Chapter 8
Iwoke the next morning with the memory of Ryder’s mouth still pressed against mine.
For a few quiet seconds, I remained beneath the covers and stared at the pale ceiling while everything from the night before came back in pieces.
Childhood drawings, my mother’s ruined photographs, and the grief I had carried for so long finally breaking open.
In my mind, I saw Ryder sitting beside me without asking questions or trying to make the hurt smaller than it was. Then I kissed him.
I could still feel the rough scrape of his thumb against my cheek and the careful way he had held my face, as if I were something fragile even though he knew I had survived far worse than a broken heart.
The kiss hadn’t been frantic and messy. It had been slow and deep, filled with all the things neither of us knew how to say.
And I had been the one to start it.
That should have been the part bothering me most. Instead, I couldn't stop thinking about everything else.
I had come back intending to sell the ranch…
the one Ryder had spent years protecting.
I had kissed him knowing I would eventually leave, and somehow, that felt dangerously close to a betrayal.
The worst part was that I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to leave anymore.
That realization should have embarrassed me. Instead, warmth spread low through my stomach as I remembered the way Ryder had responded without hesitation, his control wrapped so tightly around him I could almost feel the strain of it.
I rolled onto my side and pressed my face into the pillow, letting out a muffled groan. “What the hell am I doing?”
The empty room offered no answers.
At some point after the kiss, Ryder had helped me off the floor, cleaned up the scattered papers and photos, and set them in the dining room while I washed my face and tried to pull myself back together. And that whole time afterward, neither of us mentioned what had happened between us.
He stayed until the worst of the emotion passed then left with nothing more than a quiet good night and one long look that followed me upstairs.
Now, morning sunlight pushed around the edges of the curtains, and I found myself listening for the familiar sound of hammering. But all that greeted me was silence.
I lay there for another minute, waiting for the scrape of lumber across the porch or the rumble of Ryder’s truck speeding up the drive.
For the last several mornings, he had appeared before I could rub the sleep out of my eyes, moving around the property as if tending to the Shaw Ranch had become part of his daily routine.
But the house was quiet.
I finally pushed the blankets aside and got dressed, pulling on old jeans and a faded shirt before twisting my hair into a loose knot.
Downstairs, yesterday’s mess still covered half the dining room table.
Boxes of loose papers sat beside stacks of photographs, and the county tax receipt lay right at the top.
I picked it up and stared at Ryder’s company name again. The amount still made my stomach tighten. He had paid thousands of dollars to keep the county from taking land that didn’t belong to him, and he had done it without telling anyone.
Without telling me.
“What are you doing, Ryder?” I whispered to myself.
I set the receipt down and crossed into the kitchen. There was no coffee waiting on the table. No note written in thick, black marker. And especially no broad-shouldered cowboy standing outside on the porch pretending he hadn’t been watching the house.
I made coffee for myself, poured too much sugar into the mug, and carried it outside.
The morning was clear and cool after the storm last night. Sunlight stretched across the pasture, catching on the wet grass and the puddles that remained along the fence line. The sky was so blue it looked almost fake, like an artist had taken his paintbrush and stroked it to life.
But beneath that natural beauty, the ranch still showed signs of the damage. Broken branches littered the yard, muddy tracks cut through the drive, and the living room window remained covered with plywood and tarp.
I leaned against the porch railing and stared toward the Kane property. I couldn’t see many details of his place aside from the main structure, and wondered if he was home.
It was ridiculous how quickly his absence became noticeable. Before returning to Rootstown Creek, I had spent years building a life where I answered to no one. I ate alone, slept alone, and handled whatever went wrong without waiting for someone to rescue me.
Most of all, I used that time to heal a splintered childhood. And I had been proud of that independence because it proved my father hadn’t broken me completely.
Yet, after only a handful of days, the silence Ryder left behind was too noticeable.
I told myself he was busy. He had his own shit to handle and didn’t owe me an explanation for staying away, especially after I had kissed him and then stood there afterward without explaining what the kiss meant to me.
I didn’t even know what any of it meant. That was probably why Ryder hadn’t returned today. He was giving me space to figure out my shit.
I finished my coffee and went inside to find my boots. If Ryder wanted to stay away, that was fine. I had more than enough work to keep me occupied. The house still needed to be cleared, the storm damage needed attention, and the ranch needed to be made presentable before Kacey sent a photographer.
I had returned to Rootstown Creek to settle the estate, not spend my mornings staring down the road hoping a certain cowboy would appear.
I started with the broken branches scattered across the yard.
Most were small enough to drag toward the burn pile behind the barn, but the ground was still soft from the storm, and mud clung heavily to my boots.
By the time I cleared the area around the porch, sweat dampened the back of my shirt and irritation had settled beneath my skin.
I told myself the irritation had nothing to do with Ryder. But I knew what a big fat lie that was.
The biggest question was whether I could stay away from him.