Chapter 21 – Jensen
Dawson's ranch looks the same as it always has.
Same split-rail fencing running the length of the property.
Same weathered red barn at the back that tilts slightly to the left from the storm that came through three summers ago and that none of us have ever gotten around to fixing properly.
Same smell of hay and dry earth that I've never been able to name but have always associated with the first time I felt like I belonged somewhere that wasn't inside my grandma's cabin.
I pull my truck up the long gravel drive and cut the engine off before looking over at Catalina. She’s smiling. Which is a good sign. She’s been smiling a lot since we landed in Tennessee. I wonder if she notices the change.
“I think it’ll be just us here today. Hope that’s alright with you.”
She nods. “Yeah.”
Dawson's in Hawaii with Lo. The twins scattered the second the bye week hit. Micah took off to California, Joel went God knows where, but I’m guessing it has a beach, alcohol and women, and Noa flew to New York to visit some friends she's been promising a trip to for two years. That means the ranch is mostly empty except for the employees who’ve kept this place running for years while the Reed family lives out their dreams on the rodeo circuit.
I look at Catalina again. She’s looking out at the property like she’s cataloging every inch of it.
"This is where you learned how to ride bulls?" she asks softly.
"Yeah. I learned everything here," I say.
She nods slowly. "I want to see the horses.”
I grab my baseball cap off the dash and push open the door. "Come on. I’ll show you my favorite.”
The barn’s a welcome smell. There’s something about being around fresh hay and natural animal scents that has always grounded me and taken me back to my roots.
I walk beside Catalina through the stalls, giving her time to take it all in until I reach the far end where a beautiful, black mare is waiting for me. Maggie.
Maggie lifts her head a little and blinks at me with big, patient eyes like she remembers. It’s been a few months since I’ve visited the ranch, but I know she does. Horses are smart, with good memories.
"Hey, pretty girl." I run a hand down her nose. She leans into my touch. "Missed you too."
Beside me, Catalina is so still she almost looks like a statue.
I've learned to recognize that stillness for what it is. It’s the mask she likes to wear because she’s nervous about doing something new and maybe a little reckless but doesn’t want anyone else to know so she attempts to come across as cold and indifferent instead.
She sometimes does it in crowded arenas, in bars with too many people, in training rooms where someone might touch her without warning.
She goes very quiet, and she assesses the risks.
"She won't bite," I say.
"I know that." She says it like biting was never the concern.
"You can touch her."
There’s a pause. Then Catalina reaches out and lays two fingers very carefully against Maggie's jaw, like she's checking for a pulse. Maggie doesn't move. Catalina lets out a relieved breath.
"Dawson," I start, pulling the saddle down from the rack, "is technically my coach. But he's been more than that since I was a kid and showed up here with a hand-me-down saddle and absolutely no business getting on the back of anything meaner than the pony grandma bought me."
I settle the pad across Maggie's back. "Not sure if you already knew this, but he's Micah, Joel, and Noa's uncle.
Raised all three of them after their parents passed when the boys were in high school and Noa was barely thirteen.
He'd been riding the circuit himself back then. Retired to run the family’s ranch and raise them instead.
" I glance at her. "Never once complained about it.”
Catalina is quiet for a moment. Her fingers have moved, spreading slowly across Maggie's jaw, then up toward her ear in something that could be classified as a pet and an examination combined.
"Do you think he regrets quitting?"
I shake my head. "No. He’s still been involved as our coach. Met his wife Lo on the circuit."
Her brows raise as she looks at me. “How?”
I cinch the girth and consider that honestly. "Her family’s got a bunch of money in champagne and wine. Their products are in some of the bigger events. She’s the vice president of marketing and was working when she and Dawson saw each other. Heard it was love at first sight for him.”
She hums to herself quietly. “Do you think he ever misses riding?”
“Sometimes, maybe. But I think Lo and coaching has filled up the part of him that the circuit used to fill.
Different kind of adrenaline." I look at her.
"He's the reason I ride the way I do. Taught me that the animal isn't the enemy.
That the point isn't to win against the bull, it's to find the rhythm.
Match it. Move with it instead of against it. "
She drops her hand from Maggie’s head. "You love it here. I can tell."
"More than anywhere," I say honestly. "Except maybe grandma's cabin or the lake."
Catalina smiles. It's the real one she’s been wearing since arriving.
"Alright, Kitty." I lead Maggie to the mounting block just outside the barn door. "Your turn."
She looks at the horse. Then at me. Then at the horse again. "I've never done this."
"I know."
She shakes her head. “I’m not sure I can.”
"Maggie has never thrown anyone in her life and she’s not starting today." I hold out my hand. "I'll be right here the whole time. Unless you really don’t want to?"
She looks at my hand for a second. Then she takes it.
“No. Let’s do this.”
Getting Catalina onto a horse is one of the funniest and most endearing things I have ever witnessed in my life, and I have watched Micah try to make pancakes from scratch at two in the morning drunk, my grandma dance salsa at eighty, and newborn foals learn how to walk.
She mounts with more determination than grace, throws her right leg over with complete conviction, and then grabs the saddle horn like it’s a tool. Maggie, my good girl, doesn't flinch.
"Okay," Catalina says, from up in the saddle, looking down at me with wide eyes. "Okay. I'm up."
"You're up."
"This is very high."
"You're about five feet off the ground, Kitty."
She adjusts her grip on the reins; the ones I showed her how to hold three times inside the barn. "Now what?"
"Now you let her walk. Gentle pressure with your heels. Don't kick, just press."
She presses. Maggie walks. Catalina goes rigid from her hips to her shoulders like she's bracing to be shook off by a bull.
"Relax," I say, walking alongside them.
"I am relaxed."
"You look like you're about to perform emergency surgery on the horse while riding it."
"This is how I look when I'm relaxed."
I bite the inside of my cheek so that I don't laugh. "Drop your shoulders. Let your hips move with her. Try to match her rhythm."
Slowly, I watch Catalina's shoulders drop half an inch. Then another. And then something shifts in the way she's sitting just a little. It’s not obvious, she still looks too stiff, but her hips start to follow the movement instead of fighting it and her grip on the reins eases just slightly.
"There," I say quietly. "That's it. You’re doing well."
She doesn't answer. But she's not bracing anymore.
We go like that for a while—Maggie plodding contentedly along the fence line, me walking alongside with one hand loose near the bridle, Catalina gradually unclenching degree by degree in the saddle.
The afternoon light has gone golden and low across the property, lighting up the grass and the red of the barn.
I'm not looking at any of it. I'm looking at her.
The way she sits up straight in the saddle because she can't help it, it's just how she's built. The way her dark curls lift slightly in the breeze coming down off the hills. The way her expression has shifted from serious and scared to more relaxed and excited.
I think I'm in trouble. I've known it for a while. But watching her up there, seeing her in Tennessee, this woman who lives in a world of precision and control and sterile surfaces and things that must be exactly right is letting a horse move her hips and going with it instead of fighting it. I wonder what else she’d be willing to stop fighting. Like maybe the feelings I know she’s developing for me.
Suddenly, Maggie steps over a divot in the dirt at the edge of the fence line, shifts her weight unexpectedly, and Catalina starts to tip.
It's not a fall. It's barely even a near-fall—Maggie corrects immediately, and Catalina grabs the saddle horn and rights herself in about half a second.
But in the half-second it takes for it to happen, my heart leaves my body entirely.
My hand is on Maggie's bridle instantly pulling her to a gentle stop, my eyes going straight to Catalina's hands. Both are still on the horn. Intact. Unharmed.
"Hey—" my voice comes out rough. “Shit, Kitty. I’m so sorry. Are you alright?”
She looks down at me. A little startled, a little nervous then finally she lands on a laugh.
Not the dry, controlled laugh she uses when she’s trying to play a part.
Not the polite smile she gives in professional settings.
It’s a real laugh, full and surprised, her head tipping back slightly; one hand coming up to cover her mouth like she’s just as surprised as I am that she’s laughing.
"What?" I demand, my heart still somewhere in my boots. “Are you okay? Did she hurt you?”
I look at her hands again. Her legs covered in denim. Her face. She’s smiling. She’s okay. I still can’t breathe properly.
"Your face," she says, still laughing a little. "Jensen, I barely moved. I’m fine."
"You almost fell off."
“I didn't almost fall. Maggie shifted and corrected herself. I adjusted.”
“You almost fell,” I repeat with a growl.
“I buckled at best.”
"You could have—your hands—"