Page 15 of Lost in the Reins

"There!" Emma secures my braid with an elastic, patting it with satisfaction. "Now you look like a real ranch girl."

I catch my reflection in the mirror—Wes's worn T-shirt drowning me, my face scrubbed clean, and a neat braid courtesy of his ten-year-old niece. Emma grins at me in the mirror, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Just wait until Uncle Wes sees you in his clothes," she says, gathering up her hair supplies. "He gets all weird when people touch his stuff, but I bet he won't mind this time."

Great. Because that's exactly what I need, to face a brooding cowboy while wearing his clothes and smelling like his niece's cotton candy body wash. But something tells me this won't be the most embarrassing moment of my three months at Whispering Pines.

After all, I haven't met Kevin the complicated peacock yet.

Chapter Seven

Wes

She's wearing my clothes.

The thought hits me sideways as I stare at the stack of bills spread across the kitchen table. Feed costs are up again—30 percent like Jake said, and that's not counting the new mineral supplements the vet recommended. I rub my temples, trying to focus on the numbers instead of the way Paisley Monroe is standing at the bottom of my stairs in my old Montana State shirt.

Her hair falls in a neat golden braid down her back, drawing attention to the graceful curve of her neck while my shirt hangs loose on her frame. The worn gray cotton that's seen a hundred washings rests on her shoulders like it belongs there.

"I'm sorry about the clothes," she says, hovering there like she's not sure where she belongs. A faint blush colors her cheeks as she fidgets with the shirt's hem. "Emma raided your dresser. Said these were headed for donation anyway."

"It's fine." I don't look up from the invoice in front of me, but I can't stop noticing things I shouldn't: the way she bites her lower lip when she's nervous, how my sweatpants are rolled multiple times at her ankles, the tentative way she carriesherself, like someone still finding their footing in an unfamiliar world. "Numbers don't lie," I mutter, more to myself than her.

She takes a step closer, and I catch the scent of Emma's cotton candy soap mixing with the faint trace of barn that even a hot shower can't quite wash away. Her green eyes, flecked with gold scan the papers spread before me. "Those look serious."

"Bills usually are." I shuffle through papers, looking for last month's fuel receipts, trying not to notice how she tucks a stray strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "Hazard of running a working ranch instead of writing about one."

The moment the words leave my mouth, I know they're sharper than intended. But she doesn't flinch, just pulls out the chair across from me and sits down like she's been invited.

"Show me."

"Show you what?"

"The bills. The costs. The real ranch experience." She spreads her hands on the table, and I notice her manicure's already chipped from one morning's work, those elegant fingers now bearing the marks of honest labor. "I'm here to learn authenticity, right? Well, this looks pretty authentic to me."

I study her for a long moment, taking in the determination in her expression and the way one side of her mouth quirks up slightly when she's challenging someone. "You want to learn about ranch finances?"

"I want to learn everything." She reaches for one of the feed invoices before I can stop her. "Though I have to admit, this is definitely not the kind of research I expected to be doing in your kitchen at"—she glances at the ancient clock on the wall—"six forty-five in the morning."

Something that might be a laugh tries to work its way up my throat, but I swallow it back. "Most romance writers probably don't spend their mornings analyzing feed costs."

"Most romance writers probably don't face-plant in horse manure either." She studies the invoice with a frown. "These numbers can't be right. The price per ton is almost double what it was last quarter?"

I blink, surprised she can make sense of the agricultural pricing. "You know something about feed costs?"

"I know something about running a business." She sets the invoice down carefully. "Before I wrote about cowboys, I worked retail. Different product, same principles—costs go up, margins go down, and sometimes you have to get creative to stay afloat."

The truth of it sits heavy in my gut, right next to the memory of Sarah saying almost the same thing two years ago. She'd seen it coming—the squeeze on small ranches, the need to adapt or die. Just like she'd seen everything else clearly, right up until that patch of black ice on the highway.

"Creative isn't always better." I gather the papers into a stack, needing something to do with my hands. "Sometimes it just means compromising what matters."

"And sometimes," she counters, "it means finding new ways to protect what matters most."

I lean back in my chair, studying her expression. “Is that what you’re doing here? Trying to save your career?”

Her chin lifts slightly, but I catch the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. "My career doesn't need saving. It needs..." She pauses, fingers tracing the edge of an invoice. "Reality. Though honestly, I'm not sure even that will be enough anymore."

"What do you mean?"

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