Chapter 34
Colter was up long before the sun rose through the windows. He’d kissed me goodbye before striding out the bedroom door to start work for the day. I’d immediately fallen back to sleep, waking when the alarm on my phone went off.
Now, it is a little after seven, and I’m struggling to sift through all the feelings I hadn’t fully processed last night.
The room feels emptier without him.
His scent still clings to the sheets, cedar, smoke, and the faint trace of a spicy soap, and for a while I lie there, staring at the wooden beams above me. The heavy silence stretches on. It’s a soft silence, the kind that makes you hear your own heartbeat.
It’s ridiculous, how much space one man can take up.
How his absence feels louder than the hum of the ranch coming to life outside.
I roll onto my side, pulling the covers higher over my shoulder, trying to convince myself I’m fine. That what he said last night doesn’t matter. But the words keep circling back, low and rough, full of that quiet conviction that always makes me believe him even when I shouldn’t.
I cleared space for you.
He said it like a promise. Like it meant something bigger than either of us could admit.
My chest tightens. I hate that it affects me. Hate that after everything I’ve learned about men and their intentions, I still want to believe this one might mean what he says. That maybe he sees me as something more than a temporary distraction in the middle of all his chaos.
The clock on the nightstand ticks past eight before I finally drag myself out of bed.
The floorboards are cold under my feet. I find one of his hoodies draped over the back of a chair and pull it on, tugging the sleeves down over my hands.
The air smells faintly of coffee and dust and something frying downstairs.
Through the window, the ranch in the distance unfolds in muted gold. Horses move slow in the pastures, their coats glinting under the early sun. Men cross the yard, voices low and easy. The morning has a rhythm that feels almost sacred in its routine.
I press my palm to the glass, watching my breath fog the pane.
This place shouldn’t feel safe. Not after everything. Not when it’s owned by a man who could unravel me with a look. But it does. Maybe that’s what scares me most.
The memory of last night flickers—his hand on my jaw, the way he looked at me when he said you understand?
I did.
I do.
But understanding doesn’t make it easier to know how to feel.
After a while, the smell of coffee wins. My stomach growls, and I force myself to move. Quickly, I pull on my leggings and brush out my hair in the mirror, trying not to look like I barely slept.
By the time I make it downstairs, the house is alive again. The murmur of voices filters from the kitchen, men laughing, plates clinking, the scrape of chairs against wood.
I hover in the doorway for a moment, taking it all in. The warmth. The noise. The small, ordinary comfort of people starting their day.
And then I step inside.
The kitchen smells like heaven and chaos.
Coffee, bacon, butter melting on toast, all of it layered over the sound of too many voices talking at once.
Someone’s arguing good-naturedly about whose turn it is to try breaking in one of the new stallions, and someone else’s laughter cracks through the air like thunder.
For a second, I linger by the threshold, half-hidden behind the doorframe, watching.
It’s… different, seeing them like this.
No tense shoulders, no cold professionalism. Simply a bunch of men, rough, sunburned, loud, passing plates and teasing each other like brothers who’ve spent too many years side by side.
One of Colter’s friends, Ace, notices me first. He’s sitting at the far end of the table, coffee mug in hand, eyes sharp even though his posture is relaxed.
“Morning,” he says with a small nod, voice steady enough that it cuts through the chatter.
A few heads turn.
Conversations falter.
Then Jackson grins. “Well, look who’s alive. Thought you were gonna hibernate up there all day.” He gestures toward the empty chair beside him. “C’mon, sit. Before the vultures finish everything.”
I manage a weak smile and step farther into the room, every instinct telling me I don’t quite belong here. Still, the smell of food is too inviting to ignore.
Colter isn’t here. I can feel the absence like a draft in the room, subtle but impossible to ignore.
Someone slides a plate toward me filled with eggs, biscuits, something that looks like homemade jam. I murmur a quiet “thanks,” even though I’m not sure who handed it over. The scrape of chairs resumes, conversation slowly picking back up.
“Sleep okay?” Jackson asks after a moment, tone unreadable.
I nod, stabbing absently at my eggs. “Yeah. Fine.”
He studies me for a beat longer, like he knows that’s a lie, then hums under his breath and goes back to his food.
The rhythm of the table takes me in after that. Jackson’s ridiculous stories, the way the men laugh too loud, someone arguing about whether a horse outsmarted them yesterday. It’s easy to get lost in it. Easy to pretend this is normal.
But under it all, my thoughts keep slipping back to last night. To Colter’s voice, low and steady, the way he said my name like it anchored him. The way he looked at me right before the world went quiet between us.
“Colter’s out in the south field,” Ace says, like he can read my mind. “Had a call come in early about a fence that went down. He’ll be back in later.”
I nod, pretending that information doesn’t send a little pulse through me. “He always start this early?”
Jackson snorts. “Man never stops. Think he sleeps with one eye open.”
That earns a few laughs, and I find myself smiling before I mean to.
Maybe that’s how it starts, I think. The soft pull of belonging sneaking up on you when you least expect it.
After a while, the plates are empty and people start scattering, grabbing hats, finishing coffee, heading toward the day waiting outside. The kitchen quiets, leaving behind only the faint sound of boots on wood and the smell of coffee that’s gone lukewarm.
I stay seated for a moment longer, fingers tracing the edge of my mug, trying to ignore the restless feeling curling in my stomach.
Because as easy as it is to sink into this illusion of calm, I know better.
Things this peaceful never last.
It’s nearly a week before Colter takes me back to John’s. By now, I’ve figured out I won’t be staying in the room Sutton set up for me at Broken Ridge. Somehow, that boundary disappeared without us ever talking about it.
Part of me knows I should slow things down, that this isn’t how normal relationships work.
Not that I’d know what normal even looks like.
But still, it feels like we’ve skipped all the middle parts.
One minute we were circling each other, and the next…
I was waking up tangled in his sheets, his world already wrapping around mine before I had the chance to question it.
Colter hasn’t said we’re together. Not officially. There’s been no label, no conversation. Only heat and quiet understanding and the unspoken certainty that, for now, I’m his.
John doesn’t seem to mind that I’m staying with Colter.
Sutton’s another story. She smiles, says this is how cowboys are, that when they want something, they don’t waste time.
But there’s a flicker in her eyes when she says it.
A tiny crack of caution that she tries to hide but doesn’t quite manage.
I don’t think she doubts Colter. She trusts him. What she doesn’t trust are the shadows sitting between all of us. The things we don’t say, the histories we keep buried.
This thing with Colter… it’s new. Terrifyingly new. Being wanted like this, being seen, it’s a language I’ve never spoken. My life before this was about survival, about staying small and unseen.
Love, or whatever this is, feels too big for someone like me.
And yet, when I’m with him, I start to believe I might be able to learn it.
Being with Colter feels safe and secure which surprises me.
It’s a powerful feeling; one I haven’t experienced before.
Not truly. I want to hold on to that security and never let it go.
I want to talk to him about getting a job.
One that actually pays, not only mucking out stalls for John.
Not that I’ve been doing that over the past few days while I’ve been at Colter’s.
I’d talked to him about helping out at Black Diamond, but he shut that idea fast saying that is what they have ranch hands for.
Sutton had been thrilled this morning when I told her I was coming over. She didn’t say anything about the sudden change with Colter; she simply smiled and nodded as if everything was perfect.
When he’d dropped me off this morning, I’d been reluctant to get out of the truck. The cab still held the faint smell of coffee and leather, and the weight of his hand had lingered on my thigh long after he’d put the gearshift into park.
I’d wanted to stay there, just for a few more minutes. To exist in that quiet bubble we’d built, where the world couldn’t reach us. But John had already been standing on the porch, coffee mug in hand, watching us with that patient, knowing expression he gets when he’s pretending not to be amused.
So, I forced myself to climb out, clutching my jacket tighter around me as the early chill of the morning bit at my skin.
“Peyton,” Colter had said, his voice low enough that only I could hear it. I’d leaned back against the open door, my pulse flickering wildly beneath my skin.
“Yeah?”
He’d tilted his head, eyes flicking over my face like he was committing it to memory. “Be good.”
I’d rolled my eyes at that but his mouth had curved in that slow, knowing way that always made my chest ache. “See you in a few days,” he’d added, before putting the truck in reverse and backing out of the drive.
Now, hours later, the sound of gravel crunching under his tires still lingers in my head.
The day drags, the way days do when your thoughts are somewhere else. I try to help John with feed inventory, but my mind keeps wandering back to Colter’s hands, his voice, the steady certainty of him. I hate how easily my thoughts bend toward him, like I’ve been rewired around his gravity.
Sutton catches me staring out the barn window at one point, the ledger open and empty in front of me. “You’ve got that look,” she teases lightly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“What look?”
“The kind that says you’re here but your brain’s a few miles south, probably in someone’s bed.”
I flush instantly. “I was thinking.”
She smiles, but there’s something in her eyes, fond, but wary. “Make sure you’re thinking with the right part of your head, sweetheart.”
I laugh softly, but her words echo longer than they should. Because the truth is, I don’t know what the right part even is anymore.
By late afternoon, I find myself at the fence line, brushing one of the mares while the sun sinks low behind the hills. The air smells of hay and dust, and the rhythmic scrape of the brush is the only sound. For the first time all day, I feel calm. Grounded.
If only every moment could feel like this.