Chapter 12 Beau
Beau
The barn smells of sweet hay and approaching death.
I've been sitting in Darcy's stall since four this morning, watching her small body fight a war she's losing. The orphaned calf Lucy fussed over now lies on her side, each breath a labored wheeze that cuts through the pre-dawn quiet.
Stars still pierce the Montana sky through the open barn doors, but they're fading fast. Soon the hands will arrive for morning chores, and I'll have to pretend I haven't spent the last five hours wrestling with my own damn foolishness.
I check my phone again. Still nothing.
The screen's harsh light makes me squint in the dim barn. Three messages sent. Zero responses. The evidence of my stupidity glares back at me in blue text bubbles, each one more pathetic than the last.
Still thinking about that moment in the barn. Sent at 10:47 PM. Christ almighty. What kind of grown man sends texts like that?
Right about when she'd probably would be out living her life, dancing, laughing, being young and free.
Things that don't include waiting around for messages from broken-down ranchers who should know better.
Hope you're having a good night. 11:07 PM. As if she'd want to hear from me while she's out with friends, probably at the Dusty Spur, being everything I'm not. Young, uncomplicated, alive.
And the worst one: Sweet dreams, Sunshine.
12:31 AM. Past midnight, when loneliness and want had goaded me into foolishness. Can't even blame whiskey. Stone-cold sober and still stupid enough to put that nickname in writing.
Sunshine. The word had slipped out when she'd laughed at Darcy's eager nursing, her whole face lighting up like she'd found something precious.
The way the afternoon light caught in her chestnut hair, turning it to burnished copper.
How she'd looked at me when I said it, surprised but not displeased, color blooming in her cheeks.
Now it's archived in her phone like evidence of my desperation.
The rational part of my brain knows exactly why she didn't respond. She's young, beautiful, probably has her pick of men who don't carry shadows or dirt under their nails.
Why would she want attention from a thirty-six-year-old rancher who's better with cattle than conversation?
But the irrational part, the part that hasn't felt alive in two years, remembers how she felt pressed against my back on the ATV.
The warm weight of her, how her breath caught when I gunned the engine across the pasture.
Her hands tentative at first on my waist, then holding tighter as we flew over the rough ground. The trust in that grip.
How she'd melted against me for just a heartbeat when I lifted her down, soft and pliant before she remembered herself and stepped away.
But for that moment... for that moment, she'd fit against me like she belonged there.
Can still feel the phantom pressure of her arms around my waist, the way her laugh had vibrated through my back when we'd hit a bump.
Darcy coughs, wet and rattling, dragging me back to reality. The sound cuts through the barn like a death knell. She's deteriorating fast despite the penicillin I gave her hours ago. The antibiotic isn't touching whatever's burning through her lungs.
"Don't you dare," I tell her, running my hand along her fever-hot neck. Her skin burns under my palm, and she's stopped sweating. Never a good sign.
"Don't you dare quit on me now, little girl."
She's too weak to even acknowledge my voice. Just lies there, brown eyes glazed with fever, trusting me to fix what I can't fix. Not with my limited knowledge, not with the supplies I have on hand. Darcy needs professional help. The kind I'm too proud to ask for, even if it means watching her die.
He saved Dusty. Lucy's voice echoes in my memory, soft with admiration. Of course he did. Colt's the best damn vet this side of the Rockies. I'm the one who made him a stranger.
I've seen how she talks about him. The way her expression softens when his name comes up, how her chin lifted when I made that crack about his competence.
"He's an excellent vet," she'd said, fire in her dark eyes. The unspoken message was clear: despite what you think.
Why shouldn't she defend him? Why shouldn't she fall for him? Colt doesn't carry the guilt I do, hasn't spent two years building walls so high even I can't see over them. He wears his damage raw and honest, not buried under duty and silence like mine.
The sun climbs higher, painting golden bars across the barn floor. Dust motes dance in the light like fool's gold, and somewhere a rooster announces the coming day.
Soon the hands will arrive, and I'll have to pretend everything's fine. That I didn't spend half the night staring at my phone like some desperate fool.
My back aches from the stall floor, but I can't leave her. Can't walk away when she needs me, even if all I can offer is presence and inadequate medicine.
Pride. That's what's killing Darcy right now. Same thing that killed my friendship with Colt. The stubborn Blackwell pride that would rather lose everything than admit weakness.
It's the family curse. Built this ranch on it, some might say.
The kind of pride that says you handle your own problems, fix your own fences, bury your own dead. My father had it, his father before him. The kind that would rather watch everything burn than ask for help.
Darcy's breathing stutters, catches. For a terrifying moment, I think this is it. Then she drags in another breath, weaker than the last. Her small body's burning through its reserves, fighting a war she can't win.
What would Lucy think if she knew I was sitting here, too proud to make one phone call that might save this calf's life?
My phone feels like lead in my hand. Colt's number is still there, saved under 'Brother' because even after everything, that's what he is.
Two years, and I've never used it.
Until now.
Darcy coughs again, blood speckling her nostrils. Time's running out.
I close my eyes and let myself remember what I've tried so hard to forget.
Colt laughing at something Sophia said, his whole face transformed. The three of us on his old couch, watching movies, pretending what we had was sustainable. His hand on her knee, her head on my shoulder, all of us drunk on the impossibility of it working.
The memory still burns: Sophia's voice, cold and calculating. "Colt's sweet, but he's just the bonus. Blackwell's the real prize. Eight thousand acres and enough money to set me up for life. Few more months playing the loving girlfriend, and I'll have him wrapped around my finger."
The way Colt's face had crumbled when I ended it. No explanation, no gentleness. Just brutal efficiency. "This isn't working. We're done."
Better he hate me than know the truth.
Better he think I was heartless than realize the woman he loved saw him as nothing more than a stepping stone to my bank account.
But was it better? Two years later, what do I have to show for my noble sacrifice?
A best friend who crosses the street to avoid me.
A reputation as the coldest bastard in three counties.
And now a dying calf because I can't swallow my pride long enough to ask for help.
The phone screen dims. I wake it back up, stare at that saved number. Brother.
I shouldn't let myself think it. Shouldn't want it. But the thought sinks its claws deep anyway.
Lucy between us.
Not like before. Not manipulation and hidden agendas, but something real. Lucy with her gentle hands and fierce heart, who looks at broken things and sees something worth saving. Who could maybe see past our damage to what we used to be.
I picture her hands soft on Colt's face, drawing out one of his rare genuine smiles. The ones he used to give freely before I destroyed his ability to trust. See myself teaching her to ride, her body warm against mine as I show her how to hold the reins, trusting me not to let her fall.
Imagine Colt and me working together again, moving with the ease of decades-old friendship.
Her as our center, our peace.
Not possession but partnership. Not jealousy but healing.
Loving her the way she deserves, completely, without reservation, without the poison of suspicion that destroyed us before.
The fantasy hits me like a physical blow. Redemption wrapped in honey-colored skin and bright laughter. Lucy's voice echoing through the ranch house. Colt and me sharing morning coffee, comfortable in our silence again. Her between us at night, safe and cherished and…
Darcy's breathing stops.
One second. Two. Three.
Then she gasps, pulls in air with a horrible wheeze. But she's fading fast. Actually dying while I sit here dreaming about impossible things, paralyzed by pride that's about to cost another innocent life.
My thumb moves without conscious thought. Finds Colt's number. Hovers over the call button as my heart hammers against my ribs.
Two years of silence.
Two years of missing my best friend like a severed limb.
Darcy makes a small, pained sound. Trusting me to save her.
I hit call.