Chapter 6
Callie
Maisie named the horse before we got out of the car.
"Starlight. Her name is Starlight because she has a star on her head and I already decided, Mommy. Don't you think Starlight is the best name?"
"It's a beautiful name, baby."
"I drew her a picture at school. Three pictures. One is her eating carrots, one is her running, and one is her and Rosie being best friends." She was unbuckling before I'd turned off the engine, practically climbing out the window. "Is Clay here? Where’s Clay?"
This was for Maisie.
I said it to myself like a woman reciting an alibi as I parked at the Blackwood Ranch.
This was for my daughter, who had talked about this mare every single night since Clay texted a photo on Tuesday — a chestnut with a white star on her forehead, standing in a paddock, with the message: Got a new mare coming in.
She doesn't have a name yet. Think Maisie might want the job?
Maisie had seen the photo over my shoulder, screamed at a pitch that made the neighbor's dog bark, and had been planning the naming ceremony ever since.
This was for Maisie.
It was absolutely, categorically not for the man standing at the paddock fence with Jack, hat tipped back, sleeves rolled, talking with his hands the way he did when he forgot to perform.
Clay was in his element — I could see it from fifty feet away.
He was gesturing toward a chestnut mare in the round pen while Jack nodded beside him, and the animation in his face — the focus, the excitement, the complete absence of swagger — made something shift that I immediately told to stop shifting.
He looked up when Maisie's voice hit the air. His whole face changed.
"There she is! The official Blackwood Ranch Horse Namer!"
Maisie’s hand left mine and she went sprinting to him. “Is that her? Is that Starlight?"
Clay laughed as he scooped her up in his arms. "That's her, cowgirl. Want to meet her?"
I watched them at the fence — Clay lifting Maisie to sit on the top rail, one arm secure around her waist, fielding questions with the patience of a man who had nowhere else to be.
"What does she eat?"
"Hay, grain, and carrots. She's a big fan of carrots like Rosie."
"Does she like rain?"
“She does.”
“I’m glad she’s not scared. Is she fast?"
"She's going to be. She's got speed in her bloodline."
"Can she be Rosie's best friend?"
"I think that's up to Rosie. But I've got a good feeling."
"What's her favorite color?"
Clay didn't blink. "Green. Because of the grass."
"That makes sense," Maisie said, with the solemnity of a scientist confirming a hypothesis.
"See that white star on her forehead? That's how you know she's special. Not every horse gets a star."
"Like a superpower?"
"Exactly like a superpower."
Maisie turned to me, blazing. "Mommy, she has a superpower!”
I smiled. Because my daughter was sitting on a ranch fence in pink boots, being told by a champion bull rider that a horse had a superpower, and she believed it with every cell in her body. How could I not smile at that?
Clay caught my eye over Maisie's head. Didn't wink. Didn't grin. Just looked at me with something quiet and warm that said I see you standing there pretending this isn't getting to you.
I looked away first. Because it was getting to me, and looking away was all I had left.
Jack ambled over from the round pen, wiping his hands on his jeans. He had a stillness about him — the kind of calm that came from a man who'd seen enough of the world to know exactly where he wanted to be.
"She's a good prospect," Jack said, nodding toward Starlight. "Clay's got an eye. Didn't expect it from him, but he reads horses the way he reads bulls."
"I'm right here, Jack."
"I know. I'm complimenting you to your face. Enjoy it — it won't happen often."
Clay grinned. Jack almost smiled, which, from Jack, seemed to be the equivalent of a standing ovation. Maisie, oblivious to the brotherly dynamics, was leaning so far over the fence toward Starlight that Clay had to tighten his grip.
"Can I touch her?"
"Not today, cowgirl. She's still getting used to the place. But next weekend, if she's settled in, you can help me brush her."
“Next weekend?” Maisie whipped toward me. “Mommy, did you hear? Next. Weekend."
"I heard, baby. The entire county heard."
Clay laughed — the one that crinkled his eyes and made my stomach do something I was choosing to attribute to the tea I'd had too much of this morning. Except I hadn't had too much tea. I'd had exactly the right amount of tea. The problem wasn't the tea.
This was getting complicated.
Louisa appeared with sandwiches and the inevitability of a weather system.
"Lunch," she announced, setting a basket on the porch rail. Not "would you like lunch" or "can I offer you lunch." Just lunch. The woman had the diplomatic subtlety of a cavalry charge, and I was beginning to respect it enormously.
"I really should get Maisie home —"
"Nonsense. The child is having the time of her life, and you're not in a rush. Sit."
I sat. Partly because she was right and partly because arguing with Louisa Blackwood was like arguing with gravity — technically possible, practically pointless.
Maggie appeared with plates and a warmth that felt like sunlight.
She asked about the Mercer case and actually listened to the answer.
She asked if Theo had survived his Clay-related Instagram spiral, and when I said he'd started a fan account under the name CopperCreekCowboyLover, she laughed so hard she spilled her lemonade.
"He did NOT."
"He has forty-seven followers. He's very proud."
"Does Clay know?"
"God, no. And you can't tell him. Theo will be destroyed."
"This is the best thing I've ever heard," Maggie said, wiping her eyes. "Jack! Jack, come here —"
"Don't you dare."
But I was laughing. Actually laughing, with another woman, on a porch, about something stupid and harmless.
"Sophia sends her love," Louisa said, refilling glasses. "She's on shift — twelve hours. But she wanted me to tell Maisie she'll teach her to braid a horse's mane next time."
"I can braid a horse's mane?" Maisie materialized from nowhere with hay in her hair and something unidentifiable on her cheek.
"French braids, running braids, the works," Louisa said.
"Can she braid my hair too?"
Louisa chuckled. “Honey, Sophia will braid anything that holds still long enough."
Ivy came out with a book and a glass of water, settling into a rocking chair like she'd been doing it for decades. She caught me watching the family and gave me a look that was warm and slightly conspiratorial.
"It's a lot," she said quietly. "The first time I had lunch on this porch, I went home and stared at a wall for an hour trying to process the volume of love in this family."
"That's... reassuring, actually."
"You get used to it. Then you can't imagine anything else." She went back to her book, leaving the sentence exactly where it had landed — right in the center of my chest.
Maisie had climbed onto Louisa's lap. She was explaining, with hand gestures and sound effects, Starlight's complete biography and their plans for matching outfits and a shared bedroom. Nobody told her to shush. Nobody checked the time.
Here, she'd been talking for twenty minutes, and Louisa was asking whether Starlight would prefer a pink or purple blanket.
"Mommy, can we have lunch here every Saturday?"
Everyone looked at me as if they had no issue with us encroaching on their family time.
I swallowed hard. Shifted in my seat. "We'll see, baby."
She opened her mouth — the rebuttal already forming — and I gave her the look. She closed her mouth. Progress.
I finished my sandwich. Thanked Louisa. Collected my daughter, who had to be peeled off the porch like a barnacle. On the way to the car, she grabbed my hand and said, "Miss Lou smells like cookies. Even when she's not making cookies. How does she do that?"
"Maybe she's made so many cookies over the years the smell just moved in permanently."
Maisie looked up at me, delighted. "Like a cookie ghost?"
"Exactly like a cookie ghost."
We looked at each other and burst out laughing — the same laugh, the same timing, the way we always did when one of us said something that cracked the other one open. My girl. My favorite person on the entire planet.
I held her hand tighter than necessary.
Cooper's General was on the way home, and I needed milk.
I was navigating the narrow aisle past the inexplicable hand-carved wooden armadillo display — who was buying these? who had ever bought one? — when she appeared.
Tall. Dark-haired. The kind of beautiful that walks into a room leading with its cheekbones. Maybe thirty, turquoise jewelry, fitted jeans, boots that cost more than my car payment. And she was looking at me with the smile of a woman who has a grenade and is deciding where to throw it.
"You're Callie, right? Clay's new friend?"
She said friend the way you'd say pen pal. With a pause and an eyebrow and just enough inflection to strip the word of its actual meaning.
"That's right. I'm Callie."
"I'm Brooke." Handshake. Firm grip, perfect nails, eye contact that didn't waver.
"I've known Clay for years. We go way back.
" She leaned against the dairy case like she was settling in.
"He's so generous with his time, isn't he?
Always looking after people. Taking them under his wing.
" The smile widened. "I know firsthand how. .. attentive he can be."
She let the word attentive hang there. Gave it a little spin. Let me watch it glitter.
"That's sweet," I said. "He's been wonderful with my daughter."
I gave her the Ashford gala smile — the one that had survived years of charity events, the one that said I see exactly what you're doing and I'm choosing not to engage.
Brooke's smile flickered. She'd expected more surface area to work with.
"Well," she said. "Tell Clay I said hi."