Chapter 49
Dawn breaks, slow and golden, over the ranch, the air still cool from the night. Teagan sits next to me on the bunkhouse steps, her shoulder pressed lightly into mine, as we share coffee in silence. My hand rests on my thigh, absent and familiar, a stolen moment of intimacy while we are alone.
She glances up at me, her mouth curving into a soft smile. Returning her smile, I exhale, “We need to tell them.
Her smile doesn’t disappear, but it softens into something more thoughtful. She lowers her gaze to her coffee, watching the steam curl into the morning air. “I know.” She sighs after a moment.
I shift slightly, my shoulder brushing hers more firmly. “I don’t want them finding out by accident,” I continue. “Or worse… feeling like we’ve hidden it.”
Her fingers tighten faintly around the mug. “I’m not ashamed,” she shares quickly, shaking her head before looking up to meet my stare. “Of you. Or of us.”
“I know you’re not.”
“I don’t want to keep you a secret.” She nudges her shoulder into mine gently. “But… I like this. Just us. Before everyone else gets involved.”
I understand exactly what she means.
Right now, it’s ours. Untouched. Unjudged. Not shaped by opinions, expectations, or questions about what comes next. No one judging me or looking at her like she’s making a mistake.
“They’ll see it,” she says. “Eventually.”
“See what?”
Her lips curve again, softer this time. “That you care about me.”
“They will,” I agree
She sighs slowly, leaning her head briefly against my shoulder before straightening, her expression turning wry. “Dad’s gonna be airin’ his lungs about this…”
My whole body tenses when she says it. My visceral reaction has nothing to do with her dad, or how this might upset him, but entirely about the words she said.
Grief doesn’t knock. It doesn’t warn you that it’s coming. It doesn’t give you time to brace yourself or soften the fall. It waits until you’ve forgotten how sharp it is, until you’ve grown used to the weight of something else, and then it finds you in the smallest, most ordinary of moments.
Suddenly, I’m somewhere else.
Airin’ his lungs…
Rosie used to say that phrase all the time. The memory hits so hard, it knocks the breath from my lungs.
My vision blurs, and the pasture fades away as my hand squeezes around my cup of coffee so tightly, I think it might shatter. I close my eyes, and as clear as day, I see Rosie, standing in our kitchen. Sunlight pours through the window behind her, making her look as radiant as ever.
“Easton.” Teagan’s voice snaps the world back into place too quickly, and my chest aches at the sudden loss.
I look down at my hands to find they’re both shaking.
After abruptly setting my cup beside me, I shake them out before balling them into fists to stop the trembling.
I push up from my seat and take a few brisk steps away from the porch.
“Easton,” she calls after me again gently, her tone laced with concern.
“I’m fine,” I blurt reflexively, without turning to look at her. It’s a lie, but it’s easier than explaining the sudden absence of oxygen in my lungs. “I just need to go for a walk.”
I need space.
Teagan doesn’t press or follow. My boots hit the packed dirt harder than I intended, carrying me forward on instinct, toward the pasture, toward anywhere that isn’t right there, beside her—beside a future I’ve been pretending doesn’t terrify me.
The thud echoes in the quiet of the morning.
The ranch stretches out in front of me, wide and endless, the pasture painted gold by the rising sun.
Normally, it calms me, but right now, it just reminds me of Rosie, standing in our kitchen.
My chest tightens, and my breaths come shallow and uneven as I walk faster, putting distance between myself and the bunkhouse.
And Teagan’s concerned eyes. The space does nothing to quiet the sudden rush of guilt clawing its way up my throat.
It hits hard and mercilessly, whispering the same things I’ve been telling myself since the moment I realized how attracted I was to Teagan.
And again, when I realized she matters to me.
How can you do this? How can you care about someone else when Rosie doesn’t get to exist anymore?
I have never stopped loving Rosie. Not for a second.
She lives in every memory; some of them still feel more real than the present.
I loved her with everything I was. I built a life around that love.
And some broken part of me has always believed that loving anyone else means I’ve betrayed her—that moving forward means leaving her behind.
And yet… there’s room in my heart for Teagan, too.
I know, because I find myself caring about her more deeply with every passing day.
That fact fills me with a different kind of shame.
One that burns deeper. Teagan makes me a different man than the one I was with Rosie.
Not better, just different, as I slowly see the world through different eyes.
As much as I love feeling alive, part of me hates how easily it makes me forget the man I was when Rosie was here. The man who belonged entirely to her.
I drag a hand down my face and over my jaw, clenched tight enough that it aches.
I’m halfway to the barn when I hear my name. “Easton.”
I turn, finding James standing near the fence, his posture stiff, as always.
“Fence line running along the driveway needs repair,” he says. “Could use another set of hands.”
It isn’t a request. It’s an offering.
I nod once. “I’ll grab my tools.”
We work in silence. The quiet between us isn’t uncomfortable.
It’s familiar. James has been a man of few words since the day I met him.
According to Teagan, that’s just who he is.
He communicates through action and presence, talking only when necessary.
The fence has sagged in several places, the posts worn loose from years of weather and strain.
We move methodically, resetting them one by one.
“You seem different today,” he opines suddenly.
The words catch me off guard. I glance at him, but he doesn’t look up from his work.
“Just tired,” I answer.
He dips his chin, like I’ve given him the answer he expected, before fully returning to our work.
“I’ve been seein’ someone,” he shares nonchalantly as we reseat a post.
My head snaps up at his confession, while his stays rooted on our task. A fact that, based on what I can only imagine is a look of complete and utter shock on my face, I will be eternally grateful for.
“In town,” he adds. “For the past three years.”
The words feel enormous coming from him, as though he knew I needed them.
“You have?” I ask carefully.
“What? A man my age can’t date?”
His playful retort catches me off guard, and words blurt from me before I can stop them. “But… your wife?” Before they even fully spill from my mouth, I realize how hypocritical they are.
He drives another nail into the post, the sharp crack echoing across the ranch. “I still love my wife,” he says. “I’ll always love my wife.”
“How did you move on?”
“Move on?” he practically scoffs. “I didn’t move on. I carried on.” He places his gloved hand on my shoulder and gives it a reassuring paternal squeeze. “Love doesn’t replace love; it just makes it bigger.”
A gate clangs, the sharp metallic sound echoing across the pasture. James and I both look up instinctively to find Teagan in the paddock. She moves unhurriedly, the golden sun catching in her hair, as she leads Daisy toward the center of the field.
James follows my line of sight. He watches her for a long moment, his expression unreadable, before he tips his head faintly in her direction. “I think I’ve got it from here.”
I blink, thrown. “You… you know?”
He bends down, adjusting the post we’d just set. “Son,” he starts finally, driving another nail into the wood with a firm, echoing crack, “there ain’t a damn thing on this ranch I don’t know about.”
He hammers the nail flush, then rests his forearm on the top of the post, his gaze still fixed on the fence line instead of me.
“Just don’t break her heart,” he adds sternly. “Or I’ll have to bury you in the east pasture.” His threat sounds undoubtedly serious, but when he lifts his head, I catch the faintest hint of a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like it on his face.
I don’t wait. I turn and walk toward the paddock.
Glancing over my shoulder, I call, “James… Thank you.” His response comes in the form of a small nod, like it was nothing.
Like he hasn’t just given me the permission I didn’t know I needed.
My strides are long, each faster than the last, pulled forward by something stronger than fear and guilt.
By her. The fence comes up fast, but I don’t slow down.
My hands grip the top rail, and I vault over it in one smooth motion, my boots hitting the dirt with a dull thud on the other side.
Hearing me coming, Teagan turns, her brows pulling together in confusion as I rapidly close the distance between us. “What are you doing?” she asks.
“Saying I’m sorry for walking away this morning,” I reply, stopping in front of her. I reach out, cupping her face and tilting it up toward mine. “And remembering to live my life for those who can’t,” I whisper, pressing my lips to hers.
The past will always be a part of me. Rosie will always be part of me. But Teagan… She might be my future.