Chapter 6
Riley
The first week at the ranch blurred together. Long shifts at the station. Coming home. Sleeping in a room that smelled like lavender and old wood instead of mildew and exhaust and whatever chemicals past tenants had used to fake clean.
Roots were risky. Roots meant loss.
This place didn’t play by those rules. The ranch stretched out in every direction. Too much space. Too much quiet. The guest room alone was bigger than the place Mia and I had shared in town. High ceilings. Real light. Hallways wide enough that you didn’t have to shrink yourself to exist.
It felt wrong. Like an administrative error.
I moved through it like I didn’t belong. Every turn onto the dirt road came with the same thought: this isn’t mine. Every time I stepped inside and smelled wood polish and hay, I reminded myself: temporary.
I didn’t say the word home. Didn’t let it form.
Still, things slipped through. Morning light on the kitchen table. Horses breathing in the pasture. The way my chest loosened here, like it finally had room.
I liked it.
That scared me more than not knowing what came next.
Because liking meant wanting.
And wanting meant losing.
The shift had been brutal.
Structure fire on the east side of town, a duplex with faulty wiring that had sparked in the walls and spread before anyone smelled smoke. We'd gotten there fast, but not fast enough. The family had made it out. Most of them. The grandmother hadn't.
I could still smell the smoke in my hair, still feel the weight of her in my arms as I'd carried her out. Too late. Always too late.
I pulled into the ranch driveway as the sun was coming up, exhaustion sitting heavy in my bones. All I wanted was a shower and twelve hours of unconsciousness. Maybe more.
But when I walked through the front door, I smelled coffee. And bacon. And something sweet, like pancakes on a griddle.
Liam was in the kitchen.
Our shifts had been rotating lately, which meant we'd barely seen each other all week.
He'd be leaving for the station when I came home, or I'd be heading out when he was just getting back.
Ships passing in the night, if ships lived in the same house and shared awkward silences over the coffee maker.
It worked. One of us was always here.
Someone awake. Someone close enough to hear Mia’s door. The soft sounds that meant she was moving, not disappearing.
But today, he was here. Standing at the stove in worn jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, flipping pancakes like he'd been doing it his whole life.
I stopped in the doorway, taking in the quiet hum of the stove.
“You're up early.”
He looked over his shoulder, spatula hovering midair, and for a second our eyes held. Something warm flickered in his expression—concern, maybe, or something I didn't have time to name—before he turned back to the pan. My stomach did a small, unwelcome flip. I blamed exhaustion.
"Heard you pull up. Figured you might be hungry."
On the counter, a plate was already waiting. Pancakes stacked three high, bacon on the side, eggs that actually looked edible. And next to it, a mug of something that wasn't coffee. Steam rose from it, carrying a scent I recognized. Chamomile.
I picked it up, confused. "Tea?"
"Figured you'd want to sleep after you eat." He shrugged, turning back to the stove. "Coffee would just keep you wired. Chamomile's better for winding down."
I stared at the mug in my hands. Such a small thing. Such a nothing thing. He'd thought about what I needed, not just what I might want.
I stood in the kitchen doorway holding a mug of tea made by someone who paid attention, and I didn't know what to do with it.
"You didn't have to do this." The words came out flat, practiced. Like I was used to taking care of myself. Like I didn’t need this.
"I know." He slid another pancake onto the stack. "Rough shift?"
The question was casual, but something in his voice told me he already knew the answer. Maybe Cal had called. Maybe he'd heard it on the scanner. Or maybe he just recognized the look on my face, the one I thought I'd gotten better at hiding.
"Yeah." I took a sip of the tea—too hot, barely noticed. "Rough shift."
He nodded. Didn't push. Didn't ask for details I wasn't ready to give.
“Eat.” Then, quieter. “Then sleep.”
He turned back to the stove, already reaching for the pan.
“I’ll handle the morning feed.”
I should have argued. Should have insisted I could pull my weight, that I didn't need anyone taking care of me. But the tea was warm in my hands, and the pancakes smelled like something a real family would eat on a Sunday morning, and I was so tired I could barely stand.
"Okay." I nodded.
He almost smiled.
I sat down at the table and ate breakfast in the golden morning light, and tried not to think about how dangerous it felt to be taken care of. Because the things that seemed safe were always the ones that cost me the most.
Evening feeding surprised me by mattering.
I hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t expected the quiet relief that came with it—the ordinary comfort of grain and water and hay, the low, settling sounds of horses easing into the night. I showed up because it needed to be done. Somewhere along the way, it started holding me together.
The work asked for focus, nothing more. Grain measured into buckets.
Portions adjusted, no guessing. Water checked, refilled.
Hay pulled from the bale, the flakes falling heavy into each stall.
Then the walk-through—hands on legs, checking for heat or swelling.
Eyes clear. Coats clean. Problems you could see, that you could fix.
I'd spent two years in survival mode. Every decision filtered through one question: Is this good for Mia? Every thought bent toward the next crisis, the next hearing, the next threat. My brain never stopped running calculations, never stopped preparing for disaster.
But here, in the barn, with the smell of hay and horse and old wood wrapping around me like a blanket, something quieted. The calculations faded. The constant hum of anxiety dulled to something manageable.
Liam worked beside me most evenings. We'd fallen into a rhythm without discussing it, our movements syncing in a way that felt practiced even though we'd only been doing this for a week. He'd start at one end of the barn, I'd start at the other, and we'd meet in the middle.
We didn't talk much. The silence between us wasn't awkward. It was comfortable, like a well-worn shirt, like something we'd been practicing for years instead of days.
Sometimes he'd hum while he worked. Low and tuneless, barely audible over the sounds of the horses. I'd caught myself listening for it, waiting for it, letting the sound settle into my bones alongside the rhythm of the work.
It shouldn't have been relaxing. Humming. Such a small, meaningless thing.
It shouldn’t have felt like anything. That’s what scared me.
It happened on the fifth evening.
We were finishing up, the last of the hay distributed, the horses settled and content. I reached for the empty grain bucket at the same moment Liam did.
Our hands collided.
His fingers were solid against mine. Warm. Calloused from years of work, from rope and reins and all the physical labor this life demanded. The touch lasted maybe half a second, barely long enough to register—skin on skin, warmth, then gone.
But the heat came after, fast and bright, like an electric current I hadn’t braced for.
I jerked back like I'd been burned, the bucket clattering against the stall door. My heart was pounding, which was ridiculous. It was just a touch. Just skin. Just the heat of his palm still ghosting across my knuckles like a brand I couldn't shake. An accident. Nothing.
But I was suddenly, acutely aware of how close we were standing. Close enough to see the flecks of gold in his blue-green eyes. Close enough to smell hay and soap and something underneath that was just him.
Liam's expression flickered. Hurt, maybe. Or confusion. I couldn't tell. Then it smoothed into something neutral, carefully blank.
"Sorry," I muttered.
"It's fine." He reached for a different bucket, his movements deliberate, giving me space I hadn't asked for but desperately needed. "I've got this one. You can head in."
I nodded and turned, walked out of the barn on legs that felt unsteady.
The ghost of that touch followed me all the way back to the house. The warmth of his skin. The roughness of his palm. The way my pulse had jumped like it meant something, like it mattered.
It didn't matter. It couldn't matter.
This was an arrangement. A contract. One year of pretending, and then we'd go back to our separate lives. He'd find someone who actually wanted the ranch and the horses and the small-town life. I'd take Mia somewhere safe and start over. Again.
I couldn't let this feel real. Couldn't let myself depend on someone who was contractually obligated to leave.
But I felt the imprint of his hand on mine for hours afterward, and no amount of logic could make it fade.
That evening, I paused in the hallway.
Voices drifted in from the living room. Liam’s low rumble, steady and familiar—and beneath it, something that made me stop short. Mia’s voice. Lighter. Animated in a way I hadn’t heard in a long time.
I crept closer, stopping just outside the doorway where I could see without being seen.
They were at the coffee table, homework spread between them. Mia was hunched over a math worksheet, pencil tapping against the paper, her brow furrowed in concentration. Liam sat beside her, close enough to see the problems but not crowding her space.
"Okay," he said after a brief pause, his finger sliding back along the paper, "so if X equals three, and you plug that back into the equation..."
"I hate equations," Mia muttered.
"Everyone hates equations. That's why they invented calculators."
"Then why can't I use a calculator?"
"Because your teacher is a sadist." He leaned back, stretching his arms over his head. "Also because knowing how to do it by hand builds character. Or so I've been told."
"By who?"
"My grandmother. She also thought walking uphill both ways to school built character, so take it with a grain of salt."
Mia's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close. Closer than I'd seen in months.
Something cracked in my chest.
This was what she deserved. What I'd been trying to give her for two years and failing. Stability. Safety. Someone who showed up, who sat beside her and helped with homework and made terrible jokes until she almost smiled.
Not yelling. Not fear. Someone who didn’t hurt her.
The thought settled in slowly, heavy and unavoidable. And it scared me how much it felt like relief.
Because it was borrowed. Temporary. All of it. A one-year lease on a life that was never meant to be ours. When the contract ended, when the court case was settled and the ranch was secured, we'd walk away. Liam would go back to looking for someone real.
The ring on my finger caught the light from the living room. Simple gold, warm against my skin. Chosen with more care than a fake marriage required.
I twisted it unconsciously, watching my sister almost-smile at a man who wasn't obligated to care about her.
Wondering why that made everything harder.
Liam glanced up then, like he'd felt me watching. His eyes found mine across the dim hallway, and he smiled. Not the easy grin he gave everyone. Something quieter. Something that looked almost like relief.
Like he was glad I was there. Like my presence mattered, even from a distance.
"Riley?" Mia's voice pulled his attention back. "Can you help with number twelve?"
"Sure thing."
But his eyes lingered on me for one more beat before he turned away. Long enough for something to pass between us—something I couldn't name but felt in my chest, warm and dangerous and impossible to dismiss.
I stood in the shadows, heart pounding for reasons I didn't want to examine, and realized the danger wasn't that I was starting to want him.
The danger was that he might be starting to want me back.
And I had no idea what to do with that.