The Front Runner: A Small Town Fake Dating Romance (Gold Rush Ranch Book 3)

It’s been the longest week of my life. I’m a shell of myself, and I’m not even succeeding at hiding it. My heartbreak is on my sleeve for everyone to see. I thought foaling season sucked, but getting over what happened between Stefan and me is worse. It’s truly a torment I’ve never known.

I haven’t heard a single thing from Stefan all week. He hasn’t called or texted. And I haven’t either. Giving him space seems like the most grown-up approach at this time.

I wish I could make him see things the way I do, but I’m not one to force things on another person. If I were more like Billie, I’d march over there and browbeat him until he relented. I’m more live and let live, though. If that’s what he thinks of this, of me, then that’s fine. I’ll get over it.

Eventually.

But not soon enough. Because this hurts. I feel like we’ve spent months building a complicated puzzle together, and now he’s taken one piece and hidden it on me. It’s annoying to look at, no matter which way I spin it, what perspective I move to—the puzzle is incomplete.

I’m incomplete.

How it happened is beyond me. All those quiet nights on the barn floor, I guess. All the inappropriate jokes. All the times he asked me on a date. All the times I turned him down.

All the time I wasted when we could have been together.

If I’d said yes, I might have had more time with him before this happened. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened at all. Maybe it all would have come out more organically if I hadn’t been so fucking stubborn.

Instead, I’m here in the office replaying our interactions and nights together, feeling his hands sliding over my skin, hearing the filthy words spilling from his lips.

I’m missing him like crazy and trying to pretend I don’t. Nadia eyes me speculatively now and then. We both know talking about my relationship with her brother would be weird. And he’s her brother, so I fully expect she takes his side in this nightmare. If there are sides to be had at all. Plus, I know he loves her more than anything in the world, so it feels wrong to lament anything about him to her, even if she’s become a friend.

If you ask me, it’s just one big sorry situation. She asks me how I’m doing with a weird intonation that tells me she doesn’t believe me when I say I’m good.

I am not good. I’m fucking sick.

“What are you staring at?” Billie says from behind me where I’m staring out the enormous windows at the front of the clinic.

I spin, startled by her presence. She must have come in through the back door closest to the barn.

“An eagle,” I lie.

“Huh.” She peers at the sky in an exaggerated fashion. “I must have missed it.”

We both know she didn’t miss shit.

“Must have.”

“You holding up, Mimi?”

“Jesus Christ. Can you not?” I cross my arms and shake my head.

Her hand falls across her chest in mock alarm. “Not what?”

“Your nicknames. I’ve escaped them for this long. I thought I was doing okay, and now all of a sudden, I’m Mimi?”

She snorts. “It doesn’t suit you at all.”

“Yes. Exactly. Thank you.”

“But that’s why I like it.”

I groan and drop my chin to my chest. “Sometimes I wonder why I love you so much.”

“Because I’m honest.”

Ugh. I really don’t want to hear about honesty. According to Stefan, I’m dishonest. And that hurts too. I don’t think I’m a dishonest person. Not at all. I got tangled up these last couple months, but I’m not a liar. And I don’t like being called one.

“Uh huh…” I peek at Billie out of the corner of my eye, wondering what’s coming next.

“I’m here to tell you to pull yourself up by the bootstraps. He’s just a boy. And you are a fucking rockstar.”

This conversation is the epitome of what I don’t want to talk about. “Thanks,” I reply tersely.

She snorts. “Maybe Dalca the Dick really is a dick after all, huh?”

I know she’s trying to make me laugh, but this doesn’t feel funny right now. It feels like she’s diminishing what happened between us. And the more time I spend away from Stefan, the more I realize what happened between us is love. Or at least something a lot like it.

“Funny.” I don’t laugh.

Her amber eyes dart over to mine. “I wasn’t trying to be funny, Mira. I was right. The guy is a dick, and you deserve better.”

What are the stages of grief again? Because I’m pretty sure my best friend just catapulted me into the anger phase.

“You know what, Billie? Fuck you. This isn’t the moment where I need you to be right. I needed you to be wrong.”

Heat lashes at my gut, and I spin on my heel to walk away. I need to get out of here. But I come face-to-face with a wide-eyed Nadia. “Can you lock up, Nadia? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It’s only been one week since Stefan asked me if I only do things when they benefit me, and I’m still not over it. Still not over him.

And I’m not sure I ever will be.

“You’re really out?” My Nana is not buying my story about how I came to see her for more samosas. “Because you don’t look like you’ve been eating.”

I haven’t been.

“Yup. Can we make some?”

Folding samosas with my grandmother is therapeutic. It’s soothing. And right now, I need to be soothed. Even her lilting accent soothes me—until it reminds me of Stefan’s and the way it’s more pronounced when he’s turned on. A shiver races down my spine.

She hobbles back into my parents’ house, shaking her head. “Your parents are out right now.”

She moved in here a couple of years ago after my grandfather passed. She tells me it’s because I’m her favorite grandchild, but I’m pretty sure it’s because my parents have a separate suite she can live in.

I follow her to the kitchen and try to pull stuff out, but I’m moping, and I keep getting in her way. I feel like Eeyore dragging his sad ass around just being generally brutal.

“You”—she points at me and then points at the table—“go sit down.”

“Okay.” I tuck my tail and drop into a chair, relieved to be resting and away from prying eyes, disapproving stares, and awkward conversations with Hank. God, are they ever awkward. He’s trying so hard to be chipper around me while also not talking about the elephant in the room.

It’s brutal, and I’m ashamed to say I’ve taken to avoiding him.

“Where is the blond boy?” Nana has her upper body shoved into the fridge where she’s pulling ingredients.

“Probably working.”

“Did he break your heart?”

My throat constricts. But I don’t respond.

“Yes?” She shakes her head as she bends down to pull a bowl out of the lower cupboard, her cotton saree draping with her every movement. “I knew he would.”

“I thought you said he wasn’t my type?”

She looks at me now, her eyes fierce, her index finger pointing straight at me once again. “Exactly. Your type wasn’t working for you, so I knew he would. All smart and sexy and established, why wouldn’t he?”

Did my grandmother just call Stefan Dalca sexy?

I clear my throat and pick at a dent on the dated wooden table.

“So?”

“So what?”

“Did he break your heart?”

I feel my bottom lip wobble. “Yeah.”

“And what are you going to do about it?” she asks as she continues organizing ingredients and cooking utensils.

“I mean… nothing. I don’t think he can forgive me. I’m not one to grovel. I’m still not even sure I did anything wrong. It’s… complicated.”

“Mira, Mira, Mira.” Her head shakes, and she makes a tutting noise. “You work so hard for everything else that you want in life. School, career, your independence—you haven’t cared about what anyone thought about all that. What makes this any different? What makes you think you won’t have to work for this?”

“I…” I trail off.

I don’t have a good answer. The only thing that runs through my head is Stefan asking if I ever do something that doesn’t benefit me. Going after him with reckless abandon would serve me, but would it just upset him? I feel like I’m living each day with that one sentence haunting me. Do I really do that? I became a veterinarian to help animals, to be a voice for those who don’t have one, and I know I’ve helped countless people along the way. As a general rule, people love their animals and appreciate my work.

But I’m paralyzed by the sentiment that I do nothing unless it helps me in some way. Do I only save animals because it makes me feel good? And if I do… is that even a bad thing?

“Do you want him?”

That’s a question I barely need to think about. “Yes.”

“Then take him. I saw the way that fool looked at you when you were here. You might have thought you were tricking us by bringing a fake date to fend off the questions, but not me. And nothing about that day was fake for him.”

I think she’s trying to reassure me, but it’s not working. The cracking pain in my chest is sharp enough to take my breath away.

“Okay.” My breathing hitches as my brain whirrs.

What have I done? How have I so easily dismissed our connection as something fleeting? Why did I give up on him when I’ve never given up on anything that matters to me in my life? Maybe it’s not so bad I do things that benefit me.

Maybe my mistake is failing to make Stefan one of those things.

“Well?” She props her tiny fists on her full hips and gives me a suffering look. “Why are you still here pretending that you’re out of samosas?”

Why does she know absolutely everything?

“Get out of here. Go get him. Nobody walks away from my favorite granddaughter unless she lets them.”

I was so concerned about what everyone else would think that I failed to notice the way a great man worshipped me. The way he was good for me. And now I’ve hurt him. And it doesn’t even matter who’s right or wrong. There’s no fault. My intention doesn’t matter. None of that matters, because I hurt a man who has done nothing but care for me in a way no one ever has.

I don’t even respond. There’s no point in denying my freezer is practically overflowing with samosas. My plan was to pawn these off on Billie and Vi. I nod, swiping my keys off the counter and striding out the front door.

My heart knows how I feel about him. But my head—well, my head is a complicated place to be sometimes. I exist in a world of absolutes and science. But there is nothing absolute about falling in love.

No, that’s a matter for the soul.

The minute I hop in my truck, all fired up and feeling determined, my phone rings through the Bluetooth system. Nadia is calling. I press the button, expecting her to have some question about closing the clinic for the night.

What I don’t expect is her panicked voice. “Mira! The barn at Cascade Acres is on fire!”

I’ve never driven so dangerously in my life. I know the back roads around these small towns like the back of my hand, so I cut every corner I can and break every speed limit. Nadia didn’t have much information other than she’d gotten a call from the barn manager and was heading over there.

I got a hold of Vaughn to close the clinic for us, and I’ve made it back to Ruby Creek in record time. I can see the smoke billowing ahead of me like an omen. My stomach sinks at the sight of the dark clouds over Stefan’s picturesque farm.

Inhaling deep breaths into my lungs, I try to force myself into the right head space for what I might walk into. Barn fires aren’t exactly unheard of. Unfortunately, hay and wood make for excellent kindling. But the outcome never gets easier. Burns, smoke inhalation, it’s almost always ugly and heartbreaking.

Especially with the size of the smoke overhead. This isn’t some small spark.

I confirm my suspicions when I turn into the driveway. The scenic barn is covered in smoke, flames licking up the back side of the building. Lights flash in the darkening night, and I hear the firefighters shouting as I park and jump out of my truck—heading straight for the fire.

I see the barn manager, Leo, staring at the scene before him, mouth agape, standing with the glow of flames lighting his face.

“Are the horses out?” I ask him.

“I—no. Not all of them. We’d just put them all away for the night when it happened.”

My heart lurches. Loki. Farrah. Rage courses through me. “And why are you just standing here?”

“What am I supposed to do?”

Absolute idiot. “Were you here when it started?”

He nods solemnly. The coward was here when it started and didn’t do shit except stand here catching flies.

“Where is Stefan?

“On his way.”

“Where is Nadia?”

“She went in.”

A chill starts from the ground, seeping up through my bones. “Excuse me?”

He points at the barn. “Just a couple minutes ago.”

“Fuck, Leo. Has anyone ever mentioned that you’re a pussy?” I storm toward the barn and stop near a fully outfitted firefighter. “There’s someone in there, did you know that?”

“We just got here, ma’am. We’re assessing the situation.”

Not good enough. Nadia is in there. Stefan can’t lose her. It will kill him.

Moments later, Nadia stands at the wide-open doors, eyes wild and searching. My relief is short-lived.

“I need gloves,” she shouts. “I can’t get the stalls open! The metal latches are too hot.”

Then she turns and races back into the building. A firefighter runs to the door, trying to grab her before she disappears back into the smoke.

My stomach sinks as I stare at the barn. Her words haunt me as I watch the flames building on each other. Everything Stefan has worked so hard for. The redemption he’s thrown himself into. His horses that he loves so quietly. Sweet souls who have no hope of helping themselves in this situation.

His sister.

The thought barely crosses my mind before I’m moving. I grab a pair of gloves sitting on the bumper of the firetruck and sprint for the barn before anyone can stop me. No chance I’ll stand here watching a barn full of horses and a friend of mine burn to death while they formulate a plan. It’s simply not an option.

I hear shouts behind me as I shove my hands into the big gloves and charge through the door. It crosses my mind what I’m doing is monumentally stupid, but I don’t linger on that thought. Even if I can save a few horses and get out, I’ll be happy.

Thick smoke fills the dark barn. The whinnies are loud over the crackling of the fire. I can almost taste the fear. And then I see Nadia, trying to grab a latch but jerking away when it sizzles against her skin.

Her eyes find mine, her voice imploring as she points down the barn alleyway to where the smoke is thickest. “Mira! Loki is down there! They’re all in here.”

She looks down at her hands, and it doesn’t take a medical degree to see that she’s burned them in her failed attempts to open the stalls.

“Nadia. Out. You need medical attention. I’ve got this.”

“Let me help you!” She’s in shock, tears streaming down her face.

“No.”

“Mira. You don’t understand. If he loses Loki, I don’t think he’ll ever forgive himself. That foal is proof that not everything he touches turns to shit. I have to get him out.”

“And if he loses you, Nadia? Then what?” I grab her, sheltering her underneath my arm and walking her toward the open doors. “Go. I’ll get Loki out.”

The look she gives me is full of pleading as the emergency crews descend on her, but I’m back in the barn before they can grab me.

Moving quickly, I pull my coat over my nose and grab the metal latch of the first stall. I step in, slap the horse on its haunches, and watch it run for the door. Horses are flight animals. I just hope someone out there has the good sense to corral them off somewhere. Even if they don’t, running free is better than burning.

I work my way swiftly down the barn, thankful that many of Stefan’s horses live at the track and this is not a full stable.

The smoke thickens the further I get down the alleyway. The heat is intense, but I push on. Luckily, the fire seems to be worse on the outside of the building than on the inside. I feel like I’ve gotten almost all the horses out, but not the ones I desperately want.

I mutter into my jacket, “Fuck my life,” as I trudge to the end of the barn where Loki and Farrah have been living.

I specifically picked the back because it’s less drafty. A choice I now regret. Farrah is pacing nervously when I get to them. Loki huddles by her side, all signs of his spunky personality replaced with pure terror.

“Hey, guys. I got you.” I swing the door open.

Farrah doesn’t need any prompting. She bolts for the safety of the front door with Loki at her haunch, galloping to keep up.

I spin to follow them when a wave of dizziness hits me.

I need to get out of here.

That’s my last thought before everything goes black.