Morgan and I moved to the far end of the table while Claire kept working. Rory opened her camera roll.
She'd been shooting for weeks. I could see the span of it immediately—not one session but an ongoing project, consistent framing, a particular quality of attention. All of them were of Jace.
He hadn’t posed. She hadn’t captured the rodeo-coordinator version of him that I'd been photographing for the assignment.
Her pictures included Jace mending fences at six in the morning, his breath fogging. Jace sitting on the paddock rail reading a vet report, his shoulders low, taking his time. Jace fixing the loft stairs that Rory used every time she came looking for me, re-setting each nail with particular care. Jace leaving a glass of water and a granola bar on the step outside the barn apartment door. I didn't remember seeing him do that, but there it was.
“These are really good, Rory.”
“They're for Father's Day.” She said it quickly, like she wasn’t sure it was a good idea. “I didn't know what else to do and Ruby said a photo book was nice but that seemed—I don't know. Like something you buy.”
“This is better than something you buy.”
She looked at the screen. “I don't know how to make it into something. They're just pictures.”
“They're not just pictures.” I took her phone and scrolled back to the beginning. “They're a story. Same story in every frame.” I handed it back. “The things he does when nobody's looking.”
She stared at the screen for a long moment.
“Can you help me?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I can.”
We sat down at the table. Rory scrolled through her phone. My laptop was open between us. Claire sat across from us with her papers. Morgan had gone back to City Hall, and productive quietness had settled over us. That’s when Jace came in.
I felt him take in the room the way he took in every space—methodical, left to right—and I watched the moment his assessment shifted from professional to something else. Rory was bent over my screen, completely absorbed. Claire looked up briefly and nodded toward the journal copy. I sat in the middle of all of it, no camera raised, just present.
He walked over to Claire first and pulled out the chair across from her. He set an envelope on the table. “Thompson said you wanted to see the original.”
Claire opened it with careful hands.
Jace glanced over at me. “The display boards look good. Morgan said you helped.”
“I have strong opinions about font weights.” I smiled and his lips almost curved up but didn’t quite get there.
“Bella.” Something in the way he said it made me sit up straight and hold my breath. “I was wrong about what I said after Dana brought Rory back.”
He kept his voice level, the way he did when he'd decided to say something from start to finish. “What I said about you leaving before it mattered. That wasn't about you. I said it because?—”
He stopped. Started again. “Wanting you to stay is the part that scares me. It’s easier to make it your fault.”
Rory had gone very still, her eyes on the laptop screen with the unconvincing concentration of someone who was absolutely listening.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?”
“I hear you.” I held his gaze. “We can talk about it tonight.”
He nodded once. That was enough for him. I was learning that about Jace—he didn't need the whole conversation to know it was real.
CHAPTER 9
JACE
I drove home from the library with the journal page folded against my chest pocket and Claire's voice still in my head.
He kept a secret for decades, and he kept it perfectly.
