Chapter 10 #2
I’d never loved her more than I did in this moment. Seeing her on my land, on the horse I got for her, looking peaceful—content even. Sun in her golden hair, face free of all that expensive makeup they caked on her, clothes simple.
"Having something that's exactly what it appears to be."
I nodded. Just once. Her smile in return was soft. An unspoken conversation that had nothing to do with the land and everything to do with her.
We rode on, following the fence until it met the creek.
Copper Creek, the town’s namesake, ran clear and cold from the recent rain.
The water gurgled over limestone rocks worn smooth by centuries of flow, creating little pools where perch and sunfish hid in the shadows.
Huge oak trees lined the banks, their branches creating a cathedral ceiling of green.
I slid off the horse first, then reached up. Stephy placed her hands on my shoulders, trusting me in a way that tightened something low within me. When I lifted her, her body skimmed mine—warm, soft—and she let out a tiny, surprised breath that I felt more than heard.
She landed close. Too close. Close enough that I caught her scent—lavender soap, wild grass, and the kind of sweetness that made a man want to stay right where he was.
“Jelly legs,” she laughed, gripping my arms as her knees threatened mutiny. “Why didn’t you warn me about jelly legs?”
“Because it’s adorable,” I murmured. “Like a newborn colt trying to pretend it’s graceful.”
She swatted my chest, but was laughing. We let the horses drink while we sat on a boulder that had been there since I was a kid—a huge piece of limestone, worn smooth on top from generations of Blackwood kids sitting on it.
The shade from the oaks made the temperature drop ten degrees, and the sound of water over rocks created nature's white noise.
"Wyatt and I used to come here to fish," I said, picking up a flat stone and skipping it across a calm pool. Three skips before it sank. "Never caught anything worth eating, but that wasn't really the point."
"What was the point?"
"Being brothers. Being quiet. Being away from everything." I found another stone, smooth and perfect. "I used to come here after Mom and Dad died, too. When Soph and I first moved here, I mean. I’d sit right here and try to make sense of it."
Stephy's hand found mine without hesitation, our fingers interlacing naturally as breathing. Her palm was warm, a little rough from the reins, perfect against mine. "Did you ever? Make sense of it?"
"No. But I learned to live with not making sense of it. Some things just happen, and you survive them, and eventually they become part of your story instead of the whole story."
She leaned into me, her head finding that spot on my shoulder that seemed designed for her, where the curve of her skull fit perfectly into the hollow below my collarbone.
We sat like that, listening to the symphony of water and wind and birds.
Her thumb traced patterns on my hand—circles, figure-eights, abstract designs that made my skin electric.
"I used to dream about this," she said quietly, her voice barely louder than the creek.
"When I was in hotel rooms in cities I couldn't remember the names of.
Places where everyone called me Stevie and nobody knew I was afraid of storms or that I can't eat strawberries or that my favorite movie is still The Princess Bride.
I'd lie in those expensive beds with their too-many pillows and dream about sitting with you, just being quiet together. "
I turned to look at her, and she was already looking at me.
Those green eyes clear and deep as the water, holding nothing back.
The sun through the leaves created patterns on her face, and I could see every freckle the LA makeup artists had hidden, every line that showed she'd laughed and cried and lived.
The pull between us was magnetic, inevitable as gravity. I could see her pulse fluttering at her throat like a trapped bird, watched her lips part slightly, unconsciously. She leaned in just a fraction, and her eyes started to close.
It would be so easy to kiss her. So right. So perfect. To taste that mouth I'd dreamed about for five years, to pull her against me and show her exactly how much I'd missed her, wanted her, loved her.
I pulled back, gentle but definite, and saw the flash of hurt in her eyes before understanding replaced it. The moment hung between us, charged and fragile.
"Not because I don't want to," I said quickly, needing her to understand.
"God, Steph, I want to. I've wanted to since the moment I saw you on that porch in the morning sun.
Hell, I've wanted to since Austin, since always.
But you're still healing, and I won't... I can't be another person who takes something from you before you're ready to give it. "
Her eyes filled with tears, but she was smiling, this soft, wondering thing that made my chest ache. "How are you real? How are you this good?"
"I'm not that good. I'm selfish as hell, actually. I want you whole and healthy and choosing me because you want to not because I’m the only option."
"You think you're convenient?" She laughed, watery but real.
"Lee, nothing about you is convenient. You're the most inconvenient person in my life.
You make me feel things when numbness would be easier.
You make me want things when giving up would be simpler.
You make me believe I can be myself again when becoming someone else entirely would be safer. "
"Good. Be inconvenienced. Feel things. Want things." I squeezed her hand. "Be yourself."
"You're the best man I've ever known," she said, the tears spilling over now. "The best friend I've ever had. When everything else in my life turned fake and complicated, you stayed real. You stayed you. You stayed."
"You make it sound like I did something special. All I did was come get you when you called."
"You dropped everything. You flew to LA in the middle of the night. You carried me when I couldn't walk. You brought me here, sat by my bed for five days. You gave me Poet. You gave me a notebook and space to fall apart and songs to sleep to and..."
She had to stop, overwhelmed. The tears were really coming now, and I pulled her against me, held her while she cried into my shirt. Not the broken sobs from her first week here, but cleansing tears, grateful tears, the kind that washed things clean instead of drowning them.
"You held my hand at my parents' funeral," I said into her hair, breathing in her scent, memorizing the weight of her against me.
"Sat with me in that church for three hours, never let go, even when your hand must've gone numb.
You sat with me in the basement while I cried.
You didn't try to make me talk or tell me it would be okay. You just held on."
"I remember," she whispered against my chest.
"That's what we do. We hold on to each other. Then, now, always."
She pulled back enough to look at me, mascara smudged but beautiful, more beautiful than any magazine cover because this was real.
"I love you. You know that, right? Not..
. I mean, yes, that way too, but also just..
. I love you. The person you are. The way you move through the world like goodness is the default.
The way you make everyone around you feel safer just by existing.
The way you see me—not Stevie Wilson, not the commodity—just me. "
A shaky breath left me. Those words…I’d wanted to hear them for the better part of my life. My throat closed, my chest ached, my heart soared. “Steph—“
"I know we can't... not yet. Maybe not for a while. But I needed you to know. Needed to say it out loud where the creek and the trees and God himself can witness it. You're my best friend, Lee. The best friend I've ever had. The love of my life, probably, but that's a conversation for another day."
I kissed her forehead, gentle, chaste, but let my lips linger just a moment, feeling her skin warm under them. "You're mine too. Always have been."
Poet chose that moment to investigate what we were doing, sticking her head between us, looking for treats or attention or just wanting to be part of things.
Her muzzle pushed against Stephy's shoulder, leaving another green smear, making us both laugh.
The emotional intensity broke into something lighter but no less meaningful.
"Your horse has terrible timing," I told Stephy.
"My horse is perfect." She fed Poet a peppermint from her pocket—another habit Louisa had started that was going to rot the mare's teeth. "Aren't you, beautiful? You're absolutely perfect."
Poet preened like she understood, tossing her white mane and making Stephy laugh again. That sound—I'd never get tired of that sound. It was better than any song she'd ever recorded, better than any music that had ever been made.
We rode back as the afternoon started cooling toward evening, taking the long route that wound through the oak grove where the trees were old enough to have seen all this land’s history.
The light went golden and soft, that magic hour photographers paid thousands to capture, but that happened free every day out here.
Stephy was confident now, moving with Poet instead of just sitting on her. She even tried a little trot when Poet offered it, though she squealed and grabbed the saddle horn when the gait changed, bouncing like a sack of potatoes for a few strides before finding the rhythm.
"Post!" I called out. "Up down, up down, with the outside shoulder!"
"I don't know what that means!" But she was laughing, and somehow her body figured it out, finding that rise and fall that turned a trot from torture to dance.
"You're a natural," I told her as we unsaddled the horses back at the barn, the building filled with that golden late-afternoon light that made everything look blessed.
"I have a good teacher." She was brushing Poet, long strokes from neck to rump that had the mare practically purring. "And a patient horse. She takes care of me, doesn't she? Like she knows I need it."
"You take care of each other."
It was true. Watching them together in the barn's golden light, I could see the healing happening both ways.
Poet had been a good horse before, well-trained and willing, but with Stephy, she bloomed into something more.
She stood straighter, moved with more confidence, whinnied when she heard Stephy's voice from across the pasture.
And Stephy... she was finding pieces of herself she'd lost, or maybe pieces she'd never known were there.
The part that could be brave. The part that could trust. The part that could love without fear.
"Same time tomorrow?" she asked as we walked back to the cabins, the sun painting everything rose gold.
"Wouldn't miss it."
At her door, she turned, went up on her toes, and kissed my cheek. Not romantic exactly, but intimate. Familiar. A promise of what could be when the time was right. Her lips were soft, warm, and they lingered just long enough to make my heart skip.
"Thank you," she said. "For the ride. For the patience. For being exactly who you are."
I watched her go inside, then stood there for a moment in the gathering dusk, my cheek warm where her lips had been, watching the first stars appear in the darkening sky.
Three weeks since I'd brought her here broken and terrified.
Now she was riding horses, writing songs, laughing at mare slobber, crying healing tears, saying "I love you" by a creek.
She was coming back to herself. Or maybe, like she'd said at the creek, she was becoming someone new. Someone stronger. Someone who knew she could survive anything because she already had.
And when she was ready—really ready, not just grateful or lonely or looking for comfort—I'd be here. We'd figure out what we could be together. What we'd maybe always been meant to be, if life hadn't gotten in the way.
For now, this was enough. More than enough. Riding fence lines through wildflower meadows, sitting by creeks older than memory, sharing silences that said more than words ever could.
Tomorrow we'd ride again. Maybe go a little farther, try a little more. Small steps toward something bigger, something worth waiting for.
I could wait. For her, I could wait forever.
But standing there in the Texas twilight, with her kiss still warm on my cheek and the memory of her saying she loved me still ringing in my ears, I had a feeling I wouldn't have to wait as long as I thought.