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My hands tremble on Two-Step's shoulder. I breathe through the violent urge to be sick right on the barn floor.

I need to think. I need to finish this wrap, walk calmly out of this barn, and figure out how in God's name I ended up standing inside the lion's den with my daughter sleeping three hundred yards away and absolutely nowhere safe to run.

I take my eyes off Two-Step and things turn worse.

Mason's voice carries from the far end of the barn, easy and loud in a way I remember instantly. It has a particular cadence that made half the Red Dirt turn and look every time he opened his mouth.

I glance over, and he's leaned against a stall door talking to a ranch hand I don't recognize. He tips his hat back the exact same way he did the night he warned me Jagger was more trouble than he looked.

He knew he was engaged. He's just as big of a creep.

Shit. He knows I slept with Jagger!

The room tilts.

This is a real nightmare.

I'm standing on Cartwright land. Jagger's wife just complimented my work ethic while wearing her wedding rings. Jagger's brother is thirty feet away, laughing with a ranch hand. And somewhere on this property, close enough that I could probably walk there in under a minute, is the man who spent one night convincing me he'd never met anybody like me, before disappearing without so much as a note.

My stomach heaves for real this time, and I press the back of my wrist against my mouth, forcing it down through sheer will alone.

Charlie.

My baby's face appears. And too many thoughts slam into me sideways, wiping out every other panicked calculation running through my head.

I have to get her out of here.

Not eventually. Not after I finish the day or give proper notice or handle things the responsible, professional way I've handled every other client relationship I've ever built.

Right now, today, before anybody else on this ranch gets a good enough look at either one of us and starts wondering why a six-week-old baby's got a jaw that could cut glass just like her daddy's.

I finish Two-Step's wrap with hands that won't stop shaking, mumble something to the ranch hand nearest me about needing air, and abandon my supply bag half packed on the ground. Leaving it behind suddenly matters less than getting outside before my lungs give out entirely.

I push through the barn doors into the cold, gulping air that tastes like woodsmoke and frozen grass. My whole body runs on the kind of animal instinct that doesn't bother consulting the rational parts of my brain anymore.

Get to the guesthouse. Get Charlie. Get Mama. Get in the truck and figure out the money and the broken contract and Roy's disappointed face later. None of that matters more than making sure my daughter is three hours away from this ranch before anybody so much as looks at her twice.

I round the corner of the barn and slam straight into a man's chest.

The impact knocks the air clean out of me. Strong hands catch my shoulders on instinct before either of us has a chance to register what's happening. I stumble back a step, then look up into the face I spent eleven months trying and failing to forget.

Light, clear blue eyes. A jaw that could cut glass. A shadow of stubble that's a little heavier than I remember, like the last year's worn on him too, even if it clearly hasn't worn on him nearly as hard as it's worn on me.

Neither of us says anything for one long, suspended second. Then the whole world narrows down to his hands still gripping my shoulders and the sheer, impossible fact of his face hovers six inches above mine.

"Lainey." My name comes out of him rough, disbelieving, like he's not entirely convinced I'm real.

My chest cracks straight down the center, grief and fury and eleven months of carefully rehearsed indifference all detonating at once. "Let go of me."

He drops his hands like I've burned him, taking a step back. His whole face works through about six different expressions in the span of two seconds. "You're actually here. I thought—when I saw the website, I thought I was losing my mind, but you're actually standing here."

"You knew?" My voice comes out sharp and shaking, all the panic from the barn curdling instantly into something hotter and more useful. "You knew it was me, and you let me come here anyway?"

"I found out an hour ago. I was coming to find you." He reaches for me again, then seems to think better of it. His hand drops back to his side like he doesn't trust what he'll do with it. "Lainey, I've spent eleven months trying to find you. I didn't even have your last name. I searched every⁠—"

"Don't." The word comes out of me like a slap, and it feels like one too, watching it land somewhere behind his eyes. Tears well in my own. "Don't you dare stand there and tell me you were looking for me, Jagger! Not when I just spent the last five minutes making small talk with your wife!"

His whole face goes blank with confusion. "My what?"