Chapter 1 #2
I stand in the doorway. I did say thanks. He turned it into a joke anyway.
The size of him. The way he moves through this ranch like he was made for it, not checking over his shoulder, chin up and loose in the shoulders, boots finding the path like he knows every inch of it.
The way he walked away without waiting for a laugh or a single thing at all, like getting nothing from me, was a completely acceptable outcome.
Not wounded, not performing wounded. Just gone down the path toward the barn, like he had somewhere to be and the rest of it would keep.
I stand there until he disappears.
Then I close the door behind me and go to find Kade.
***
Kade's where I expected him, working through the stalls at the far end of the barn in that quiet, methodical way he has.
He runs his hand down a horse's cannon bone before he moves on to the next stall.
I've watched that all week, too, the way he checks things out of habit, the same order every time.
The barn runs the way it runs because of him, and you can feel it in every latch and water bucket and correctly bedded stall.
"I took the clinic assistant position," I tell him. "Sawyer said to come find you about Cricket."
He glances over at me. "Figured you might.
" He moves to the next stall, running his hand along the door frame.
"Tack room's right there when you came in.
There's an open spot for your saddle and gear.
" He keeps moving. "Stall four, end of this row.
She can go out with the others in the afternoon.
" He doesn't offer congratulations or commentary.
He tells me what I need to know and goes back to his work, and somehow it feels more like a welcome than a speech would have.
I head out of the barn to get Cricket.
I grab her saddle pad and saddle from the guest cabin corral fence and throw them on her back, bridle looped over my shoulder, and clip on her lead rope.
She comes out of the gate calm and forward, head up, ears tipping through the sounds of the property as we move across it.
Paying attention to everything. The sounds, the horses beside the barn, the way this place smells different from home, and not spooking at any of it.
That's the difference between a horse that's being well-behaved and a horse that's actually easy.
Cricket is easy because I built her that way. Because I gave her the time.
We cross the property together, her head at my hip, hooves quiet on the packed dirt.
I'm passing the front of the dining hall when I see them.
Sawyer coming out the door, and Logan crossing from the direction of the barn. When they reach each other, their hands catch for a second and they smile, easy, like it's nothing. Neither of them breaks stride.
I look away and keep walking.
I've been on enough circuits, enough training barns, enough ranches to know what it looks like when two people have built something real together.
You see it in the small things before you see it anywhere else.
The casual contact. The awareness without looking.
The way they move around each other, because they know where the other one is without having to check.
That's not something you perform. That's something that happens after years of actually showing up.
I tuck it away the way I do everything and tell myself it has nothing to do with why I said yes before I thought too hard about it.
Cricket bumps my shoulder from behind, and I keep walking.
Stall four is clean and bedded with the water bucket topped off.
I lead Cricket in, unclip the lead, pull the saddle off her back, and carry it to the tack room.
The open rack is right where Kade said it would be.
I hang the saddle, set my bags on the shelf below, and go back to the stall.
She's already at the water bucket, dropping her nose in, and drinks like she's been coming back to this stall for years.
I stand in the doorway with my hand on the gate.
There's something about watching a horse stop looking for the exits.
The way they go from looking at the space to just being in it, ears tipping low, shoulders dropping, done taking stock.
Cricket finishes at the water and drops her nose toward the hay.
Her ears go soft and low. I think about the mornings I'd watched her eating in that small corral outside the guest cabin.
Head low. Completely unbothered. Exactly like this.
Cricket was already home before I knew I was.
I close the stall door and stand there with my hand on the wood. The barn moves around me. A horse shifting across the aisle, Kade's boots at the far end, Logan's voice carrying from outside. The smell of hay and the dry warmth of a barn that's been well-kept. I breathe it in.
I'm staying.
I turn and walk back out into the light.
***
Levi's been trying all week.
I know that. I've been watching him try.
The jokes, the easy laugh, how he tilts a room slightly in his direction and making it look like the room decided on its own.
I've watched him land it with every client and every crew member I've seen him near.
I've watched him not get anything from me.
Not even the bite-back that would've been an answer of its own.
Just nothing. The flat look and the wait.
I noticed him on the first day. I'd been watching him at the arena rail during the afternoon session.
Standing there with his forearms on the top board and his full attention on whatever was happening inside.
I had to make myself look away because looking at him too long felt like a line I wasn't going to be able to walk back over.
I'm not immune to him.
I noticed the fit of his jeans on the walk back to the barn yesterday and made myself stop before I finished the thought.
I've been aware of his body all week. Like you're aware of something you keep telling yourself not to look at.
Which means I've looked plenty. I just don't let myself finish looking.
I refuse to be the next person who hands it over without making him earn it.
I want to see what he does with nothing.
Now I'm staying, and he's going to figure that out.
I stood in my new cabin doorway, watched him walk away, and felt the full weight of what I signed up for.
He carried my bag across the property without being asked.
Set it down and walked away without waiting for a single thing from me.
Something about that, the way he made the walking away look like a choice instead of a retreat, got under my skin in a way I'm not quite finished with yet.
I reach my cabin and push the door open. The bag is still on the floor just inside the door where Levi left it.
I wonder, dropping onto the couch, how long it's going to take him to figure out that not reacting isn't the same thing as not noticing.