Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
RAE
I tell myself I did the right thing. The thought repeats in my head like a stubborn little mantra while I move through the house, setting my coffee mug in the sink and pretending the quiet doesn’t feel different now.
I ripped the bandage off before things got worse.
I didn’t wait around for the moment where he finished whatever business he has with Voss and rode away without looking back.
I didn’t give myself time to imagine something that was never going to last. I chose how this ended.
That’s what I keep telling myself. It still hurts like hell.
The kitchen feels bigger than it did an hour ago.
The house does too. Even the animals seem quieter, like they’re picking up on the tension hanging in the air.
Daisy follows me around while I move from the counter to the sink and back again, her tail wagging slowly like she’s trying to figure out why I’m acting weird.
“I’m fine,” I mutter to her. She doesn’t look convinced.
I grab the coffee pot and pour myself another cup even though I barely finished the first one. The smell fills the kitchen, warm and familiar, and I wrap my hands around the mug like that alone might steady the strange hollow feeling sitting in my chest.
Because the truth is… having Cole here this past week has been everything.
It started out simple enough. A biker sent out to deal with trouble at The Rusty Nail, a quiet man who barely talked but watched everything like he was cataloging the entire room in his head. I thought he’d handle the idiots trying to shake Wayne down and disappear again the same way he appeared.
Instead he stayed. One morning turned into another, and before I knew it he was standing in my barn feeding goats like he’d been doing it his whole life.
He listened when I talked, which I do a lot, and he never once looked bored or distracted.
When I laughed, he watched me like the sound meant something to him.
When the animals climbed all over him, he just accepted it with this quiet patience that made my chest do weird little flips every time I noticed.
And at night… I swallow slowly and stare down into my coffee.
At night he held me like I mattered. Not in some over-the-top romantic movie way, but in this steady, grounded way that made me feel safe without him ever saying the word out loud.
The first night he stayed I woke up tangled in his arms and it startled me so badly I almost rolled off the bed.
After that it just started feeling normal, like my body expected to find him there.
That’s the dangerous part. Because somewhere in the middle of all those quiet mornings and barn chores and kisses that stopped just shy of crossing the line, I fell for him. The quiet, brooding biker with eyes that miss nothing and a voice that gets low and rough when he says my name.
I didn’t plan for any of this, and I definitely didn’t want it, but it happened anyway, quietly and stubbornly working its way under my skin until I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there anymore.
The worst part isn’t even the thought of losing him, though that hurts more than I want to admit.
What scares me the most is realizing just how badly I want more of him, how easily I could imagine letting him stay, letting this week turn into something bigger, something permanent, something I’m not sure I’m brave enough to hope for.
I want mornings like the ones we’ve had this week where I wake up warm with his arm wrapped around me and Moose snoring at the foot of the bed while the cats judge us from the dresser.
I want quiet walks to the barn with coffee in my hand and him beside me while the sun comes up over the pasture.
I want the calm way he moves through the world balancing out the constant chaos that seems to follow me everywhere I go.
Cole is steady in a way I’ve never been, the kind of man who feels solid and grounded no matter what’s happening around him.
I stare out the kitchen window at the barn for a moment, trying to figure out how to describe what I am in comparison.
Loud, maybe. Messy. A little reckless. I’ve always been the kind of person who jumps into situations before thinking them through because standing still never felt like a real option.
Whatever the word for it is, it isn’t the same kind of strength Cole carries so effortlessly.
And yet when we’re together, it somehow works.
His calm balances out my chaos like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like he steadies the storms inside me without either of us having to say a word about it.
And realizing how much I want that is the part that terrifies me the most. Because wanting things in this life has never worked out well for me.
Every time I’ve let myself believe something might last, it eventually disappeared. People leave. Situations change. Life finds a way to remind you that the good moments are temporary if you hold onto them too tightly.
Cole lives in a world full of violence and loyalty and danger that has nothing to do with this farm. Even if he stayed longer than he planned, even if he keeps looking at me like something here matters to him, the truth is that the world will always call him back eventually.
And when it does…I’d be the one left standing on this porch wondering why I ever thought it could be different. So yeah. I ended it before that could happen.
I draw in a slow breath and take another sip of coffee, letting the bitterness settle on my tongue while I watch the barn doors sway slightly in the breeze.
Outside, Sheriff lets out another loud crow like he’s announcing the start of the day whether anyone asked for it or not. I close my eyes for a second and tell myself the same thing again. I did the right thing.
Even if the quiet biker who’s been sleeping in my bed for the past week just became the thing I want most in the world. And the thing I just pushed away.
I stand at the kitchen sink longer than I need to, staring out the window like there’s something important happening in the pasture that requires my full attention.
The mug of coffee in my hands has already started to cool, the warmth fading slowly against my fingers, but I don’t move.
Outside, the farm looks exactly the way it always does in the early morning.
The barn door creaks softly when the breeze catches it.
A couple of chickens wander across the yard like they own the place.
Moose is stretched out near the fence line in the lazy sprawl he falls into after breakfast. Everything about the view in front of me says the day is normal.
It doesn’t feel normal.
The back door opens behind me, and the sound hits my spine like a quiet jolt.
I don’t turn around. I don’t even shift my shoulders.
Instead, I keep my eyes fixed on the pasture like I’m deeply invested in watching a chicken peck at something in the dirt.
I can feel him the moment he steps inside the kitchen though, the way his presence fills the space without him needing to say a word.
Cole moves across the floor behind me, his boots heavier than usual against the wood, each step deliberate enough that the sound echoes through the room.
He stops somewhere behind me.
The silence that follows stretches longer than it should.
It sits there between us like something neither of us wants to touch first. My grip tightens slightly around the mug, but I don’t turn.
If I look at him right now, if I see the expression on his face after the things I said outside, I’m not sure I’ll stick to the decision I just forced myself to make.
Then I hear the stairs.
His boots hit the first step hard, the sound echoing up through the house as he climbs toward the bedroom.
He doesn’t try to be quiet about it either.
Each step lands with the kind of weight that makes it clear he’s angry, even if he hasn’t said the word out loud.
The sound carries through the house until it ends with the bedroom door slamming hard enough that the dishes in the cabinet rattle.
I close my eyes for a second.
“Good,” I mutter quietly under my breath.
Anger is easier. Angry means this ends clean. Angry means he won’t linger here trying to talk me out of what I already decided needed to happen.
I lift the mug and take a sip of coffee even though it’s gone lukewarm now. My eyes drift back to the barn door swaying in the breeze, and I focus on that simple, familiar motion while the silence upstairs settles into something heavier.
Ten minutes pass. Maybe less. Maybe more.
I lose track of time standing there with my back to the room, pretending the world outside the window is more interesting than the storm moving around somewhere above my head.
Then the stairs creak again. The footsteps coming down are slower this time. Heavier in a different way, like every step carries a decision with it. I feel the shift in the air before I hear the soft thud of something being set down on the floor behind me.
I already know what I’d see if I turned around. His cut. The worn leather vest with the Iron Reapers patch that marks exactly where he belongs. The bag he packed the second day he stayed here, because men like Cole don’t unpack when they plan to leave eventually.
My fingers tighten around the mug again.
Behind me he exhales slowly. “Rae.” My name comes out rough and low, the sound of it dragging across something sharp on its way out of his throat.
I keep my eyes on the pasture. “What?” The word comes out flatter than I expect, like it belongs to someone else standing here instead of me.
There’s a small shift behind me, the faint creak of leather as he moves. “I’m heading out.” Of course he is.
I nod once even though he probably can’t see it from where he’s standing. “Okay.”
The silence that follows feels heavier than the one before it. The farm sounds drift through the open window behind the sink. A goat knocks something over in the barn with a dull clatter. Sheriff crows again like the sunrise personally offended him.
Finally Cole speaks again. “You’re not even gonna look at me?”
I stare harder at the fence line like that might somehow steady the tight ache building in my chest. “There’s no point.”
Something shifts behind me immediately, the quiet tension in the room snapping tighter. “Bullshit,” he mutters.
I swallow slowly. “You’ve got things to do,” I say, forcing my voice to stay calm and steady. “People to deal with.”
“Yeah,” he says quietly.
Neither of us moves. The quiet stretches again until it feels like the whole house is holding its breath.
“You really think that’s all this was?” he asks after a moment.
My throat tightens painfully, but I keep my gaze locked on the barn. “I think you came out here to deal with a problem,” I say slowly. “And now you’re leaving.”
Behind me I hear the bag shift slightly, like his grip tightened around the handle. “That’s what you think.”
“That’s what makes sense.”
The silence behind me turns heavy again, thick enough that I can feel the weight of his stare even without looking. “You don’t get to pretend this week didn’t mean anything,” he says quietly.
My chest tightens hard enough that I have to take a slow breath before answering. “I’m not pretending anything.”
“Then turn around.”
I shake my head once. “No.”
The pause that follows is longer this time.
Long enough that I start to think he might actually walk out without saying anything else.
When he finally speaks again, his voice carries a low edge of frustration that settles deep in my stomach.
“You’re really gonna stand there and look out the damn window while I walk out that door? ”
I draw in a slow breath and let it out again. “That’s the plan.”
Behind me something shifts, the quiet rustle of his bag and the faint creak of leather breaking the stillness in the kitchen.
For a second I think I hear his boots move toward the door, and the sound sends a sharp ache through my chest that I wasn’t prepared for.
Every instinct inside me screams to turn around, to look at him one more time before he walks out of this house and out of whatever this week between us has been.
I want to see his face. I want to stop him.
I want to say the words I forced myself not to say earlier.
Instead, I keep my eyes fixed stubbornly on the barn outside the window, my fingers tightening around the mug in my hands, because the truth is painfully simple.
If I turn around now, if I let myself see him standing there with that bag in his hand, I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough to let him leave.