—but I feel it now. The wall. The wound underneath it.
And despite everything?
I still can’t walk away.
If Gage won’t share a meal with me, I know someone else will.
I gather the plates and head for the door.
Hank won’t say no.
five
Gage
Iused to love mornings. It was always so peaceful getting up before you knew the rest of the world was awake. I did my best thinking and my best work before the sun rose because no one was around to bother me.
Mornings were mine—quiet, predictable, under control. I enjoy my peace, I need it, but lately I haven’t found much of that, and the absence of it grates more than I want to admit.
In just a couple of days, Sloane has become a real pain in my ass—loud, unavoidable, and impossible to ignore no matter how early I get up.
A part of me thinks she’s doing it on purpose, so she can force me out of here, pushing and needling until I’m the one who leaves, but another part of me thinks thatthis is really just how she is—unyielding, inconvenient, impossible to sidestep. No wonder no man has snatched her up yet.
Well, maybe she has a fella. I’ve never bothered to stand in the same vicinity long enough to ask, and I don’t plan to, but if she does, I have to wonder what man would be okay with his woman rooming with a stranger. What kind of chaos would willingly sign up for that?
It doesn’t matter, anyway. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
It isn’t my business. I repeat it like a rule, hoping repetition makes it true.
I went to bed hungry last night, but I know it’s my own fault. Hunger is easier to deal with than conceding ground. I won’t admit it to her, though. I can bet anything that the food tasted as good as it smelled, and the thought needles at me longer than it should, but I’m bullheaded. If I set my mind to something, you best believe I’m going to stick to it, even when it costs me.
The problem, however, isn’t the fact that I am as stubborn as a mule; it’s the fact that she is equally as stubborn as I am, and she doesn’t back down just because I expect her to. At every turn, she defies everything I say.
If I tell her to leave the books alone, she goes around touching the books. If I tell her not to bother the ranchhands, what does she do? Talk to them without my consent.
I’m not used to that—to being ignored, challenged, or dismissed on my own land.
At any rate, it doesn’t matter. What matters is getting my peace back, restoring things to how they’re supposed to run. I can handle someone being a pain in the ass; I deal with enough people who annoy me from time to time, but in the mornings, I run this place—quiet, uninterrupted, on my terms.
After all, this is all temporary, right? That’s the deal, the timeline, the promise I cling to. Soon she’ll be gone, and I will never have to see or think about Sloane Carter ever again.
It truly will be a peaceful day—or at least, that’s what I need to believe as I head out the door.
This morning is my first real attempt at reclaiming it. I made my cup of coffee and met Hank, Jesse, and Mason out at the ring, the routine steadying me the way it always does.
They stand around, talking amongst themselves, and one of our colts, Sammy, walks around the ring to get himself some exercise, unaware of the weight we’re about to place on him.
