Page 111 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

His eyes flash. “So you knew it was a bad idea.”

I step closer. “No. I knew you’d make it one.”

Silas doesn’t want me with Duke. Duke absolutely does not appreciate being told that. Cody…

Cody’s eyes meet mine for one split second and I have to look away first because there’s too much in them. Too much tension, too much thought, too much of that precise, contained intensity that always feels like it’s one bad moment away from snapping.

I cannot be in this room anymore.

“Unbelievable,” I say, shaking despite my best efforts. “All of you.”

Then I turn and walk out.

No one stops me.

I’m grateful for that for exactly half a second before I realize it means they’re probably all too stunned or furious to move.

Fine.

Good.

Whatever.

By the time I reach the house, my chest is tight and my hands are shaking again, which is getting real old, real fast. I go upstairs too quickly, nearly trip on the last step, slam my bedroom door behind me, and just stand there like an idiot.

Breathing.

Trying to breathe.

My room is dark except for the moonlight at the window, all pale silver across the floorboards. My bed is still unmade from this morning.

My cardigan is draped over the chair by the desk. My camera bag sits by the wall where I left it.

Normal.

Everything looks normal.

I don’t feel normal.

“Jeez,” I whisper to no one.

Then, because apparently my life has become a nonstop parade of disasters, I laugh once and it comes out too close to a sob for comfort.

Nope.

Absolutely not.

I’m not doing this.

Not the crying thing, the replaying the argument thing, the why do all three of them make me feel like I’m standing too close to a live wire thing.

I need something concrete, real, with columns and time stamps and logic that doesn’t care who kissed who or who thinks they get to tell me what to do.

My laptop.

I grab it off the desk so fast I nearly knock over my pen cup.

If the men of Ironwood Ranch want to spend their night imploding over control and jealousy and whatever the hell that scene in the barn office was, then I’m going to do the thing I’m actually good at.