It was the choking certainty of eyes fixed on her from somewhere beyond the trees.
Panic detonated under her ribs.
Abandoning the search, Izzy clutched the painting and sketchbook tightly against her and turned back toward the clearing, stumbling over roots and uneven ground as she hurried downhill through the trees.
She didn’t slow until she burst back into the cabin, shoving the heavy door closed behind her.
She leaned hard against the wall, trying to force air back into her lungs.
“You planning on staying out here all night?”
Izzy screamed.
The sound ripped out of her before she could stop it.
Her boots slipped on the dusty floorboards as she jerked backward, the painting flying from her hands.
Grant caught her before she hit the floor.
His hands clamped around her waist, hauling her hard against him as the momentum knocked his hat loose and sent it rolling across the cabin floor.
Silence crashed over the room.
Izzy’s fingers twisted into the rough denim of his shirt, her pulse hammering against her ribs. Grant stared down at her, his flint-blue eyes intense beneath the low cabin light. He didn’t let go, his grip tightening at her waist, anchoring her closer.
Too close.
For one charged heartbeat neither of them moved. His gaze dipped to her mouth. The air between them turned dangerously thin. He leaned down just a fraction?—
“Cowboy…” Izzy whispered, still trying to recover air. “Between your bats and you sneaking up on me, I’m not going to make it to thirty-three.”
Grant froze. A low, gravelly huff of laughter escaped him as the tension cracked—but he didn’t quite step back.
“I didn’t sneak,” he rumbled. “I’ve been calling your name for ten minutes. You were miles away.”
Slowly, he eased her back onto her feet, his hands lingering at her hips longer than necessary before he made himself let go.
Cool air rushed into the space his body had occupied. Izzy’s mouth felt dry; her tongue flicked out to wet her lower lip before she could stop herself. Heat flooded her cheeks as much from that tiny betrayal as from the scare.
“Well, a warning text would’ve sufficed,” she managed.
Grant didn’t step back. His gaze shifted from her face, taking in the rest of the room—the stacked canvases, the charcoal sketches, the decades of undisturbed dust now stirred up around them.
“Been looking for you,” he said, his voice dropping. “You’ve been gone a while, and it’s getting late.” He looked down at the canvas that had skidded across the floor, then back at her windblown hair and wide eyes. His brow furrowed. “You look like you saw a ghost out there.”
Izzy crossed her arms, trying to stop the tremor in her fingers. “I was trying to find the perspective layout. And then… I don’t know. The woods went dead quiet.” She looked toward the open window, her throat tight. “It felt like Evan. It felt exactly like being watched.”
Grant’s expression calcified, his jaw tightening into a protective line. He stepped back into her space, solid and immovable.
“Did you see someone?”
“No,” she said quietly. “Just a sound. But I know that feeling, Grant. I know it down in my bones.”
Grant held her gaze, his eyes measuring her.
“Alright,” he said softly. “Never been in here. Sam told me the roof started to go years back. It’s tucked so far up the ridge I never had a reason to mess with it, so I left it alone. But if something’s moving around up here, you’re not tracking it down by yourself.”
He stepped farther inside, measured, his eyes landing on the paintings. From the corner of his vision, he caught her again—how she’d gone still in front of the canvas of his land, how she leaned in without touching, reverent and focused. The way she looked at the work made it easy to see why she did this for a living.
