Chapter 10: Plant Your Own Flag
The world narrowed to the rough warmth of his hand on her jaw, the shocking softness of his lips, the scent of him—leather, hard work, and the sharp, clean smell of the morning’s soap. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was an assertion, a question asked with the whole of his body. It tasted of dust and resolved tension and the bitter echo of coffee.
Diana’s mind emptied. For a second, she was frozen, a porcelain doll in work gloves. Then a spark caught in her chest, a fuse lit, and she surged against him. Her hands, still encased in too-big leather, fisted in the front of his shirt, holding on as if the earth had tipped. She kissed him back, not with practiced grace but with a clumsy, desperate honesty that matched his own. It was an answer.
When he broke away, they were both breathing hard, the sound loud in the stable’s quiet. He didn’t go far. He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closed, his breath fanning over her lips. The warmth of him was a brand.
“I’m not a patient man,” he rasped, the words vibrating into her skin. “And I’m tired of pretending I don’t see you.”
She could feel the rapid drum of his heart where her knuckles pressed against his chest. Her own pulsed in her throat. She opened her eyes. His were open too, dark and so close she could see the flecks of grey, the faint lines at the corners that didn’t come from smiling. This was the geometry of it now. A new, terrifying calculation.
“You see me,” she whispered, a statement, not a question.
“Yeah.” The word was rough. He straightened slightly, putting an inch of devastating space between them, but his hand remained, his thumb stroking a slow, deliberate arc along her cheekbone. The touch sent a shiver through her that had nothing to do with the cool air. “It’s a problem.”
A laugh, brittle and unexpected, escaped her. “Because of Sergeant Peel?”
“No.” His thumb stopped. “Because of me. Because this…” He gestured between them with a slight jerk of his chin, the motion taking in the charged air, the tangled reins of his self-control. “This isn’t what I hired you for. This isn’t part of the bargain.”
The word ‘bargain’ hung there, practical and cold. It was a splash of creek water. She stepped back, and his hand fell from her face. The loss of contact was a physical ache.
“I know,” she said, her voice finding its strength. She pulled off the clumsy gloves, finger by finger, needing something to do with her hands. “I’m the housekeeper.”
“You’re not,” he said, his gaze unwavering. “You haven’t been just that for a while. You’re the one who fixed the hinge on the paddock gate when Eli busted it. You’re the one who sorted the medicine cabinet so I could find the liniment. You’re the one the foal came to.” He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it disordered. “Hargrove’s an old fool, but he’s right about one thing. Pretending otherwise is making us both stupid.”
The honesty was more disorienting than the kiss. It left no room for pretense. She looked around the stable, at the tools hung neatly on the wall she had organized, at the swept floor. His territory, but marked now by her presence.
“So what do we do?” she asked.
He was silent for a long moment, studying her as if the answer were written on her features. “We go about our day. We get the work done. We don’t… force anything.” He said it like he was convincing himself. “But we stop pretending. That’s all.”
That’s all. It felt like everything. The air between them was still electric, but the current had changed. It wasn’t a spark looking for a target anymore. It was a live wire, acknowledged, humming with potential danger and power.
“Alright,” she said.
He nodded, once. A business-like dip of his chin. But his eyes stayed on hers a second too long. “The sergeant,” he said, shifting topics with a visible effort. “If he comes, you let me handle him. Not because you can’t. But because it’s my fence to mend.”
“I understand,” she said. And she did. It wasn’t about her capability. It was about his responsibility. The geometry.
He turned to finish untacking the draft horse, his movements returning to their usual efficient rhythm, though she saw the lingering tension in the set of his shoulders. She stood there, feeling unmoored. Her lips still tingled. The memory of his touch on her skin was a fresh brand.
She didn’t know what to do with her hands. So she picked up a brush and started on the grey mare they’d ridden that morning, losing herself in the rhythmic strokes, the familiar scrape of bristle on coat. The simple, physical act was a anchor. He worked beside her, not speaking, the silence now a different creature—aware, charged, but not hostile.
The afternoon bled away in a series of small tasks. They forked fresh hay into stalls. He showed her how to check a horse’s hoof for stones without getting kicked, his hand guiding hers around the pastern, his touch clinical and brief, yet it burned. They mended a section of harness in the slanting light by the stable door, their fingers occasionally brushing as they passed the waxed thread.
Every look, every accidental contact, was magnified. A new language was being written in the space between them, one of glances held a beat too long and breaths drawn in unison.
They were cleaning the tack room, Diana wiping down saddles with a rag dipped in neat’s-foot oil, when the sound of a horse at a trot carried into the yard. A different gait from their own plodding workhorses. Crisp. Purposeful.
Daniel’s head came up. He set down the bridle he was holding and walked to the stable door, wiping his hands on his jeans. Diana followed, stopping a few paces behind him.
A man in a crisp blue cavalry uniform rode into the yard, sitting straight in the saddle. His boots, as Hargrove had noted, were polished to a high gloss. He had a lean, clean-shaven face, sharp eyes that missed nothing. Sergeant Arthur Peel.
He reined in, his gaze sweeping over the ranch house, the yard, landing on Daniel in the stable doorway. A polite, thin smile touched his lips. “Mr. Montgomery.”
“Sergeant.” Daniel didn’t move from the doorway, his body blocking the entrance. It wasn’t overtly hostile, just solid. A gate closed.
“I was in the area, checking fence lines for the quartermaster’s report. Thought I’d stop by.” Peel’s eyes slid past Daniel, finding Diana in the shadows. The smile widened, lost its thinness, gained a practiced warmth. “Ah. Mrs. Jarvis. A pleasure to see you again.”
Diana felt Daniel’s posture shift almost imperceptibly beside her. She stepped forward, just enough to be clearly seen, her hands clasped loosely in front of her apron. “Sergeant.”
“I hope I’m not interrupting your work,” Peel said, his tone suggesting he hoped precisely that.
“You are,” Daniel said, his voice flat. “We’re in the middle of settling a new mare. Needs attention.”
Peel’s smile didn’t falter. He was a man used to navigating obstacles. “Of course. I won’t keep you. Just a social call. And to perhaps inquire if Mrs. Jarvis might be available to consult on a domestic matter at the fort. Some of the officers’ wives are struggling to manage the… rustic conditions. Your experience here would be invaluable.”
It was a clever thrust. Framed as professional need, a compliment to her skills. It put the refusal on her, not him.
Daniel spoke before she could. “Her experience is needed here. The ranch is her priority. Her days are full.” He met Peel’s gaze squarely. “I’m sure the officers’ wives are resourceful.”
The politeness was a thin veneer over steel. Peel’s eyes narrowed just a fraction. He looked at Diana, an invitation to overrule him. “Ma’am?”
All the uncertainty from the stable, the dizzying kiss, the terrifying new awareness, coalesced into a cold, clear point. This man was not part of her new memories. He was a splinter from the old world, one of polished surfaces and calculated advances. She thought of the bridge in her pocket, of the foal’s trust, of Daniel’s hand on her face.
“My mourning is private, Sergeant,” she said, her voice clear in the quiet yard. She used his own wording from Hargrove’s report, making it a deliberate echo. “And Mr. Montgomery is correct. My duties here require all my time. I’m not available for consultation.”
Peel stared at her for a long moment. The pleasant mask slipped, revealing a flash of frustration, of incredulity that she would choose this dusty ranch and this taciturn man over the potential society of the fort. He covered it quickly, nodding. “I see. A pity. Well. I’ll be sure to note the… self-sufficiency of your operation in my report, Montgomery. The quartermaster values reliability.”
The threat was barely veiled. The contract hinged on reliability.
“You do that,” Daniel said, unflinching.
With a final, lingering look at Diana that felt like a touch, Peel tugged his reins, turned his horse, and trotted out of the yard. They watched until he was a speck on the road to the fort.
The silence he left behind was different from the silence in the stable. This was shared. A trench dug side-by-side.
Daniel let out a slow breath. He didn’t look at her. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes,” she said. “I did.”
He finally turned. The late afternoon sun gilded the side of his face, highlighting the dust in his stubble, the weary resolve in his eyes. The unreadable mask was gone. In its place was something raw, grateful, and fiercely possessive. It should have frightened her. It didn’t. It felt like a cornerstone settling into place.
“He’ll put a note in the report,” Daniel said. “A petty one. Might make the price negotiations harder come spring.”
“Then we’ll make the ranch so spotless, the report will look like a lie,” she said, the ‘we’ slipping out naturally.
A real smile, small and weary, touched his lips. It transformed his face. “We?”
She didn’t blush. She held his gaze. “You’re tired of pretending. So am I.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then gave a single, definitive nod. He reached out, not to kiss her again, but to gently pluck a stray piece of hay from her hair. His fingers grazed her temple. “Alright then,” he murmured, his voice soft. “We will.”
He walked past her, back into the stable, leaving her standing in the golden light. The scent of his touch lingered on her skin, mingling with the oil from the rag and the dry Montana air. In the near pasture, the new mare whinnied, and the leggy foal answered with a high, wondering call. Diana turned toward the house. There was supper to make, a kitchen to clean, a bridge in her pocket that was no longer just a piece of whittled wood. It was a promise, built one fragile span at a time.