But seeing the stall doors flung open and no sign of Rosie and Stern anywhere...yep, it’s atrocious.
“Grace?”
“They’re gone. Dad...he opened the stalls before he walked outside and collapsed. He said he’d get the horses ready while I hooked up the trailer.” My heart sinks into a black pit as I spin around, staring at the open door. It might as well be a sawed-off shotgun aimed at my head. “Holy hell, they’ve been gone all day.”
Ridge sweeps forward, grabbing my arm, holding me up when I’m not sure my knees will anymore.
“We’ll find them,” he growls. “They couldn’t have gotten far. The snow’s a lot less melted in these hills and fields. They couldn’t have moved much faster than turtles out there.”
His words are hardly any comfort.
A horrible flash of the horses dead in the fields hits me, their legs twisted from uneven, icy ground.
Just when I thought my heart had nothing left to break, the last piece teeters on a cliff.
If something horrid happened to Rosie and Stern, it’ll be the end of me.
It’s growing darker by the minute.
After Ridge spots hoofprints in the snow, we’re in his truck, bouncing along barely cleaned up field roads, eyes darting around in all directions for Rosie and Stern.
The urge to curl up and die, knowing it’s my fault, gnaws at my heart.
I should’ve checked up on them.
I should’ve realized Dad was going to open their stalls, getting them ready for the trailer.
I should’ve just had an effing brain.
“Grace, I’m sorry,” Ridge says suddenly, raking me with this deep blue gaze. “For this morning. Accusing you of that media leak...I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. Actually, I do. It was Hollywood hitting me in the face, everything I wanted left behind, and I panicked. Jumped to conclusions I shouldn’t have.”
I’m frozen.
Just when I thought nothing could make me feel worse, boom, there it is.
It’s not nearly as absurd to believe I’d ratted him out when I think about it.
He’s rich, famous, and reclusive.
Who wouldn’t want everyone and their dog to know they’re staying at his ranch? What scummy gutter reporter wouldn’t want inside baseball on the tragic boy actor who’s turned into a haunted man?
Practically everyone.
I’m sure he’s encountered his share of deranged fans, too, like the girls who came after him when he was America’s favorite teenage vampire heartthrob. Strangers on a selfish mission to upend his already messy, mysterious life.
Hello, I’m deranged!
“Grace, I—”
“Don’t say it, Ridge. I’m the one who should be sorry.” I keep my gaze glued to the windows, searching the area lit up by the headlights for the horses. “I know what your privacy means to you, and should’ve realized that when you got after me. It’s just...” I’m searching for a justification, a reason why I believed he’d use me as a tool for his career.
Stupid, I know.
All signs point to him meaning it when he calls himself retired.
“I’m the one who started it and got up in your business,” he says. “I told Jackknife Pete we were engaged that night at the bar, so...I get how you thought I’d told others, too.”
“But you wouldn’t have,” I argue. “You came here for privacy, a clean start, and now, thanks to me, you won’t have it any longer.”
I’m downplaying it so much. The reality is far worse.
And that reality slaps me across the face when he looks at me, his eyes twin blue fires, and asks, “Tell me one thing, Grace. Who the hell’s at the top of the pyramid? Who’s the real man after you?”
I instantly know he’s referring to Dad’s comment this morning. My stomach churns so hard bile rises in the back of my throat.
It’s the least he deserves, isn’t it?
An explanation.
He’s done so much for me, and now he’s wrapped up in the same sick chase I never would’ve wished on my worst enemy.
Without him, Dad and I would be—I clamp my back teeth together. I don’t even want to think where we’d be without Ridge Barnet right now.
“I told you, Dad hooked up with bad people years ago. Their leader is a man named Clay Grendal. I honestly don’t know the specifics, Dad never told me how they worked or what they did together, he never wanted me to know everything. What I do know is...Dad was involved when he worked at the railroad. He helped them with cargo, I think, probably tweaked manifests and oversaw transfers and such.”
“Yeah, he couldn’t have been in deep. They wouldn’t have even