"You didn't say no."
Dropping onto the bed, I close my eyes. "He's... difficult. Barely talks. Definitely doesn't want me here. Josie warned me, but I thought she was being dramatic."
"Josie wouldn't have hired you if the ranch wasn't worth saving. Trust your eye, Lena. You always see what other people miss."
After we hang up, I spend two hours on my laptop reviewing the ranch's existing online presence. Josie was right about the website. It looks like a tax form with a picture of a cow. No social media. No story. No brand. Just eight hundred head of cattle, six hundred acres, and a man who'd rather pull a calf in the dark than let someone take his photograph.
Which, professionally, is a problem.
Personally? The image of Tucker Brant on his knees in the mud at dawn, forearms bloody, talking low to a laboring cow? That's the shot. That's the whole brand.
If he'd let me take it.
Morning comes fast. My alarm goes off at five, and by five twenty I'm dressed in jeans, a fitted white t-shirt under a denim jacket, the hiking boots I packed as backup. Hair in a messy clip. Minimal makeup because ranch dust doesn't care about contour.
Camera bag over my shoulder, I step out of the cabin into air so cold it tightens my skin. The sky is barely grey. Stars still visible. The main house is already lit, and Tucker is on the porch with a mug, Dolly at his feet.
He looks me over. The boots, the jeans, the camera bag.
"Better," he says.
"High praise."
Another twitch at the corner of his mouth. He holds out a second mug.
Coffee. Black, strong enough to strip paint, in a chipped ceramic mug that says Brant Ranch 1962. Our fingers brush during the handoff. His are rough, warm from the cup. Mine are freezing.
He doesn't pull away immediately. Just looks at me with those steady hazel eyes, the porch light catching his jaw, the morning cold making us stand closer than two strangers should.
"You're cold," he says.
"I'm fine."
"You're shaking."
Before I can argue, he reaches behind the door and pulls a flannel off the hook. Faded blue, soft as a bedsheet, too big for me by a mile. Drops it over my shoulders without asking. His knuckles graze the side of my neck and my whole body tightens.
We're standing close. Close enough that I can see the pulse in his throat. His hand is still on the collar of the flannel, fingers near my jaw, and he's looking at my mouth again. Not quick this time. Deliberate.
My breath stops.
His thumb brushes my collarbone. Once. The lightest touch. Then he steps back, picks up his coffee, and walks toward the barn.
"Let's go. Cows don't wait."
My heart is hammering so hard I'm surprised Dolly doesn't bark at it.
Two weeks. I'm here for two weeks.
I am in so much trouble.
CHAPTER THREE
TUCKER
Three days in, Lena Cordero has rearranged the salt and pepper shakers on my kitchen table, taught both my dogs to sit for treats she keeps in her jacket pocket, and taken approximately four thousand photographs of my ranch without permission.
She's also stolen my flannel. The blue one. Wears it every morning when she comes out of the guest cabin at five thirty on the dot, coffee in one hand, camera in the other, sleeves rolled up past her elbows because it's three sizes too big on her. She hasn't offered to give it back. Hasn't mentioned it at all, actually. Just puts it on over whatever she's wearing underneath and walks around my property looking like she belongs here.
