Page 60 of Leather & Lies

My throat tightens. Weekly deliveries cost more than I can afford right now, but they’re the only way to ensure consistent quality. Jackson knows that. Just like he knows I won’t risk my horses’ health to spite him.

The driver’s already unloading, efficient and impersonal. Like Miguel’s crew, he’s allowing me to pretend this isn’t help I desperately need.

A door slams in the house—probably someone checking the water damage. But something about the sound sets me on edge. Feels wrong. When I glance at the windows, they’re empty.

Must be imagining things.

The rhythmof rebuilding settles into my bones. Each dawn brings Miguel’s crew, each night leaves me exhausted but another piece of my ranch secured. My muscles learn new patterns—directing instead of doing, accepting help without surrendering control.

Client calls trickle in. Caroline McKenzie’s difficult stallion. The Prichett’s new jumper. All solid opportunities, all with Jackson’s fingerprints just barely visible.

“Jackson sent more lumber for the east barn,” Miguel mentions casually one morning, as if he hasn’t just detonated a bomb in my chest.

The name alone shouldn’t have the power to rob me of breath. Shouldn’t make my skin flush hot, then cold. Shouldn’t send my heart racing like I’d sprinted across the pasture.

“I didn’t ask for it.” I force my voice to remain steady.

Miguel shrugs. “He knows you need it.”

That’s the problem, isn’t it? Jackson always knows what I need—sometimes before I do. Because he’s been watching. Learning. Collecting data on me like I was a prize mare he planned to break.

Later, alone in my bedroom, I scan the corners for cameras, and I hate the hollow ache that follows when I’m certain I’m truly alone.

I miss him. Despite everything—the contract, the surveillance, the manipulation—my body still craves his touch, and my heart?—

I grab my phone, his number already pulled up before I realize what I’m doing. My thumb hovers over the screen for one wavering moment before I throw the phone across the room like it burned me.

I’m not pathetic. I’m not broken. I won’t crawl back to a man who’s violated every fucking boundary I tried to set.

Even if a broken part of me wants to.

Day by day,I piece together my father’s financial records once night falls and the work of repairing the storm damage ends. Each revelation hits harder than the last. Behind every desperate loan, every risky deal my father made, I find Jackson’s careful intervention. The dates tell a story I’m not ready to face—his years of obsession came along with protection, too.

Nights are the hardest. The house creaks with memories and new threats. That truck keeps driving past, slower each time. Strange noises in the dark that Miguel’s overnight crew pretends not to investigate.

The ranch comes back to life under my hands, but the house holds darker revelations. Each file folder I sort shows my father’s increasing desperation. Bank statements with negative balances. Meeting notes with men whose names I only heard whispered in the dark. A systematic dismantling of everything he built, piece by mortgaged piece. And over and over again, Matt Walsh’s name, damn him.

“Getting closer to livable,” Miguel observes after a week, bringing me fresh coffee in the study. His weathered eyes take in the scattered papers, the growing pattern of my father’s desperation. “Roof’s nearly done.”

I grunt acknowledgment, trying to make sense of dates and signatures. The coffee is still perfect—damn Jackson to hell.

Fuck. I want to pick up the phone and ask if he knows anything about my father’s other debts. If he knows how much my father owed Matt.

But then he’d do something about it, and Ryder’s words at the ball come back to me. Jackson’s had enough violence in his life. He doesn’t need any more from me.

The sound of trucks on the access road makes me tense, but it’s just the lumber delivery. More premium materials, exactly what we need for the next phase of repairs. The ranch hands drift casually toward the driveway as that other truck—the threatening one—slows to watch the delivery.

The next morning, I find boot prints in the mud behind the house. Not my crew, nor Miguel’s. The cowboys begin an overnight watch “to keep an eye on the horses.” Sweet, kind liars.

A text breaks my concentration.

Jackson

There’s a problem stallion at River Break. Owner asked for you specifically.

The next message has a phone number. I hate how he’s opening doors for me and hate how it’s giving me the means to run my ranch on my own—to make payroll again. Except I don’t hate it. Not really. Not at all.

The afternoon brings new sounds—boots on the back porch, whispered voices, a car door slamming too close to the house. I find Miguel doing a perimeter check, his rifle casual but visible.

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