7. Chapter 7
Brynn
It’s been three weeks. Three weeks of Beckett coming to the barn office after hours and locking the door.
Three weeks of his hands finding me in the dark and my back against every flat surface in that building.
Three weeks of falling asleep in his bed or mine or on a couch that’s too small, and waking up with his arm around me and his face pressed into my hair.
We haven’t defined it. We don’t talk about what it is. We work side by side during the day with a professional distance that fools exactly no one. Jake started a new betting pool. This one has categories I’m not going to repeat.
The program is thriving. Josie is working cattle for the first time, cutting calves out of the herd with a natural ability that makes my chest swell every time I watch her.
Hank is sharp and focused. Rebel is gaining confidence daily.
The new equipment arrived last week and the dedicated cutting area is nearly finished.
Things are good. So good that I should know something’s coming.
On Wednesday, Elise shows up at the barn at ten AM and announces she’s kidnapping me.
“You haven’t left this ranch in two weeks,” she says. “You’re coming to town. We’re getting coffee. Non-negotiable.”
“I have Josie’s session at eleven.”
“Josie can wait. Your social life cannot.”
Beckett is in the tack room doorway. He raises an eyebrow at me. I raise one back. He shrugs, which is Beckett for “go ahead, I’ll handle the horses.”
Elise drives. The town of Wylde Mountain is twenty minutes down the valley. It’s small and tidy and I love it. A main street with storefronts that still have awnings. A hardware store next to a bookshop. Mountains at the end of every sightline.
We park and walk to Wylde Beans. The name is for the town, not the family, but Elise still rolls her eyes every time she says it.
Emma Davenport is behind the counter. She’s warm and quick and clearly runs her coffee shop the way Beckett runs his barn.
With authority and without negotiation. She makes my latte without asking what I want because Elise already texted her my order, which tells me Elise has been planning this extraction for a while.
“So you’re the horse woman,” Emma says. Leaning on the counter. Looking at me the way small-town women look at newcomers, which is with friendly curiosity and zero pretense. “Elise has been talking about you for a while.”
“All good things, I hope.”
“She said you’d give Beckett a run for his money.” Emma grins. “From what I hear, she was right.”
I look at Elise. Elise looks at the ceiling.
“The ranch gossip network is very efficient,” I say.
“Honey, this is Wylde Mountain. You have no idea.”
As we’re heading for the door, a pretty young woman walks in. Mid-twenties, light brown hair in a neat ponytail, canvas tote bag over one shoulder with a book spine poking out of it.
She sees Elise and her whole face lights up.
“Elise! Hey! How’s the ranch?”
“Good. Really good.” Elise pulls her into a quick hug and turns to me. “Brynn, this is Cassie Benton. She works down the street at River Bend Books.”
“Harper’s shop,” Cassie says, shaking my hand.
Her grip is warm and her smile is genuine and she radiates the energy of someone who has a color-coded planner and has never missed a deadline in her life.
“I’m just grabbing coffees for us. Harper’s deep in inventory and refuses to leave the back room. ”
“Cassie grew up here,” Elise tells me. “Left for college, came back a couple years ago. She works at the bookstore but she’s also been writing children’s books about horses. Successfully, I might add.”
“They’re small books,” Cassie says. But she’s blushing, which tells me they’re not that small.
“You should come by the ranch sometime soon,” Elise says. “See how Brynn has improved things. Get some inspiration for your next book.”
Cassie beams. “I’d love that!”
We say goodbye and head next door to Peak Bites.
The bakery is small and smells like brown butter and cinnamon and the kind of sugar that makes your teeth ache just from breathing. Madison Morgan is behind the display case, pulling a tray of cinnamon rolls out of the oven that look like they were engineered to end diets.
“Hey Madison. We need three dozen, please,” Elise says.
“For the ranch?”
“For the crew. And Beckett, who will eat four and deny it.”
Madison boxes them up. The rolls are enormous and glistening and I understand immediately why they went viral. Some things don’t need marketing. They just need to exist and let the smell do the work.
“Madison had a food truck before she opened the shop,” Elise tells me as we carry the boxes back to the truck. “Her cinnamon rolls broke the internet. Then she met Emma’s brother when she stopped here during a snowstorm, and when she left he accidentally professed his love over a live stream.”
“Wow.”
“I know! They’ve been together ever since.”
We sit in the truck for a minute. Elise sips her coffee. I sip mine. The mountains are visible at the end of the street, blue and enormous.
“You doing okay? You seem happy,” Elise says.
“I’m busy.”
“Those aren’t the same thing. Are you happy?”
I think about it. About the horses. The program. The cabin. The barn office couch. The man who sleeps with his arm around me and wakes up before dawn and tapes my schedules to doors.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m happy.”
Elise smiles. The smile of a woman who helped her friend find something she wasn’t looking for.
We drive back with the cinnamon rolls filling the truck with their aroma.
I feel lighter than I have in weeks. The town, the coffee, the normalcy of sitting with a friend and talking about nothing important.
I’ve been so deep in the barn and the program and Beckett that I forgot what it feels like to just be a person with a life outside the fence line.
The fight happens the next day. Thursday.
I want to add a joint-support supplement to the cutting horses’ feed.
The stops and lateral work put real demand on their hocks and stifles, and plenty of performance programs use joint nutraceuticals as part of their management.
The research varies depending on the ingredients, but I’ve used this particular product before and I’m comfortable with it.
Beckett disagrees.
“The current feed program is fine,” he says. We’re in the barn aisle. His arms are crossed. His voice is flat.
“The current feed program was designed for ranch horses doing a different job. Their workload is changing, so I’m adjusting their management with it.”
“You’ve had them in cutting work for three weeks.”
“Which is why I want to start the supplements. I’d rather support them now and monitor how they’re doing than wait until one starts coming up sore.”
“You’re adding cost to a program that hasn’t proven itself yet.”
That lands. Because he’s not wrong about the timeline. The program is new. The results are promising but early. But the supplements are the right call and we both know it. This isn’t about money or timing.
“What’s this really about, Beckett?”
“It’s about supplements.”
“It’s not about supplements.”
He stops pacing. Turns. And the look on his face is not about feed additives.
“How long?” he says.
“How long what?”
“How long are you here?”
I stare at him.
“What’s your timeline?” he asks. “You build the program, get it running, and then what? You move on to the next ranch? The next operation that needs someone to come in and set things up?”
The words hit me in the center of my chest.
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s a question.”
“No. It’s fear pretending to be a question.”
His jaw locks. “You’ve been on a lot of ranches,” he says. “Your words.”
“I have.”
“You build things. That’s what you do.”
“Yes.”
“And then you leave.”
“I move when the job is done.”
“Same thing.”
“It is not the same thing.”
“And here?” He steps closer. His eyes are dark and desperate now. “What happens when there’s nothing left to build? When the program is running and the horses are trained and the operation doesn’t need you anymore?”
“You think I’m temporary.”
“Everything is temporary.” His voice is raw. Not angry. Afraid. “People leave,” he says. “That’s what they do.”
“This is different.”
“Why?”
“Because I want it to be.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Because I chose this ranch.”
He shakes his head. “The program?”
“Yes.”
“The horses?”
“Yes.”
“The job?”
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
I look at him. Really look at him. At the man who slept with his arm around me last night. The man who knows exactly how I take my coffee and refuses to admit he knows. The man who bought me gloves and pretended they materialized on my desk.
“You,” I say.
He goes completely still.
“You are part of the reason I’m staying.”
Something flashes across his face. Not happiness. Panic.
“Don’t.”
I blink. “Don’t what?”
“Do that.”
“Do what, Beckett?”
“Build your life around me.”
“I’m not building my life around you.”
“You just said you’re staying because of me.”
“I said you’re part of the reason.”
“That’s worse.”
I actually laugh once because the alternative is throwing something at him. “How could that possibly be worse?”
“Because this isn’t mine, Brynn.” He gestures around us. The barn. The stalls. Everything. “This ranch isn’t mine. These horses aren’t mine. The house I sleep in isn’t mine. I’ve spent my whole life living on somebody else’s ground.”
“Beckett—”
“Borrowed ground.” The words come out quietly. Almost like he’s saying them to himself.
“That’s what this has always been. Every ranch. Every bunkhouse. Every roof over my head. Something somebody else could take back.”
My anger falters.
Because suddenly I understand. He’s not talking about my program. He’s talking about himself.
“Borrowed things get returned eventually,” he says.
My heart hurts. Not because he’s attacking me. Because this impossible man genuinely believes he’s something I’ve borrowed.
“You’re not a thing,” I say.
“You know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t think you know what you mean.”
“I mean don’t stay for me.”
There it is. That’s the part that hurts. Not cruelty. Cowardice.
“You don’t get to tell me that.”
“I’m telling you not to make a permanent decision because of me.”
“And I’m telling you it’s my decision to make.”
“You’ll regret it.”
My temper flashes hot. “You don’t know that.”
“I know how this ends.”
“No, Beckett. You know how things ended before. That isn’t the same thing.”
“People leave.”
“And sometimes they stay.”
He shakes his head.
Something in me snaps.
“Do you know what your problem is?”
“I’ve got a list.”
“You think being afraid gives you the right to make everybody else’s decisions for them.”
His face changes. Good. Let that one land.
“I chose this ranch,” I tell him. “I chose this program. I chose these horses. And God help me, I choose you too. You don’t get to stand there and tell me my choice doesn’t count because you’re scared it might change someday.”
“Brynn—”
“No.” My voice is quiet now. Much more dangerous. “You want to be scared? Fine. Be scared. But don’t confuse fear with prophecy.”
I pick up the supplement report and put it against his chest.
He takes it automatically.
“The supplements are happening.”
Then I walk out of the barn.
I walk to my cabin. I close the door. I sit on the bed. I am furious. Which is better than devastated. Mostly. Because underneath the anger is something that hurts in a completely different way. He wants me. I know he does.
He lets me into his bed and his barn and the parts of himself he doesn’t show anyone else. He sleeps with his arm around me like his body knows something his brain refuses to accept. And then I tell him I chose him and he looks at that choice like it’s a loaded weapon.
I get it. I understand exactly where it comes from. His mother left. His father left. Every home before this one disappeared underneath him. Somewhere along the way, Beckett decided expecting permanence was just volunteering to be hurt.
I understand the wound. I do not accept the conclusion. He doesn’t get to decide for me that he’s temporary.
He doesn’t get to decide that loving him is a mistake before I’ve even had the chance to make it.
My phone buzzes.
Elise: Beckett just came up to the house looking like he drove his truck into a wall. What happened?
I stare at the message. Then I type.
Me: He told me not to stay for him.
Three dots appear immediately.
Elise: I’m going to kill him.
Me: Don’t.
Elise: Raiford says that man has been happier in the last month than in four years of working here.
Me: He’s terrified.
Elise: I know.
Me: So do I. That doesn’t mean he gets to make my decisions.
There’s a pause before her answer.
Elise: No. It absolutely does not. Why don’t you try to get some sleep? Text me in the morning if you want to.
I put my phone down.
For half a second, I look toward the closet. Toward the suitcase under the bed. Then I almost laugh.
Absolutely not. I’m not packing a damn thing.
This is exactly what we’ve been fighting about since the day I arrived. Beckett thinks everything in his life is temporary because it always has been.
That doesn’t make me temporary.
Tomorrow, I’ll work the horses. I’ll run my program. I’ll walk into that barn like I belong there because I do.
And Beckett Cole can figure out whether he’s brave enough to believe me.
Because I love him. God help me, I love that impossible man.
I love his patience with frightened horses and the way he taped my schedule to the tack room door. I love the gloves on my desk and his grunts and his silence and the way his voice breaks when he says my name.
But loving him doesn’t mean letting his fear choose for both of us.
The bed feels wrong without him. I hate that too.
The cabin is quiet. The barn is down the hill. Somewhere in the dark, Birdie is sleeping and Rebel is resting and the horses are fine.
It’s the people who need work.