Instead he grabbed his coffee mug.
“You keep feeding me like this, I’m never leaving.”
“That’s probably the pancakes talking.”
“No, sweetheart. That’s definitely me talking.”
The words slipped out low and rough.
Izzy went very still.
Grant cursed himself internally.
Then the screen door opened before either of them could recover.
Naomi walked in carrying a clipboard and immediately stopped.
Her eyes moved from Grant.
To Izzy.
To the breakfast spread.
“Well,” Naomi drawled slowly, “this looks domestic as hell.”
Grant groaned.
Izzy burst out laughing.
And for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours, the knot between Grant’s shoulders loosened enough for him to breathe.
47
Bridlepath Farm — Early
The morning had started at 5:30 AM with the smell of damp cedar and the low, collective rumble of forty horses waiting for grain.
Izzy hadn’t planned on waking up with the sun, but the mountain air didn’t let you sleep away the light. She’d slipped downstairs in an old pair of Grant’s muck boots that clacked against her heels, a thick fleece pulled over her shoulders against the dawn chill.
She found Naomi already in the feed room, the rhythm of the farm moving like clockwork around her.
Naomi hadn’t ordered her back to the house. She’d handed Izzy a green plastic scoop and pointed toward the row of yearling stalls.
“Two scoops for the chestnut, one for the bay,” Naomi said. “Watch your fingers with the gelding. He thinks everything’s a carrot.”
For the next two hours, Izzy lost herself in the repetitive, grounding rhythm of the barn.
She learned the drag of the sliding latches, the warm velvet pressure of a Thoroughbred’s nose against her palm, and the way the mountain mist lifted off the fields in long ghostly ribbons once the sun cleared the ridge.
She didn’t look like a Denver curator anymore.
Her jeans were streaked with sweet-feed dust. Her hands still looked like they belonged to someone who worked indoors, but they were learning the weight of muck forks and hay bales. She handled the heavy water hoses without checking her watch every five minutes.
And somewhere between the feed room and the wash rack, the constant buzzing anxiety that usually lived beneath her ribs had gone completely quiet.
Grant caught sight of her near the wash rack after eight.
He stopped dead in the aisle, a flake of alfalfa balanced against his hip beneath one arm.
