27. Faith
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Faith
I wake up warm.
That’s the first thing I notice. Not the rooster down the road or the faint hum of the heater, not even the soft ache in my body that says, very clearly, that last night actually happened and was not, in fact, a very detailed stress dream.
Just… warmth.
Inside and out.
The clock on the nightstand reads 6:12 a.m., and my heart is already pounding with excitement.
Dallas’s bed is big, but somehow I’ve ended up smack in the middle of it, tucked into his side like I belong there. His arm is heavy around my waist, palm splayed over my stomach. Even in his sleep, he’s making sure I don’t go anywhere.
His breathing is slow. The kind of calm, deep breathing I’ve watched other people have and always assumed was a myth.
For a few blessed seconds, there’s only that. The hush of early morning, the pale winter light leaking around the curtains, the rise and fall of his chest against my back. No to-do lists, no anxious buzzing, no tight rope in my spine waiting for someone to yank.
Just… quiet.
I blink my eyes open and turn carefully, easing onto my back so I can see him.
Dallas McCoy should not be allowed to sleep this prettily.
It feels unfair somehow. His lashes are scandalously long for a man who probably doesn’t even own face wash, his mouth relaxed, a little softer than it ever is when he’s awake and grumpy.
The line between his brows has smoothed out.
He looks younger like this. Less guarded.
Less like the whole family is balanced on his shoulders.
His hand, still resting just above my hip, gives a tiny twitch. Whatever he’s dreaming about involves holding on.
My chest does a slow, helpless flip.
There was a time, when I told anyone who would listen that Dallas was “just my friend.” My best friend, sure. My favorite person, absolutely. But just a friend.
Lying here now, with his hand warm on my skin and his hair all messed up because of me, that feels… hilarious. And a little bit tragic. Like mislabeling a thunderstorm as “light drizzle” or insisting a barn fire is “a cozy glow.”
He was never “just” anything.
Not when he spent entire summer afternoons teaching me how to back a trailer in a straight line because I refused to let my father’s voice be the only one in my head when I drove.
Not when he held my hand under the bleachers while I cried over college letters.
Not when he hugged me like he meant it the night before I left town.
And definitely not now, when every cell in my body seems to be oriented toward his.
I should probably feel embarrassed that it took me this long to admit it to myself, but right now… Right now, watching the way his mouth curves almost imperceptibly when I brush my thumb over his knuckles, I mostly feel…
Safe.
Ridiculously. Unfathomably. Shockingly safe.
In a bed that technically isn’t mine. In a house that technically isn’t mine. With a man who, by all reasonable metrics, should be the last person I tangle my already messy life up with.
And yet.
My brain, which usually likes to run through catastrophic scenarios before I even finish my first cup of coffee, is strangely quiet. Instead, the rogue thoughts that sneak in sound like:
Maybe… maybe I could stay.
Not just in this bed, even though the bed is really helping my imagination along. In Buckhorn. At the ranch. In this weird, magical little pocket of life where my name isn’t followed by “Ross, from William’s firm,” but just… Faith.
Maybe I could actually build a life here.
Something that belongs to me, not to my father’s reputation or Evan’s LinkedIn.
The idea is terrifying. And intoxicating. Standing at the top of the high diving board and realizing no one’s up there with you telling you what to do.
Last night, after Lila went to bed, after we ate too much cobbler and laughed too loudly, and Dallas made a joke about me doing the social media for the ranch, a little spark lit up in my chest and refused to go out.
It’s still there now.
Me, taking pictures of the brothers working cattle at sunrise. Posting videos of Rusty stealing biscuits. Making graphics for the Spring Branding BBQ, highlighting local businesses, helping people find this place… Find us.
Me, not arranging carbon copy holiday parties in beige ballrooms, but capturing real moments. Crooked smiles. Muddy boots. Handmade wreaths.
Me, here.
With him.
I let myself lean into that fantasy. Dallas making coffee while I sit at his kitchen table editing photos.
Lila running in from the porch, cheeks pink from the cold, shoving a crayon drawing into my hands.
My mom joining us on Sundays for dinner.
Charlotte coming home on break and teasing me about being “whipped for a cowboy.”
The thought makes me smile into the pillow.
And then my phone buzzes.
Violently.
The sound is so sudden in the quiet room that my whole body jolts. I flinch, fingers tightening on the sheet. The cute, soft daydream shatters like glass.
Dallas stirs beside me, mumbling unintelligibly.
I reach over him toward the nightstand, careful not to jostle too much. My hand closes around the phone where I left it last night, next to his alarm clock and a half-read paperback.
One notification lit up on the lock screen.
Unknown number.
My stomach gives a weird little drop, but curiosity wins out. I slide my thumb up.
A photo fills the screen.
My brain doesn’t understand what it’s looking at. The image is grainy, zoomed in, and badly lit. The background is mostly darkness and a hint of water. A glint of lake. In the foreground, two people.
A woman pressed back against a tree. Hair wild. Head tipped back.
A man, crowding into her, his hand braced beside her head, his face buried in her neck.
It could be anyone.
Except it’s not.
Because I recognize that jacket. That hair. Those shoulders.
It’s me.
And Dallas.
My body goes ice cold in an instant. The air in my lungs seems to evaporate.
Beneath the photo, a text bubble appears.
Unknown number: Running again, Faith?
Unknown number: You always did have a talent for humiliating people.
The world tilts.
I can practically hear his voice in those words. Smooth. Controlled. Cutting. My father doesn’t send messages—he sends precision strikes. He doesn’t need exclamation marks or all caps. Just a few carefully chosen words to slice you open.
My heart stumbles, then rockets into a sprint.
He knows where I am. He found me.
The room suddenly feels too small. Too exposed. I look wildly around like there’s a camera tucked in the curtains, a lens at the crack of the door. The photo is from the night at the lake. That means whoever took it was there. Watching us.
My skin crawls.
“Faith?” Dallas is still thick with sleep. “Everything okay?”
Okay?
Nope. Absolutely not. Not even in the neighborhood of okay.
I angle the screen away on instinct. Like the proof will burn him if he sees it.
Dallas reaches for my wrist, and I jerk back like I’ve been shocked.
He pushes up on one elbow, eyes narrowing against the light.
“Hey,” he says, softer now. “What’s wrong?”
I can’t seem to pull my gaze away from the words.
You always did have a talent for humiliating people.
The old, familiar shame slams into me hard and fast. It’s been waiting just offstage for its cue. Memories pile up.
My father’s face when I spilled an entire glass of red wine on a donor’s white blouse at a gala. His tight smile as he took me aside afterward. “Do you enjoy making me look like a fool, Faith?”
His voice on the phone when I said I wanted to try an art class instead of another business elective. “You have no idea how childish you sound.”
What will he do with this? With me in a small town, in a cowboy’s arms, after vanishing from a wedding he sold as a merger?
What will he do to Dallas?
My throat closes.
“Faith,” Dallas says again, more urgently. “Talk to me.”
I realize my hands are shaking. The phone trembles between my fingers.
“I…” The word scrapes. “I need to go.”
Dallas blinks. “Go where? What happened?”
I sit up too fast, dragging the sheet with me. The room spins. I yank my clothes from the chair, pulling them on with fumbling fingers. My heart is hammering so loud I can hardly hear myself think.
“I just… I have to get home,” I manage. “To my mom’s. I can’t… I can’t be here.”
Tears sting my eyes. I blink them back, furious at myself, at him, at the whole messed-up world that taught me the easiest way to survive was to keep my head down and my voice soft.
“What’s going on, Faith? What happened?”
I want to fall into him. To hand him my phone and my fear and let him say we’ll handle it together. To stay. To see this through. To stop running.
But the words on that screen are still burned into my vision. Running again, Faith?
My father’s shadow stretches farther than the walls of this room, all the way back to the city, all the way forward into whatever future he thinks he can still buy for me.
“I’m sorry,” I say instead of answering him. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I shove my feet into my boots, grab my coat, and fumble my way out of his room. The hallway blurs. I catch a glimpse of family photos on the wall, of Lila’s crayon drawing stuck to the fridge as I pass the kitchen, and my chest splinters all over again.
Rusty lifts his head from his dog bed in the corner, ears pricking. He thumps his tail once against the floor as if he’s about to get a walk. I choke back a sound that’s almost a sob.
“Sorry, Rusty,” I whisper. “Not today.”
The cold outside hits my face like a slap when I stumble out the front door, and for one second, it’s almost enough to snap me out of it. The sky is soft and gray, the world muffled with snow. My truck sits in the driveway, waiting.
My hands shake so hard that I drop the keys once I get the door open.
By the time I’m on the road, tears are spilling freely down my cheeks, blurring the world into streaks of white and brown and muted evergreen. My breath comes in short, jagged pulls that fog up the windshield faster than the defroster can handle.