The first thing Lila Dawson noticed was that the copper pitcher was still moving.
It rocked once against the wooden edge of the bathing tub.
Then again.
A hollow metallic knock echoed through the bathhouse.
That was the sound she had heard from the kitchen.
The sound that had sent her running barefoot through the rear corridor of Bennett Ranch with her heart hammering against her ribs.
Now she stood in the open doorway and wished desperately that her body would remember how to move.
Cole Bennett sat inside the large cedar bathing tub near the stone wall.
Steam drifted upward around his shoulders.
His wet black hair had fallen across his forehead.
Water ran down his face and beard, then along the broad lines of his chest before disappearing beneath the surface of the bath.
One muscular arm rested against the rim.
The other still held the copper pitcher he had apparently dropped moments earlier and recovered.
Cole stared directly at her.
Lila stared back.
Neither spoke.
The bathhouse suddenly felt much too small.
She had known Cole Bennett for six weeks.
Long enough to know he was thirty-eight years old.
Long enough to know he owned nearly forty thousand acres of Texas grazing country and more cattle than Lila could count without a ledger.
Long enough to know his ranch hands stopped joking when he entered a room.
Long enough to know he preferred black coffee, rarely ate breakfast before sunrise, hated carnations, kept three separate sets of keys because he trusted locks more than memory, and returned from long rides with his hat tilted farther back when he was worried.
She also knew he was a large man.
That fact had not been difficult to determine.
But knowing and seeing were apparently two entirely different experiences.
“Lila?”
His voice broke whatever spell had imprisoned her.
She immediately looked toward the ceiling.
“I heard something.”
Cole lowered the pitcher.
“I gathered that.”
“I thought you fell.”
“I didn’t.”
“There was a crash.”
“The pitcher slipped.”
“Yes.”
Lila remained in the doorway.
Cole waited.
A terrible realization came to her.
She was still standing there.
She turned sharply.
“I should leave.”
“Wait.”
Her hand stopped on the door.
That single word did something unreasonable to her pulse.
She kept her back toward him.
Behind her, water moved softly.
Then silence.
“Were you really frightened?”
Lila closed her eyes.
This was the problem with Cole Bennett.
He did not waste many words.
When he asked something, he usually wanted the true answer.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
That was worse.
Lila’s fingers tightened around the rough wooden door.
Why.
Because she had heard the crash and imagined him unconscious beneath the water.
Because for six weeks she had listened for his horse every evening.
Because when bad weather kept him on the northern range overnight, she checked the windows long after everyone else slept.
Because the enormous Bennett house felt less empty when his boots were beside the kitchen door.
Because his coffee cup appearing beside the ledger every morning had somehow become part of the architecture of her life.
Because she had been trying not to fall in love with her employer.
She turned slowly.
Cole had set the pitcher aside.
A folded towel now lay across his shoulders and chest, preserving enough modesty that she could force herself to meet his eyes.
His expression had changed.
No amusement.
No embarrassment.
Only attention.
“Because,” Lila said carefully, “somewhere along the way, you stopped being only the man who signs my wages.”
Cole did not move.
Lila heard herself breathe.
She wanted to stop.
Instead she continued.
“And became someone I’m frightened to lose.”
Something shifted in Cole’s face.
Barely.
But Lila had become good at reading the small changes he thought nobody noticed.
His jaw loosened.
His eyes softened.
His next breath came slower.
“Lila.”
She reached into the pocket sewn into the side of her pale blue nightgown.
The paper felt damp from her hand.
“This is why I came running.”
Cole’s expression changed immediately.
She crossed the room.
Held it toward him.
He did not take it at first.
“What is it?”
“Someone pushed it under my bedroom door.”
“When?”
“Maybe ten minutes ago.”
Now he took it.
One folded sheet.
No signature.
The message consisted of seven words.
Cole read them twice.
Then a third time.
His face became hard.
Lila knew the words by memory.
IF HE BATHES TONIGHT, HE DIES BEFORE MIDNIGHT.
Cole looked toward the wall clock.
11:37.
Then toward the tub.
“Did you show anyone?”
“No.”
“Who knows you came here?”
“No one.”
“You passed anybody?”
“No.”
His gaze moved toward the small iron stove that heated the water.
Then the narrow vent above it.
Then the window.
Lila followed.
“What are you thinking?”