Chapter 6
Chapter six
He Keeps Showing Up
Riley
The last thing I expect when I pull up to the ranch again, a couple of days later, is for things to look normal.
Not quiet exactly, not calm in any kind of predictable way, but steady, like whatever storm I walked into before didn’t leave behind the kind of damage I braced myself for. It throws me off more than I’m willing to admit.
Hadley doesn’t hesitate.
The second I put the truck in park, she’s already unbuckling, practically vibrating with the kind of excitement I’ve been trying to temper. I reach over to stop her before she can fling the door open without thinking.
“Slow down,” I tell her, keeping my voice firm but gentle. “We’re not running into anything. We’re walking.”
“I know,” she says quickly, even though she absolutely does not know, her eyes already scanning the yard like she’s expecting him to appear out of thin air.
And apparently, she’s not wrong.
Jace steps out from the side of the barn like he was already on his way over. His stride easy, unhurried, but there’s nothing careless about it, nothing reckless the way I remember, and I hate that I notice that right away.
It doesn’t match the version of him I’ve held onto.
It doesn’t make this easier.
Hadley waves before I even shut the truck door. “Hi!” she calls, her voice bright and open in a way that makes my chest tighten just a little.
Jace’s expression shifts the second he sees her. Something soft settling in that wasn’t there when he looked at me yesterday. It’s subtle enough that I could pretend I imagined it if I wanted to.
I don’t.
“Hey,” he says, crouching down like it’s the most natural thing in the world, bringing himself to her level without hesitation. “You come back to make sure we didn’t eat all the cookies?”
Hadley grins. “I told you I would.”
“Good thing you did,” he replies, glancing toward the house. “Uncle Wade was getting close to finishing them off.”
“Hey,” Wade calls from somewhere behind him. “That’s not even a little true.”
“It’s mostly true,” Jace shoots back without looking. Hadley giggles, the sound light and easy.
I stand there for a second longer than I should, watching the exchange, trying to find the edges of it, the parts that don’t fit, the places where this breaks down into something I can manage.
But it doesn’t.
He doesn’t reach for her like it’s a performance.
He doesn’t overdo it or hesitate.
He just… meets her where she is.
And that’s the problem.
“You want to see the horse again?” he asks her, glancing back toward the barn.
Hadley nods immediately. “Yes.”
I step forward then, not stopping them, but not letting it go unchecked either. “We’re not doing anything without talking about it first,” I say, keeping my tone even, controlled. Even though there’s a thread of tension running through it that I don’t bother hiding completely.
Jace looks up at me, not defensive, not irritated, just steady in a way that makes it harder to hold onto the irritation I walked in with.
“Fair,” he says. “We’ll stay where you can see us.”
That answer is not what I expect.
No pushback.
Just… agreement.
And somehow that’s worse.
It leaves me with nothing to push against.
I fold my arms loosely, holding my ground anyway. “She doesn’t ride,” I add. “Not yet.”
He nods once. “Then she doesn’t ride,” he says simply, like that settles it. Like my boundary isn’t something to work around, it’s something to respect.
Hadley looks between us, clearly trying to figure out if she’s about to lose access to the most exciting part of her week. Jace catches it before it turns into disappointment.
“We can brush him,” he says, glancing back at her. “You ever help brush a horse before?”
Her eyes light up all over again. “No.”
“Then we’ll start there,” he says, standing and offering his hand like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
She takes it without hesitation.
Of course she does.
And just like that, they’re moving toward the barn together, his stride adjusting without thought so she can keep up, her smaller steps matching his without effort. Like they’ve done this before even though they haven’t.
I follow a few steps behind, not close enough to hover, not far enough to pretend I’m not watching every single thing he does.
Inside the barn, the air shifts, cooler, quieter, the sounds of the ranch softening into something more contained. Jace moves like he knows this space is second nature to him in a way that doesn’t feel showy or forced.
“Easy,” he murmurs to the horse as they approach, his hand coming up to rest along its neck, the animal settling under his touch like it trusts him without question.
Hadley watches, completely focused. “He likes you,” she says.
Jace huffs out a quiet breath that might be a laugh. “Most days,” he replies. “You want to try?”
She nods, stepping closer. He guides her hand gently, showing her where to stand, how to move, his voice low and steady as he talks her through it without rushing, without overwhelming her.
I lean against the stall door, arms still crossed, telling myself I’m just observing, just making sure everything stays within the lines I’ve set.
But the longer I stand there, the harder it is to ignore what I’m seeing.
He’s careful.
Intentional.
Present in a way that doesn’t feel temporary.
And that doesn’t fit the man I remember.
Which means one of two things.
Either I was wrong about him before…
Or he’s better at this than I expected.
Neither option sits well.
Either way…
It changes the way I have to handle this.
I tell myself to stay focused on the details, on the small things that are easier to control. Like the way Hadley’s grip on the brush is a little too tight or the way she keeps looking up at him like she’s waiting for approval she doesn’t need.
My attention keeps drifting back to him anyway, to the way he adjusts without thinking, the way he reads her before she has to ask for anything, and it pulls at something I don’t want to name.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.
This is supposed to be complicated, awkward, uncertain in a way that keeps everything at a distance long enough for me to decide what to do with it. Instead it feels like something is settling into place faster than I’m ready for, and that alone is enough to put me on edge.
“Like this?” Hadley asks, her voice bright but careful, like she wants to get it right.
Jace nods, his hand hovering near hers without correcting her outright. “Yeah, just a little slower,” he says. “Let him feel it. Horses don’t like being rushed.”
She adjusts immediately, concentrating, and the horse shifts slightly before settling again. The look on her face when she realizes she did it right hits me harder than it should.
“See?” Jace adds a hint of approval in his tone that isn’t overdone. “You’ve got it.”
Hadley beams, and something in my chest tightens, not because of what he said, but because of how easily it landed, how naturally she takes it from him like it belongs there.
That’s what I don’t trust.
Not the moment itself.
The way it feels like it could keep happening.
I push off the stall door and take a step closer, not interrupting, but not staying on the outside of it either, needing to be part of the space instead of watching it from a distance I can’t hold onto much longer.
“You do this with all the kids?” I ask, keeping my tone light, but there’s a sharp edge under it that I don’t bother smoothing out completely.
Jace glances at me, one brow lifting slightly like he hears it, like he understands exactly what I’m asking without me saying it outright. “Plenty of kids around here,” he replies, glancing toward the house. “My nieces and nephews all live on this ranch. I know my way around kids.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I say.
“I know,” he answers, and there’s no defensiveness in it, no irritation, just a steady acknowledgment that somehow makes it harder to keep my guard exactly where I want it.
Hadley looks between us again, sensing something without understanding it, and I force myself to ease back just enough that she doesn’t feel it the way I do.
“I’m just saying,” I add, softer now, but no less firm. “She gets attached quickly.”
Jace’s gaze shifts back to Hadley, watching her for a second before he answers, his voice quieter this time. “Then we don’t give her a reason to regret it.”
That lands deeper than I expect, cutting straight through the argument I was lining up in my head, and I don’t have an immediate response for it, which irritates me more than anything else he’s done so far.
I don’t like not having something to push back with.
I don’t like that part of me that wants to believe him.
And I definitely don’t like that I’m standing here trying to figure out which version of him is real.
So I fall back on the only thing I can control.
Distance.
Even standing a few feet away, even watching every move, I start rebuilding it piece by piece, reminding myself that a couple of good moments don’t rewrite five years, that this is all new for him as much as it is for me, and that consistency isn’t proven in a day.
But as Hadley laughs softly and the horse shifts closer into her touch, and Jace adjusts again without making a big deal out of it, that distance feels thinner than it did when I walked in.
And that’s what unsettles me most.
Not him.
Not even this situation.
But the fact that, without meaning to…
I’m starting to question my own certainty.
I don’t let that thought sit long enough to take root. The second it does, it starts pulling everything else with it, and I’m not about to let a few minutes in a barn rewrite five years of decisions that kept her safe and steady.
“We need to be clear about what this is,” I say, pushing off the stall and stepping fully into the space instead of hovering at the edges, my tone even but firm in a way that doesn’t leave room for misinterpretation.