Ryder woke to the pale honeyed light slanting through the wide-plank shutters of his bedroom, spilling across the quilt like a benediction. He stretched slow and easy, the way a man does after years of punishing arenas and eight-second rides, his shoulders still bearing the memory of broncs and boardrooms alike.
Rolling to his side, his hand found the cool emptiness where Isobel’s warmth would soon rest. He smiled anyway, because even the space she wasn’t in still felt claimed by her. He let his palm linger there, fingers brushing the linen as though he could conjure her face—the kind of smile that could soften a bull rider’s scars and a CEO’s steel in one breath.
He lay back, arms folded behind his head, eyes tracing the grain of the timber beams overhead. His lips moved with a murmur,
