I look up. "For what."
"This afternoon. At the fence." He sets his hat on the rail. "I was out of line getting territorial about Weston. He's not my business, you're not my business, and I don't have any right to—"
"Beckett."
He stops.
"You weren't out of line," I say. Quietly. Carefully. Like I'm stepping onto ice I haven't tested yet.
He looks at me across the rail.
The evening is doing that thing again where it goes golden and unreasonable, making everything feel closer than it is. The barn is warm behind me, the ranch is settling into its end of day sounds, Copper is breathing slow and steady under my hand.
"This is complicated," I say. "You know that."
"I know."
"You own the ranch. I manage it. Everything I've built here is tied directly to you staying or going and I can't…" I stop. Start again. "I can't afford to make decisions based on something that may not last."
He's quiet for a moment. "That's a fair thing to be afraid of."
"I'm not afraid," I say, which is the least convincing thing I've said out loud in recent memory and we both know it.
He moves around the round pen rail slowly, not fast, giving me every opportunity to take a step back. I don't take a step back. He stops close enough that I have to look up slightly to hold his gaze and the distance between us is not a practical distance anymore.
"Laney," he says. Low, steady, my name in his voice doing something completely unreasonable to my ability to think clearly.
"Don't," I say. It comes out softer than I mean it to.
"I haven't said anything yet."
"I know what you're going to say."
"Do you."
"Yes."
"And?"
My hand has stopped moving on Copper's neck. The brush is just sitting there. Beckett is right there, the evening light is doing its worst and I have run out of fence lines to look at.
"And I'm saying don't," I say. "Not yet."
He looks at me for a long moment. Something shifts in his expression, not hurt, not pushed back, just patient in a way that is somehow more dangerous than anything else he could have done.
"Okay," he says quietly. "Not yet."
He picks up his hat, settles it back on his head, and walks back toward the ranch house with the unhurried stride of a man who has decided he can wait.
I stand at the round pen with my hand on Copper's neck, watching him go. Thinking that not yet is the most dangerous thing I've ever said to anyone.
Because not yet means eventually.
And eventually is a door I just left open.
Chapter nine
One Bad Decision
