Chapter 12
Jane
Kitty opens her door before I can knock twice, as if she’s been waiting for me.
“Jane!” she exclaims brightly, pulling me inside as if I belong here. “Come in. You look like you could either cry or commit arson.”
I laugh too loudly. “Arson is still an option.”
Kitty’s smile softens. “Okay. Shoes off. Sit down. Hot chocolate or coffee?”
“Hot chocolate,” I reply automatically.
Kitty beams. “Correct answer.”
Her cabin is cozy in a way Tex’s isn’t. Not better, just different. Softer and lived-in, with a few framed photos on the walls, a blanket thrown over the couch like it’s been used and loved. A goat sleeping by the hearth, and—
Wait—
“Why is there a goat in your cabin?”
Kitty chuckles as she plunks a mug of hot chocolate and a cinnamon bun in front of me, then settles across the table.
“That’s Biscuit. Thinks he’s a dog. It was Tom’s idea to introduce goat farming at the ranch and, well, it kind of took off.
Cheese Puff and Pretzel usually pop in at some point during the day.
” She winks at me. “I think Cheese Puff and Biscuit have a thing for each other.”
“Of course they do,” I say, as if discussing goat sex over hot chocolate and cinnamon buns is an everyday occurrence.
“So,” Kitty says, her eyes brightening. “How's Tex?”
I choke on my drink, nearly spewing hot chocolate from my nose.
“Fine,” I manage, wiping my mouth.
Kitty’s eyes glint, then soften as she really looks at me. “That was a very loud ‘fine,’ Jane.”
My face heats. “I don't know what you mean.”
Kitty falls silent for a moment before saying gently, “You don’t have to tell me anything, but I’m here if you want to.”
I groan and stare into my mug. Kitty waits patiently, as if she knows that silence makes me honest.
I inhale slowly. The words are stuck somewhere between my chest and my throat, sharp-edged and humiliating. But if I don’t say them, I’ll explode.
“Can you... help me?”
Kitty’s expression shifts from playful to alert. “Of course. With what?”
I swallow. The word feels pathetic coming out of my mouth, like I’m twelve and trying to impress a boy at a school dance. “A makeover.”
She frowns. “Why?”
My fingers tighten around the mug until it hurts. The warmth burns my palms, but I need the grounding. If I tell her the truth—the real truth—it becomes pathetic. It becomes the thing I’ve been running from my entire life.
But Kitty’s gaze doesn’t judge.
“I heard him,” I murmur. “On the phone. Talking about me.” My voice wobbles, and I hate it. “He said I’m everything he didn’t want.”
Kitty goes very still. “Did you hear the whole conversation?”
I hesitate. “No.”
“Jane.” Kitty’s voice is gentle but firm. “What if there was more?”
“There wasn’t,” I say quickly. “I heard enough.”
“Did you? Or did you hear a partial sentence and your brain filled in the worst possible ending?”
The accuracy of that hits me like a punch. Because yes, that’s exactly what my brain does. But—
I heard him, and his voice sounded like regret.
My throat tightens. “I’m not... easy.”
Kitty’s voice softens. “Jane.”
The words tumble out before I can stop them, like water seeping through a cracked dam. “He’s all routines and fences and schedules. And I’m”—I wave a hand vaguely at myself—“noise. I’m wild. I’m a whole problem.”
Kitty’s gaze becomes fierce. “You are not a problem.”
I laugh brokenly. “My brothers would disagree.”
Kitty leans forward, her voice quiet and sure. “I’m sure your brothers love you. But loving someone and understanding them are two different things. And sometimes the people who love us the most are the worst at seeing who we actually are.”
The words land with surgical precision, cutting right through the armor I’ve built around that particular wound. My eyes sting. I blink hard, refusing to cry.
Kitty’s voice gentles, but her eyes stay sharp. “Tell me something. Why do you want a makeover?”
“Because if I can just be quieter and calmer. Less”—I gesture helplessly—“everything, maybe he—”
“Maybe he what?”
“Chooses me,” I whisper. “For real. Not just because he got stuck with me at an auction.”
Kitty goes very still. Then she reaches across the table and covers my hand with hers. “Listen to me very carefully.” Her voice is soft but carries weight.
I look up, my throat tight.
Kitty squeezes my hand. “If you change yourself and he ‘chooses’ that version, who gets loved?”
The question hits me like a freight train. I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again.
“I...” My voice cracks. “Not me.”
Kitty nods. “Exactly.”
The tears I’ve been holding back spill over because she’s right. She’s so goddamn right, and I knew it all along, but I couldn’t make myself face it.
“If I sand myself down into someone quieter, and he loves that person, then the real me is still alone. I just won't know it until the mask slips.” I swallow hard. “But what if me isn’t what he wants?”
Kitty’s eyes hold mine steadily. “Then you deserve to know that now. Not after you’ve spent months or years pretending to be someone you’re not.”
I flinch. “That sounds terrifying.”
“It is,” Kitty agrees. “But here’s the thing, Jane. You came here to the auction, to Clover Canyon, because you wanted to find out who you are. You wanted someone to choose the real you. Not the performed you. Not the smaller, quieter, more manageable you.”
“What if the real me is too much?”
“Then he’s not enough for you.”
That lands so hard that I forget to breathe for a second. I’ve spent my whole life believing I was the problem—too loud, too much, too chaotic. It never occurred to me that maybe the people who couldn’t handle me were the ones who weren’t enough.
And the Tex I’ve seen, who held my hair back in the snow, who tucked me into bed, who caught me without hesitation, doesn’t feel like a man who wants me to shrink.
But I heard what I heard. And my fear is so loud it drowns out everything else.
“I just... It’s only been ten days, but I don't want to lose him,” I admit.
Kitty is quiet for a long moment. Then she sighs. It’s not frustrated, just thoughtful. “Okay. I’ll help you.”
My heart lifts, guilty and relieved.
“But we’re doing this my way,” Kitty adds, holding up a finger.
“One: you’re not doing this to become someone different.
You’re doing it because sometimes putting on armor helps us feel brave.
Two: the goal is to feel good for yourself, not to shrink for him.
Three: we're enhancing, not erasing. If at any point you feel like you’re wearing someone else’s skin, we stop. ”
I tip my head to the side. “That’s... oddly specific.”
“I’ve been the woman who changed herself for a man before,” she says quietly. “It doesn’t work. But I’ve also been the woman who did her makeup like war paint before a hard conversation. That’s different.”
Kitty stands. “Come on. Vanity time.”
Her spare room is a shrine to feminine competence: mirrors, makeup trays, curling tools, hairpins. Not fussy. Efficient. Like Kitty believes in beauty as armor, not obligation.
She sits me down and gently unravels my braid. As her fingers move through my hair, something in my body settles. The sensory input is steady and predictable.
It’s calming in a way I didn’t realize I needed.
Kitty catches my eye in the mirror. “Tell me what you want.”
I stare at my reflection, at my wind-chapped cheeks, freckles, a stubborn jaw that looks too much like Boone’s.
“I want to look soft. Feminine,” I admit.
Kitty nods. “Soft is fine. Soft is powerful. Soft is not the same as small.”
My throat tightens again.
She curls my hair into loose waves and keeps my makeup light: mascara, a touch of blush, a neutral gloss that makes my mouth look kissable.
Kitty smirks. “Yep. That’s the face of a woman who’s been kissed properly.”
“Stop,” I mutter, but I’m smiling despite myself.
Kitty steps back. "Okay. Look."
I look. For a moment, I don’t recognize myself, but not because I’ve become someone different.
I’m still me. My freckles are still there, my stubborn jaw, my too-expressive eyes.
But soft waves frame my face instead of fighting it.
The light makeup doesn’t hide anything; it just highlights my features as if someone took a photograph and adjusted the lighting.
I look like a woman who knows she’s worth looking at.
My chest aches with that knowledge.
Kitty stands behind me, hands on my shoulders. “See? This doesn’t make you more worthy. You were already worthy. This just helps you feel it.”
I cover one of her hands with mine. “Thank you.”
She turns to grab something, then presses a small bag into my hands. “Emergency kit. Gloss. Hair tie. Breath mints. Tiny deodorant. Don’t ask.”
I laugh softly. “You’re my fairy godmother.”
Kitty grins. “Without the pumpkins and mice.”
As she walks me to the door, her expression becomes serious again. “Jane?”
“Yeah?”
“What you heard, or what you think you heard, was a partial sentence. And your brain is really good at filling in blanks with the worst possible ending.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“So ask him. Let him finish the sentence. Don’t let your fear write the ending before you’ve read the last page.”
I nod, my throat feels too tight for words.
Outside, the cold greets me again. I pull my coat tight and head back down the path toward Tex’s cabin.
This time, I walk more slowly because I feel exposed now that I’ve softened my edges, as if the world can see the bruise on my heart.
My pulse kicks as the cabin comes into view—and that’s when the universe decides to remind me who I am.
My boot lands on something that looks like snow. It is not snow. It’s a hidden, half-frozen pile of cow shit.
My foot sinks in. I freeze.
No.
No, no, no.
I yank my foot too hard, and my other boot slips on ice. My arms windmill as I go down. Hard. I hear a sickening squelch as cold seeps into my skirt. The smell hits a second later—rancid, earthy humiliation.
I lie there for one stunned heartbeat. Then a sharp, broken, helpless laugh tears out of me.
Of course. The one time I try to be soft and pretty and manageable, I end up covered in literal crap.
I scramble up, my boot ripping free with a wet sucking sound. My hands are smeared, my coat is ruined, and my dignity is somewhere in the snow.
My eyes burn. Not from the cold, but because I don’t even know if the man inside wants me, and now I’m about to walk into his cabin smelling like a cow’s ass.
“Goddamn, Fuck. Shit.” I exhaust every four-letter word in my vocabulary as I stomp up the steps and push the door open before I can chicken out.
Tex is sitting on the sofa. His gaze lands on me, tracking from my curled hair and softened makeup to the smear of muck across my coat, skirt, and hands.
His jaw tightens as I stand there, shaking and filthy, my heart cracked open.
“I was trying,” I whisper.
Tex’s expression shifts from confusion to concern. “Trying what?”
My throat tightens until it hurts. “To be what you wanted. But I guess the universe disagreed.”
He stands, moving toward me. “Jane—”
“I heard you.” My voice shakes. “On the phone. You said I’m everything you didn’t want.”
Tex recoils as the words hit him square in the chest, his breath leaving him in a sharp exhale.
Then his eyes darken. “What did you hear exactly?”