Page 15 of May's Cowboy Roman
“I can't.”
“Rachel—”
“I know you're trying to protect something.” I closed the journal. “I don't think it's the supplier. I think it's the people here. The ones who built this thing from scratch and are too stretched to admit it's going sideways.” I paused. “I think you've been carrying this by yourself because nobody else is looking at it clearly, and you don't know how to hand it off to someone who might actually help.”
He went very still.
That particular silence, the one that came right before a man either shut a door or walked through it—was one I recognized. I'd sat across it in a dozen different rooms. Offices, kitchens, the front seats of trucks. The moment where the story tipped.
Roman closed the distance between us in two steps. He stopped near enough that I had to tilt my chin up to hold his eyes, and I felt the heat rolling off him, the long afternoon sun still in his skin, the steadiness he wore like armor.
“You think you've got it figured out,” he said.
“I think I've got enough.”
“You've got pieces.” His voice was rough. “And pieces get people hurt when you go printing them like they're the whole picture.”
“Then give me the whole picture.”
His jaw worked. His eyes dropped to my mouth for just a second, fast, controlled, like he'd caught himself—and came back up. Whatever he'd been about to say didn't come out.
I didn't step back. That was the thing. I knew I should. The rational, professional part of me assembled a clean argument for why I should take two steps back and put my notebook between us like a reasonable person. The rest of me stayed exactly where I was.
Roman's hand came up and his fingers curved around my jaw. His touch was careful and demanding at the same time. Then he kissed me.
It wasn't urgent. That was what caught me off guard. It was controlled and sure and thorough, the kind of kiss that came from a man who didn't do anything halfway when he finally decided to do it at all. His thumb rested against my cheek. His mouth was warm, and I felt it everywhere, a slow pull from my lips down through my chest and into my stomach and then even lower.
So, I kissed him back. Because I'd been watching him for days and my body had already done the math my brain refused to finish. For about fifteen seconds, nothing else mattered.
Then he pulled back. He didn't go far. An inch, maybe two. His hand dropped from my face. His eyes were darker than they'd been, and his breathing wasn't quite as steady as his expression wanted me to believe.
“You need to stop digging.” His voice came out rougher than before. “Not because I'm trying to cover anything up. Because there are people attached to this who can't afford the attention you bring.”
“I know.”
“I mean it, Rachel.”
“I know you mean it.” I searched his face. “That doesn't change what I have to do.”
He looked at me for a long moment. Something in his expression shifted. Not toward anger, not toward resignation. Toward something more complicat.ed than either. He stepped back, picked up the lead rope he'd left on the fence rail, and turned toward the pen without another word.
I stood there with the late sun on my face, my journal pressed flat against my ribs, and my pulse doing things I'd deal with later.
The horse moved to the fence and stretched its nose toward Roman's shoulder, and Roman let it. He was quiet and patient and completely turned away from me, like he hadn't just kissed me like he had every intention of doing it again.
I walked back toward the gate. This wasn't a simple rodeo piece anymore. It hadn't been since the night he stopped on the side of the road, since the moment I'd watched him in my rearview mirror and thought there's more to this. The supplier, the horses, the gaps in the paperwork… those were the story. But Roman standing in the middle of all of it, guarding it with his back straight and his hands sure— That was something else. Something I didn't have a category for yet.
I pushed through the gate and didn't look back. But I already knew I couldn’t let it go. I’d return. To the story. To the truth he was sitting on top of like it was the last solid thing he owned.
To him.
CHAPTER 7
ROMAN
The buckskin wouldn't settle after Rachel left. Was that the horse, or was that me?
I told myself it was the horse. The shift in barometric pressure, maybe. The way the wind had turned. But the gelding had been fine ten minutes ago. Calm, even. Nosing my shoulder like we'd known each other for years instead of hours.
