Page 13 of Ghosted Cowboy
Which meant I had just enough time to clean up and make it into town.
My stomach knotted at the thought of seeing Rainey again after Saturday night's mirror incident. After watching someone threaten her. After nearly losing my mind with the need to protect her and the frustration of not knowing who to protect her from.
But now—now I could tell her the truth. Finally explain why I'd left.
I just hoped to God it wasn't too late.
I grabbed my keys and headed for the shower, Aiden's voice drifting from the house as he began the hardest conversation of his life.
BY THE TIME I'D CLEANEDup and driven into town, full dark had fallen and brought a bone-deep cold with it. The damp air turned every breath visible, clinging to skin and making the Halloween decorations look genuinely sinister rather than festive. Fog was already forming in the low places, drifting up from Caddo Lake to settle among the live oaks with their draping moss.
Driving down Main Street toward the square, I took in the transformation the festival committee had wrought. Every storefront sported decorations—carved pumpkins, plastic skeletons, and images of cackling witches riding broomsticks, black cats perched on their shoulders. The courthouse lawn had been turned into a makeshift graveyard with fog machines and theatrical tombstones. Strings of orange lights crisscrossed between buildings.
In another week, this place would be packed with tourists. Tonight, it felt like a ghost town decorated for a party nobody had arrived at yet.
The theater loomed on the east side of the square, its 1899 facade weathered and leaning slightly left like an old drunk. Someone had strung the entrance with purple lights and positioned a massive wreath of black roses and dried wheat on the double doors. Very gothic. Very Vivian.
Inside smelled like it always had—that particular mustiness of a building remembering better days. The stage lights were already on, casting long shadows across the rows of creaking seats. I could hear voices, movement, the organized chaos of a production coming together.
I scanned for Rainey, found her near the prop table talking to Clay about something in her script. Even in jeans and a simple cream-colored sweater, she stole my breath. The way she moved, that concentration on her face, the elegant line of her slender neck as she bent over the pages—
"Ransom."
I turned to find Brooke Whitfield blocking my path, positioned between me and the stage like a very determined roadblock. Her blonde hair was shellacked into place, and she wore a dress cut low enough to be noticeably inappropriate. She smiled.
"Can we talk?" She didn't wait for an answer, just grabbed my arm with her pointy nails and steered me toward the saloon set in the far corner. "Privately."
Every instinct said this was a bad idea, but I followed her into the shadowy area where the old wooden bar and antique furniture sat waiting. The mirror, the settee, the props that would serve as backdrop for the Ghost Cowboy scenes.
The second we were out of direct sightlines, Brooke pressed herself against me. Her hands on my chest, her body crowding mine, perfume so cloying it made my eyes water.
"Rainey's had her chance," she purred, fingers walking up my shirt buttons. "But some women actually know how to keep a man interested. Some of us have experience. Sophistication." Her voice dropped. "Some of us know what men really want."
I caught her wrists, firmly removing her hands from my body. "Brooke. Stop."
"Oh, come on." She tried to lean in again, going for coy and landing somewhere near desperate. "We were good together in high school, remember? Before you got all noble and broke things off for Little Miss Perfect. But she couldn't keep you, could she? You left. Which means deep down, you know the truth—she's not enough."
Heat flared in my gut—anger, pure and simple. "You need to back off. Right now."
"Why? Because you're still hung up on her?" Brooke's laugh came bitter and sharp. "She's been moping around this pathetic town for years, Ransom. Playing dress-up in her grandmother's dusty shop, pretending community theater is a career. Meanwhile, I went to LA, I made something of myself, I have connections—"
"You've got a teaching job in the town you ran from," I cut in, my voice flat. "And I'm not interested. Will never be interested. Find someone else."
Her expression went ugly—that mask of perfection cracking to show something mean underneath. "You're making a mistake. She doesn't deserve you. All she does is—"
"Enough." The word came out hard enough to make her flinch. "Stay away from me. Stay away from Rainey. We clear?"
I pushed past her, done with this conversation, and that's when I caught movement in the lighting booth. Darcy Coleman had her phone out, pointed our direction.
Had she just filmed that whole exchange?
Before I could process it, Vivian's voice cut through the theater. "Places, everyone! Let's run the haunting sequence before we lose our light!"
The rehearsal crawled by. We worked through blocking for the finale, practiced transitions, ran the intricate choreography of actors moving in and out of scenes. Brooke kept shooting me venomous looks from across the stage. I kept my distance and tried to focus.
But mostly, I watched Rainey.
How she disappeared into Evangeline, the grieving saloon girl who couldn't let go. How she delivered lines with such raw emotion it made my chest ache. The way candlelight caught in her chestnut hair, making it shine.
