Chapter 7 Tex #2
People lay flowers. Earth hits the wooden casket with soft thuds. Sedona’s breath shudders in her chest as she presses a kiss to her fingertips and touches them to the corner of the casket.
Her face breaks, and Clara gathers her close. The man does the same, his hand on her back.
I look away. Looking at her hurts more than I want to admit.
When the final handful of earth falls, the mayor steps forward. “There will be a gathering at The Dusty Boot. It was the doctor’s favorite saloon. Anyone who knew him is welcome.”
People nod, already drifting toward their cars. Clara and the blond man guide Sedona toward the parking lot. She walks like her knees might buckle, relying on both of them to hold her up.
I glance at Billy. His throat moves in a rough swallow. His eyes stay locked on Sedona as if he is watching a part of himself walk away.
Seth stands on his other side, jaw clenched, gaze fixed on her too.
In another life, we would be the ones beside her. In another life, Billy would have been the man holding her up. I would have been the one at her other side, steadying her.
All of that disappeared the night she left.
Now all we can do is watch the three of them disappear into the crowd, a reminder of how everything can change in a single moment and never change back.
Billy’s gaze stays locked on Sedona long after she disappears into the crowd. His body goes still, arms crossed over his chest, breath shallow, jaw tight like he is holding together everything that could spill out if he let it.
I shift on my boots and look between him and Seth. “You two heading to the gathering?”
Billy shakes his head. He turns toward me, eyes shadowed. “I’m heading back to the ranch.”
“Me too,” Seth says, already adjusting his jacket like he can’t wait to peel out of it.
There’s no hesitation, no second thought. I turn toward the truck with my brothers.
The engine rumbles when Billy turns the key, and the tires roll over the uneven ground, heading toward the long dirt road that always brings us home.
The silence between us stretches, filled only with the hum of the engine and the distant sound of festival music drifting through the open window. I glance toward Billy.
His expression stays tight, brows drawn, mouth flattened into a line that tells me nothing will crack through him right now. He looks like a storm held barely at bay.
Seth leans his head against the glass, eyes half-lidded, exhausted more than anything. None of us slept enough last night. None of us have had time to process the day. The funeral feels like a bruise pressed too hard.
We reach the ranch. The gate swings as we pass through.
The house sits in the middle of the land like it always has, steady and unmovable against every storm. The barn roof reflects the last light of evening. Cattle graze in the distance.
Boone waits near the porch, tail swiping the dirt as we step out of the truck. The dog pads toward us, bumping my thigh with his nose.
We barely step inside—just long enough to change—then head straight to the barn, picking up where we left off this morning. The rhythm comes easy.
Swinging hay bales. Hauling feed bags. Sorting tools that someone left out during last week’s storm.
Work fills the space in a way conversations can’t. Work has always been our language.
Billy ties a rope around a fence rail that is coming loose. Sweat drips down his neck, his shirt clinging to his back.
Seth stacks the hay with quick and forceful movements, his jaw clenched. Boone trots between us, snout nudging stray pieces of hay, whining when Seth tosses bales above his head.
I fix the hinge on the eastern stall door, the metal groaning as I wrench it back into position. My hands ache from gripping tools too long, but I don’t stop. None of us do.
The sun dips lower. Orange bleeds into the horizon. A chill threads through the air. By the time we finally stop, night has dropped around us without warning.
Inside the house, we gravitate toward the kitchen. Seth heats up leftover steaks from last night, cutting them into thick slices and dumping them onto plates. The smell fills the room, rich and savory, curling around us.
Billy grabs three beers from the fridge and sets them on the table. The caps clink against the wood as he twists them off.
We sit at the old oak table. Boone lies at our feet with a tired groan, his chest rising and falling in slow, even breaths.
Seth lifts his bottle. “To Dr. Archer,” he says. His voice cracks around the edges. “He wasn’t perfect, but he cared about this town.”
We raise our beers and clink them together. My throat burns as I drink. The cold liquid slides down and pools in my stomach with a heaviness I don’t want to look at too closely.
Dinner passes in a blur of quiet chewing, muted clinks, and the low hum of the ceiling fan above us. We eat until the plates are bare, and then the kitchen sinks into soft darkness except for the warm lamp near the sink.
The exhaustion wraps around me like a tightening rope.
Billy stands first, pushing his chair back with a scrape. “Y’all turn in,” he says, running a hand over Boone’s back before heading down the hallway.
He disappears into his room without another word.
Seth yawns, stretching his arms overhead. “Long day,” he mutters. He gives my shoulder a pat and follows Billy down the hall.
I sit alone at the table after they leave. The silence spreads outward, filling every corner of the kitchen.
Boone nuzzles my leg, then pads toward the back door where his bed sits. I push myself up, wash my plate, and turn out the lights.
My room smells faintly of cedar and old leather. I change quickly and collapse onto the bed.
The sheets feel cold at first, then warm around my shoulders. My eyes close before I can think.
Sleep drags me under fast.
The dream starts at the gravesite. People crowd around the casket, dressed in black, heads bowed. A cold wind sweeps through the cemetery, carrying whispers through the twisted branches overhead.
Everything moves in a slow rhythm. The pastor’s voice drifts through the air, too soft to understand.
Sedona stands where she stood earlier, her shoulders trembling as she stares down at the casket. Her hair lifts in the wind, brushing her cheek. Her hands hang at her sides like she has nothing left to hold onto.
Then something shifts.
The man beside her is gone. The blond one. The stranger who held her hand at the service.
Instead, I’m the one standing at her side.
Her hand slips into mine, warm and delicate, fingers curling around my palm. The contact shoots heat up my arm. Her body leans toward me, not collapsing, just finding a place to rest. A place that feels right.
I pull her closer, my thumb brushing the inside of her wrist. Her breath catches. Her head drops to my shoulder.
My heart pounds so hard it feels like it might break something inside my chest. I tilt my head, inhaling the scent of her hair, a mix of citrus and something sweet I can’t name.
The wind rises. Dust swirls around our feet. The casket lowers into the earth. And Sedona presses closer, her voice trembling as she whispers my name.
A rush floods me, powerful and overwhelming. My arms tighten around her.
The dream shatters.
I jerk awake with a gasp, my chest heaving. Sweat clings to my skin. My sheets twist around my waist like I fought them in my sleep.
The room feels cold, and my breath moves out in ragged pulls.
My hand drags over my face, catching the harsh exhale that tears out of me. There’s a dull ache low in my stomach. My body remembers the dream in ways I wish it didn’t.
I sit up slowly. The moonlight slants across the wooden floor, and the shadows stretch long. My pulse refuses to settle.
Seeing her again after five years wrecked something I thought I buried. I had a crush on her when I was younger. Hell, everyone did—she’d step onto the bleachers, and half the boys on the football team would trip on their own feet.
But it was harmless then. Juvenile. And once she started dating Billy, I kicked the feeling to the curb. I had to.
Today, though… today something broke open.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. My feet touch the floor. My palms press into my thighs.
It was the hug. The smell of her hair. The way she whispered my name earlier at the house when she realized Boone still remembered her.
The way her eyes softened when she saw me. How her body fit in my arms like it was instinct.
I grit my teeth and shake my head, hard enough to jolt the thoughts loose. I need to get over that. Whatever this is, whatever my body thinks it’s doing, it ends now.
Sedona might not be Billy’s anymore, but she sure belongs somewhere else. To someone else. To a life far outside this ranch.
My heart hammers once, twice, refusing to let the thought settle. The feeling churns inside me, raw and insistent, as if it wants to claw its way out.
I stand, dragging a shirt on over my head. Boone lifts his head from his bed in the corner, ears twitching. I scratch the top of his head, then open the door to let him follow me into the hallway.
The house is calm, shadows stretching across the walls. Billy’s door is cracked open a sliver, pale light spilling through. Seth’s room is dark.
The floor creaks under my feet as I move toward the kitchen.
I open the fridge and grab another beer, the bottle cool in my hand. Boone sits beside me, leaning his side against my leg. I rest a hand on his head.
The beer tastes bitter tonight. I take a long drink and close my eyes.
All I see is Sedona at the gravesite, her hand in mine, her breath catching as she leans into me. I tell myself it was just a dream.
Just grief colliding with old memories. Just the shock of seeing her after five long years.
But the truth pushes in, stubborn and relentless.
Something is waking up inside me.
Something that should have stayed buried.
Something that can’t go anywhere.
I take another drink and breathe out slowly, the taste lingering on my tongue. Boone nudges my knee, and I drop a hand to scratch behind his remaining ear.
“You and me both, boy,” I murmur. “We’ve got to forget that.”
But the thought feels thin, like a string stretched too tight. It hums under my skin long after the words leave my mouth.
I finish the beer and set the bottle down. The house settles around me, familiar and worn, everything in its place.
Everything except the way Sedona Archer’s memory sits in my chest, warm and wrong and impossible to shake.