Chapter 55
The ranch doesn’t pause just because my heart does. Morning comes the same way it always does, thin light slipping over the horizon as the cattle low impatiently for feed. The world is going to carry on, with or without me.
I move with it. Because that’s what I’ve always done.
I’m up before the sun, pulling on worn jeans and a thermal, and braiding my hair with mechanical precision.
I don’t look at myself in the mirror longer than necessary.
I can’t. With my red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes, I don’t even recognize myself anymore.
I tell myself it’s just allergies from the bloom of spring.
It’s easier than admitting I barely slept or that I cried myself to sleep again.
The bunkhouse sits empty—like it has since he left a week ago—when I pass it on the way to the barn.
The night I told him to leave, he packed everything he owned and was gone before I managed to stop crying.
If it weren’t for this constant ache in my heart, he wouldn’t have left a trace of himself behind.
Daisy lifts her head the second I step into her stall. “Hey, girl,” I murmur, pressing my forehead against hers and stroking the underside of her chin. She snorts softly, her warm breath blowing over me. “I know.”
I don’t even know what I’m agreeing with.
That I’m stubborn?
Hurting?
Let him leave?
I busy myself, brushing her down. The rhythm should soothe me; it usually does.
There’s something grounding about the simplicity of tending to animals.
And right now I enjoy the honesty of it.
Daisy doesn’t come with a complicated past, covered in lies.
I use the work to keep me from thinking about him, but every time I glance toward the barn doors, some part of me expects to see him leaning there, arms crossed, that soft smile pulling at his mouth.
But he isn’t. Hell, he hasn’t even tried to call me.
Dad and Deacon have kept quiet on the matter, neither of them saying a word about it or Easton since that night.
Their silence feels deliberate, like they’ve collectively decided not to poke the bruise.
Knox managed to hold his tongue for a few days—likely at their request—but he doesn’t have that kind of restraint.
Knox finds me mid-morning out by the south fence line, fixing a post after a steer hit it with enough force to nearly topple it yesterday. “You look like hell,” he says conversationally, stepping over the post on the ground.
“Good morning to you, too.”
“You eat?” he prods, his tone playful to hide the concern beneath it.
“Yes.”
“You sleep?”
“Knox!” I shriek, shooting him a look.
He furrows his brows and purses his lips. “That’s a no.”
I tug the wire tighter than necessary, my gloves squeaking against the metal. “We have a job to do.”
“We do.” He leans his elbows on the fence, watching me. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t talk while we do it.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“So…” Knox stays quiet for a collective five minutes, if that. “You told him to leave… And he just… left.”
“Looks that way,” I sass, though it isn’t just that way at all.
“And you’re fine with that?”
I focus on twisting and setting the post, anything to avoid looking up and meeting his eyes. “He made his choice.”
Knox studies me in silence for a moment, then says softly, “You told him to go.”
“I didn’t tell him he had to listen. He could’ve stayed. He could’ve fought.”
He runs a hand through his hair, frustration flickering across his face. “Teag,” he sighs my name, “you love him.”
“Yeah,” I agree quietly. “I do.”
“Then call him.” The words come out like it’s obvious. Like it’s easy.
I laugh once, sharp and humorless. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because he lied.”
Knox’s brow furrows. “But did he?”
“Yes.” My voice rises despite myself. “He let me believe I knew him. He let me fall for him without telling me who he really was. That kind of omission is just as bad as an outright lie.”
Knox opens his mouth, then closes it again.
I press on, the frustration spilling over. “Do you know how it felt, standing there, looking at that poster? Seeing his face under stage lights and realizing there’s an entire version of him that filled arenas, and he never thought I deserved to know?”
“Maybe that guy doesn’t matter to him anymore,” Knox counters.
“Yeah, well, it matters to me.”
He nods slowly. “Okay. Fair.”
I turn back to the fence, pretending my hands aren’t shaking.
“I felt stupid,” I admit, the words sharp and bitter on my tongue. “I’m just a small-town country girl from a place most people don’t even know about. And he’s someone who has whole crowds chanting his name. He could have anyone he wants.”
“Had,” Knox corrects. “And he chose you.”
“You know what I mean.
“Teag,” he says gently, “you’re miserable.”
“I am not.”
“I haven’t seen you smile since he left.”
I flash him an obnoxious, big, toothy grin that has no heart behind it. “Better?”
“Yes, much,” he snarks sarcastically before heading back to the barn.
Sheer routine gets me through the day. I feed horses. I check the water lines and muck out stalls. Dinner is spent at the kitchen table with my dad and brothers as I half-listen to them talk about market prices and weather patterns.
And through it all, there’s this hollow space beside me where he should be.
At night, it’s worse. Far worse. When the chores are done and everyone goes to bed, the house feels too quiet. But my thoughts are so loud.
I find myself glancing at my phone more than I want to admit, checking for missed calls and texts. Not that he’s reached out. I’m equal parts furious and relieved about that. If he called, I don’t know whether I’d answer.
Lying on my back, I stare at the ceiling and trace the familiar cracks in the plaster, like I haven’t memorized every one of them already.
The fan turns slowly overhead, its steady whir the only sound in the room besides my breathing.
My hands drift to the phone sitting on my nightstand before I can stop myself.
I pick up and swipe to my contacts. Easton Callahan. My thumb hovers over his name.
I should call him. The idea flits through my thoughts uninvited.
If I just press the button, I could hear his voice.
I could ask him why he didn’t fight and why he let me push him away.
But I already know the answer to both of those questions.
He left because I told him to, and he didn’t fight because there’s a whole other life waiting out there for him. I was just a stop along the way.
I lock the phone and set it down, turning onto my side so I don’t have to look at it anymore. I curl an arm under my pillow and press my face into it to muffle my sobs as I spend another night crying myself to sleep.