Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
DYLAN
As the alarm drags me into consciousness, I find myself reaching instinctively for Izzy. Wanting to pull her close, feel her skin against mine. Except she’s not here. It’s been two weeks since our fight. Two weeks since she left the ranch. But I can’t stop reaching for her.
The argument replays over and over in my head.
She didn’t even give me a chance to explain.
Football was everything to me. Surely she can see that.
Surely I get one goddamn minute to consider if there’s a way to have both—the ranch and football.
The offer from Coach Allen… it’s big. Not just a slot on the coaching team, but a pathway to take over from him one day.
A future in football again. Don’t I get to even think about that?
I groan and turn onto my back. However much I might be frustrated with the way Izzy reacted, I can’t really blame her.
Mama told me about the offer days before that night.
I should’ve said something. But when I’m with Izzy, it’s like something slots into place.
Like I’m not a man with shattered dreams or a past I can’t rewrite—but someone with a future. Something I can build.
Still, she left. Packed up and disappeared like none of it meant anything to her.
Like the long nights in my bed, the tension, the heat, the connection I thought we had—meant nothing.
Like Oakwood Ranch and these horses meant nothing.
That part stings in a way I didn’t expect.
Because if she could walk away so easily, maybe I was the only one who thought this was something real.
I drag myself out of bed, throw on my clothes, and push a hand through my hair before heading downstairs. The smell of coffee draws me into the kitchen. Mama’s already dressed for the day in business slacks and a crisp blouse, packing her laptop into her bag.
“Morning, Dylan. Sleep OK?” she asks, eyeing me like she already knows the answer.
“Fine,” I reply, stepping to the counter and pouring myself a coffee. “You heading out somewhere?” I ask.
“New York. I told you yesterday.” She raises a concerned eyebrow.
I nod, remembering something about a sports brand that wants Jake and Chase to appear together in an ad. “Right. The ad thing.”
“We’ll be back late tonight.”
“You want a ride to the airport?”
She shakes her head. “Jake will be here any second. He wants to drop Buck off anyway.”
There’s a pause. Heavy with meaning. The same one that’s been hanging between us since she got back from Florida. The unspoken question: What am I going to do about Coach Allen’s offer? About the ranch?
Coach told me to stop by his office before the season started if I wanted to have a conversation about a future with the Stormhawks. Two weeks have slipped away and I haven’t gone. The truth is, I can’t think about it, and yet it’s all I do think about.
The ranch isn’t the same without Izzy, but there’s something solid here.
I know these horses now. The way Logan won’t eat unless you talk to him.
How Willow noses the latch of the gate when she wants out.
The way Fury’s ears no longer pin back the moment I step into his paddock.
And Quicksilver? He’s taken to the lead rein like a pro.
Sometimes, when I’m working with him, I catch myself imagining more—converting the patch of back scrubland into an actual training arena.
Installing a round pen for lunge rope work for when the foals are old enough.
Then I pull back because those thoughts sound like the thoughts of a rancher and I haven’t decided anything yet.
Outside, an engine rumbles. Jake’s here.
“Season starts this weekend,” Mama pushes, like I don’t already know.
“Yeah, I know,” I mutter.
“If you’re going to see Coach, it has to be today. Sitting on the fence isn’t helping anyone. Least of all you.”
I nod, not trusting myself to answer.
I do miss football. It still feels like a part of me. But it’s not the stadium or the cameras or being on that field I think about most. It’s tossing the ball with Mad in the back pasture. It’s her laughter when she scores a pretend touchdown. That’s what I miss.
I’m saved from forming an answer by Buck clattering into the kitchen and galloping to me as I crouch to rub his ears.
Jake steps in a moment later, his huge frame filling the doorway.
His dark hair is pushed back from his face, his stubble trimmed to something that’s never quite a beard.
“Man, it’s early!” He looks me over, the same unspoken question on his lips. “You heading into the city later?”
“Don’t you start,” I mutter. “I haven’t decided anything.”
“Harper said to tell you to get your head out of your ass and fix things with Izzy.”
Hurt streaks across my chest. I miss Izzy more than I care to admit. “She left me,” I remind him.
Jake doesn’t flinch. “Harper said you’d say that. And to remind you it’s probably your fault. Also, she said to ask if you want to spend the rest of your life as a grumpy, washed-up ex-pro.”
“Those her exact words?”
Jake grins. “I might’ve paraphrased.”
“We all miss having her and Madison around,” is all Mama adds as she kisses my cheek and heads out to the truck, leaving Jake to linger in the doorway like he knows there’s more for us to say.
“What would you do?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Only you can answer that. Just don’t make the call with a bottle of bourbon in your hand.”
And despite everything, I chuckle. “Thanks. You’ve been no help at all.”
Jake takes a step before turning back. “Remember what Mama says. We don’t give up on what we love.”
“What does that mean?”
He gives a short laugh, like I’m the dumbest man in Colorado. “Figure it out, cowboy.”
I wait for the sound of the engine to fade along the dirt track before stepping outside.
The first hints of fall are in the air—a shift in the wind, a scattering of orange in the treetops.
The kind of morning that announces football season is here.
I breathe deep as my eyes scan the paddocks.
Quicksilver breaks from Moonlight, trotting toward the fence, nose lifted in greeting—a demand to be fed first. Pride flares in my chest at the sight of him.
Then my eyes snag on the empty spot where Izzy’s trailer used to sit.
She didn’t come back. Just sent a truck to tow the trailer a few days after she left.
We haven’t spoken since our fight, but Travis let slip she checks in with him every day, sending him reminders of what to do around the ranch.
The hollow ache in my chest deepens. Every task feels strange without her beside me.
I miss her eye rolls. Her smart mouth. The way she made even feed runs feel like a team effort.
But the weekends—they’ve been the worst. Too quiet without Madison’s chatter.
Too still. I scrub a hand over my face and wonder not for the first time if I should’ve called. I wish I had.
I drag open the barn doors and lose myself in the rhythm of feeding.
The sound of buckets, the shuffle of hooves, and the greetings from the horses who are starting to feel like a part of me.
Izzy could’ve called me. Could’ve stayed.
She didn’t give me a second to explain. This job offer—it’s one meeting.
One conversation. She can’t expect me to build my life around a mistake without a second thought.
For the first time, I try to think seriously about Coach Allen’s offer.
What it would mean. A life back in football.
With my team. But more than that, it’s a chance to undo the failure I’ve felt since Coach sat me down in his office and cut me from the team.
It would be a second chance. A shot at proving I still belong in football.
Travis shows up just in time to save me from my spiraling thoughts. Dirty-blond hair shoved under a cap, his smile all nerves and eagerness. A face too young for the facial hair he’s trying to grow.
I nod toward the stalls. “Check the water lines and then saddle up Rusty and Bramble.”
“We riding?” he asks with an undisguised excitement that has my thoughts running to Mad.
“Yeah. I wanna measure a bit of land out by the football field. Might as well ride up there.”
He nods and heads off. I lean against the barn wall, breathing in the heady scent of hay and horses. Today, I need to decide who I am. A coach. A rancher. Maybe a man Izzy thinks is worth fighting for.
I don’t stop again until the afternoon, when my back is aching, my knee is screaming out to take the weight from it, and I’m too damn tired to be thinking of anything but the task in front of me. And right now, that task is Fury.
The black stallion stills as I step into the paddock with the lead rein. His ears prick. “Don’t be getting spooked,” I say, voice soothing. “We’ve done this before. It’s just a little walk around the paddock.”
Fury shifts his feet but doesn’t bolt as I clip on the rein and start to walk him in a large circle, talking the whole time. “You got this, see? You’re doing great. You can trust me.”
Each step I think will be the one he resists, pulls back.
But we keep going, completing two full circles of the paddock.
“Good work, Fury,” I say, running a gentle hand over his neck.
His muscles tense, but again he stays with me.
“Wanna try outside the paddock? You must be getting bored of the same view every day.”
I lead the stallion to the gate and we walk through.
Fury’s head is high, his eyes alert. When we reach the paddock separating the other stallions, Fury halts, ears forward.
He gives a low whinny, like he’s saying hello.
My heart lurches at the sound. He’s snorted plenty since he’s been here, but that’s the first time I’ve heard him call out a greeting.
It’s the first interest he’s shown in being around other horses.
“You wanna try hanging out with them?” I murmur.
When he doesn’t pull back or shift his legs, I carefully open the gate.
Fury hesitates for a moment before stepping forward.
With slow movements, I unclip the lead rein, watching Fury for any sign of panic or aggression.
Instead, he simply dips his head to graze like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
A grin spreads across my face as I back away and close the gate.
This is progress. This is huge. This is Fury accepting his place on the ranch.
OK, so he might be way off taking a saddle, and he still eyeballs the hell out of me and any other human when we’re too close, but he’s also no longer fighting me every step of the way. He’s choosing to stay.
I spin around, ready to tell Izzy. To see her face light up like mine is right now.
But there’s no one to tell. She’s gone.
The win turns to dust in my mouth. I swallow hard, the ache in my chest deepening. She didn’t stay. She didn’t fight for us. Or let me choose to fight for us. She just packed up and left. That’s what really gets me.
So what now?
I’ve been clinging to this place like it’s the only future left for me. But if Izzy can walk away from it so easily, maybe I need to stop pretending this ranch is the only place I belong.
What if there is a place for me with the Stormhawks after all? What if I have more to give? Why the hell shouldn’t I go talk to Coach?
Fuck it. I’m going.