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companies.
    All in all, it seemed like a lovely place to spend a week of vacation. In other circumstances she thought she’d really enjoy it. She unpacked her things, laid her cosmetics out in the bathroom, and reminded herself that the trip was an investment in her future career.
    She’d intended to head for the main house for dinner after she’d unpacked, but once outside the cabin, her feet took her back to the stable. A few solar lights were staked around, and she hoped they’d be enough to help her navigate back to the cabin once full dark fell. She was hungry after the afternoon’s exercise, the long drive—the general stress of the day. For the moment, though, she was more in need of another taste of the stable’s comfort: the familiar, hazy smell of horse and hay and . . . home.
    Poppy accepted the handful of sweet feed Mindy grabbed from a bin near the main door. The horse’s long, elegant face was shadowed, nearly black in the gathering gloom. Mindy wondered if lights for the stable were on the to-do list, or if Logan planned to keep things as dark as possible. A break, for his guests, from the light pollution of Texas’s cities and seemingly endless suburbs.
    “Come for the horseback riding, stay for the view of the Milky Way,” she murmured to Poppy. Her voice sounded harsh and out of place against the almost-disquieting stillness, and a prickling sensation ran up her spine, prompting her to glance over her shoulder in age-old instinct. Nobody was there. Just more horses, neatly stabled, innocently browsing for scraps in their feed bins.
    It’s quiet. Too quiet .
    She thought about every horror movie she’d ever seen, and recognized that if she were in one of them, this would be the scene where the insane killer ambushed her in the barn with a pitchfork.
    Across the aisle, one of the horses snorted and twitched at a fly, the stamp and swish filling the dead air in a comforting way. Mindy shook her head at her own foolishness, and proceeded into Poppy’s stall with a curry comb. As she passed the bristles over the dark hair, Mindy mused on the power of guilt to mess with a person’s mind.
    Poppy seemed indifferent to the grooming, but it eased Mindy’s mind to do the simple, repetitive task. When the horse grew more restive, Mindy gave her neck a final pat and slipped back out of the stall, moving down the row to the tack room, where she’d put up her saddle and bridle earlier under Lamar’s watchful eye. The saddle had been as dusty as the horse, and she’d noticed at the time it could use a polish. Now she started poking around the supply shelf for some oil and a rag.
    It was ridiculous for her to be there at all, more ridiculous still for her to be wasting time and energy on menial tasks that Logan probably already paid somebody to do. If she were thinking with her head instead of what was in her pants, she would be gone by now. No good could come of any further talks between her and Logan, not once he talked to Lamar. Although she’d be sure to apologize for not being honest with him from the start, the very next time she saw him.
    The very next time—
    “Mindy.”
    She jumped with a shriek, whirling to face the serial killer at the door, bracing for the pitchfork attack.
    It was Logan. He didn’t have a pitchfork, but Mindy wasn’t completely reassured. Some instinct made her back up at the look on his face. Not scowling, not frowning, but she could still read anger there. Anger and more. She took another step back and found herself with nowhere left to go. Her back pressed firmly against the wall between the supply shelf and the bridle rack. She tried to look like she was just leaning there casually.
    Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck—
    “You weren’t hungry?”
    It took her a second to process the question. She’d been expecting an accusation. But his voice was soft, cool. He stalked toward her, trailing his fingers along the neat row of bridles, toying with the reins.
    “I wasn’t in