Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
Lincoln
The house is quiet in that soft early-evening way it gets when the day’s work has slowed but dinner hasn’t quite pulled the four of us together yet.
Beau’s clattering around in the kitchen—pans, cupboards, the rhythmic scrape of a knife against a cutting board, and I can faintly hear Jasper vacuuming somewhere above me—but the rest of the place feels still.
Dropping into the leather chair in the home office, I let out a breath I feel like I’ve been holding all day.
The chair creaks under me, familiar and worn.
Framed photographs line the walls around me—our parents on their first cattle drive together, Jasper’s first rodeo win, the three of us on branding day as teenagers before Beau became a permanent resident here.
All little moments frozen in time when things felt a hell of a lot simpler.
A couple of stacks of paperwork rest beneath my elbow on the desk, waiting for my attention, but I don’t have the bandwidth to care right now.
Lawson steps inside a moment later, raking a hand through his hair. He looks exhausted, but there’s something smug tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“How’d it go?” I ask before grabbing two glass tumblers and a bottle of whiskey from the shelf behind me and pouring us a few fingers. I hand him his, and we clink our glasses together before each taking a sip. “You two gone all day?”
He leans back into the chair across from me with a deep sigh.
“Good. She seemed to enjoy getting her own things. She’s back in the guesthouse now.
Said she was gonna make herself dinner and watch a movie with Lucy.
” The smile he’s been fighting finally slips through.
“She was… excited. Like actually excited.”
I swallow at that. Good. She deserves some excitement.
“Oh.” Lawson’s expression tightens as he shifts in his chair. “We ran into Grayson at the grocery store.”
“Yeah?”
“He knows about her now. Said he was ‘In Billings on business.’”
My jaw tics. We both know exactly what he was doing in Billings. Fucking pieces of shit.
“Also said he’d be seeing Abigail around.’”
“The fuck he will,” I snap.
Lawson holds his hand out in front of him. “I know. I know. Calm down. I handled it and made her position with us crystal fucking clear.”
“Good,” I grunt and down the rest of my whiskey before pouring myself a splash more.
“I told her she could use the spare car,” Lawson blurts out. “And that she could work here while she figures things out.”
Of course he did.
A flicker of annoyance flashes through me.
Not at Joe or my brother, but at the thought of her being around all the damn time.
Because I feel it already. This pull I don’t want, one I didn’t ask for.
And I see it in my brother, Jasper, and Beau, too.
It’s like she walked in and reset the whole gravity of this place without even trying.
I clear my throat and force a nod. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Lawson studies me, like he always does. “Are you pissed I offered her the car?”
“No,” I answer too fast, so I try again, slower this time. “No. Honestly? I’d rather it get used more. I paid for it, and it’s just been sitting there since—”
Since Melissa.
I don’t say her name often anymore if I can help it.
Lawson’s expression softens, the way it always does when Melissa accidentally comes up.
He never says it out loud, but I know he’s still furious on my behalf.
Furious about Billings, about the lies, about Jasper having to be the one to tell me.
Two and a half years later, and the damn ache still flares in my chest. Only now it’s not all-consuming, it’s just sharp and cold.
Rubbing the back of my neck, I say, “It’s fine. She needs wheels. She can have them.”
Lawson watches me a second longer, like he’s trying to see beneath my skin. He’s done it since we were kids, and I hate it now as much as I hated it then. Although… sometimes I’m grateful he knows what I’m feeling without me actually having to say it.
“You sure you’re okay?” he presses.
I meet his eyes. “I’m good.”
It’s not a lie. Not the whole truth either.
Footsteps thud down the hallway—Beau hollering something about dinner being ready in fifteen, but neither of us moves.
“Linc,” Lawson says. “She’s not Melissa.”
A huff of air leaves my chest. “I know that, Lawson.”
God, do I know that.
“She’s just a girl who needs a fresh start.”
“Just a girl?” I lift a brow. “That’s why your grumpy face lit up like a Christmas tree when I asked you how today went?
That’s why Jasper’s face looked like he got caught with his hand in Mama’s cookie jar when he came back from the guesthouse last night?
That’s why Beau won’t stop smiling like a fucking buffoon ever since she got here? Just a girl, my ass.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Okay. Well played. But you—”
“Don’t,” I cut in. Because I’m not ready for whatever brother bullshit he thinks he’s about to dump on me.
He downs his glass and sets it on the desk before raising his hands in surrender. “Fine. I’m just saying… We’ll figure it out.”
We. Like this whole mess—whatever this stir is inside of me, inside all of us—is a collective problem.
Is it?
But Law stands, reaching across the desk and giving my shoulder a quick pat on his way out. “Come eat. You’re growly when you’re hangry, and that says a lot coming from me.”
When he’s gone, the office goes quiet again. My gaze drifts to the window, out toward the guesthouse where I can see the warm yellow glow of her lights against the deep blue of the evening.
She’s close.
So damn close.
And for the first time in two and a half years, something in me moves.
Not pain.
Not an ache I thought I’d never heal from.
Something else entirely.
So, I shove that feeling down, push away from the desk, and head toward the kitchen. There’s work to do tomorrow. Plenty of things to focus on.
But try as I might, my eyes stray toward that window one last time before I leave the room. And dammit if it doesn’t feel like gravity shifting all over again.