Chapter 39
Kayla
Penny slides into the booth beside me and immediately starts complaining. “All I’m saying is that he doesn’t need to come and sit in the booth behind me every time I have a date. It’s gotten to the point where the booth is actually reserved for him.”
Granger slides in across from her, unbothered. “If you’re going to insist on meeting strangers on the internet, I’m going to insist on making sure they’re not serial killers.”
“We’re in a public place. I don’t go home with them on the first night. You have my location on your phone. I’m not an idiot about it.” She ticks her safety precautions off one by one, like running through her vehicle checklist.
Colter laughs as he pours Granger a beer from the pitcher we ordered. “Let the man watch out for you, Pen. ”
“He can watch out for me without ruining my chances at getting laid,” she grumbles as the waitress drops off a heaping plate of pulled pork nachos. The table smells like barbecue sauce and beer batter, and I’m already loosening up before the first sip of cider.
Granger’s eyes flash, but he avoids making the situation worse by opening his mouth again. Penny nods smugly at her accomplishment. But that’s all she’s going to get—Granger off her back for the night. He’ll be back to stalking her on her dates by tomorrow.
“So, Kayla, you still thinking about selling that Malibu?” Penny asks, passing her empty glass to Colt, so that he can fill it up for her.
“No?” Why would I want to sell my car? She’s been running like a dream since Penny fixed her up. Better than she’s ever run before.
“Oh? Colt said—” her eyes widen and her mouth clamps shut. Granger chuckles when Colt groans. “Never mind.”
“No, no, please continue, Penny,” I narrow my eyes at my boyfriend. “What did Colt say?”
“I only made a comment in passing that we might upgrade you out of the Malibu before the winter. It won’t even make it up and down the driveway in the winter.”
“Didn’t think to mention that to me?” My lips thin, and annoyance zaps through me. I’m all for Colt’s gruff exterior and take-charge attitude, but he doesn’t get to make decisions about my stuff without consulting me.
“It was a passing comment,” he defends. “I swear I was going to talk to you about it, but it’s only August. We have time.” He shoots a glare at Penny, who smiles sheepishly.
“Don’t blame Penny,” I defend my friend. “You made the choice to talk to her before talking to me.”
“And it was a bad decision. I agree.”
“Colt,” I frown.
“Seriously, I get it. I shouldn’t have talked about it with Penny without talking to you first. It was just an in-the-moment thought when I brought the truck in for a wheel alignment, and I mentioned it. It won’t happen again.”
“I like my car,” I tell him, warning him.
“Then keep your car, but at least drive a ranch truck in the winter?”
“We’ll talk about it,” I concede. I like my car, but I don’t really want the responsibility of not totaling a company truck. If buying my own vehicle is what it takes to be comfortable, then I guess it had to happen eventually.
“Man, Penny,” Granger chuckles. “Imagine the town rebellion if you had broken up the one couple they had all banded together to get together. There would’ve been mutiny.
“I didn’t almost break them up,” she scoffs. “Did you see how he looks at her? He’d never let her leave.”
“Kinda creepy, guys,” I warn. They’re talking about us like we’re just the town's puppets.
“And completely unnecessary,” Colt adds.
“Colter looks less grumpy lately, that’s all I’m saying,” Granger holds his hands up in a ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ motion.
“Hey,” Colter says, offended. “I don’t know why you all are so insistent that I was some sort of Grinch. I wasn’t that bad.”
Granger snorts. “How was he the first time you met him, Kayla?”
“Now hold on, that’s not fair,” he flounders.
The evening progresses with the four of us just taking a load off, enjoying the night. Penny and I gossip about Sawyer’s ex-boyfriend, who showed up at her house out of the blue last night. The boys talk about a rodeo that’s passing through Malta in a couple of weekends.
The hours pass quickly. We get dessert, because Granger insisted, and stay longer than we planned. When we finally make our way out into the chilly night, Colter reaches for my hand automatically as we walk across the gravel lot.
There’s something about Castlebrook that makes the air smell like pine and promise. And tonight, I’m feeling it. Settled. Like things are finding their place. Ben is with his grandparents, and we have nowhere to be. Nothing to do.
It’s perfect.
The next night, Colter tells me not to plan anything for dinner.
I figured he meant beer on the porch and maybe a frozen pizza if he was feeling fancy.
He’s not exactly a candlelit dinner kind of guy—though, to be fair, he’s the reason I now think of pancakes at midnight and warm pickup trucks as romantic gestures.
But when he told me to wear jeans and boots and meet him in the truck after Ben left for his grandparents’ house, I knew something was up.
Now we’re thirty minutes outside Castlebrook, bumping down a gravel road that probably isn’t on any GPS, with the sun casting long gold streaks across the horizon and a box of leftover chocolate cake sliding around in the back seat.
I glance over at him. He’s got one hand on the wheel and the other resting easy on my thigh. His thumb traces a slow, steady pattern over the seam of my jeans, like he’s thinking but doesn’t want to say anything just yet.
“You’re being suspiciously quiet,” I say, squinting out at the open land. “Should I be worried? Are we going to bury a body?”
He smirks. “Whose body would we be hiding?”
“I don’t know? Jake’s for bursting into the house and interrupting us this morning?”
He hums. “I could get on board with that.”
I laugh. “Okay, so nobody, but something potentially traumatic.”
“You’ll survive.” He cuts the wheel as we turn past a wooden gate with a swinging “Sorrell Ridge” sign. “Might even like it.”
“What is this place?”
“Belongs to a guy I went to high school with. Breeds quarter horses now. Good stock. Solid temperament. Pretty as hell too.”
I sit up straighter. “Why do I feel like this is either about to be a business deal or a very strange rodeo?”
He puts the truck in park and finally looks at me. His eyes are soft, but serious. “It’s neither.”
I raise a brow. “Then what is it?”
Colt turns toward me fully, fingers tightening just a little on my leg.
“If you’re gonna stay in Montana,” he says, voice low and steady, “and be a real cowgirl, then you’re gonna need your own horse.”
My mouth falls open. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“Colter.”
He shrugs. “Look, I’ve been watching you with Dixie these past few months, and yeah, you’ve made it work. But that horse is a retired saint who’s half blind in one eye and once mistook a fence post for her water trough. You need a horse of your own. One that’s younger. One that can see.”
“I don’t even know what to say.”
“Say you’ll come look,” he says. “Say you’ll at least pretend to be excited so I don’t feel like an idiot for thinking this was a good idea.”
I blink hard, my heart doing that stupid fluttering thing it does whenever he talks about things like our future without even realizing he’s doing it.
“I’m not pretending,” I whisper. “I’m just overwhelmed.”
“Good,” he says, and leans in to kiss my temple. “Means I’m doing something right.”
We walk the fence line, and the ranch owner, Rick, a guy with a sunburned face and a voice like gravel, shows us five different horses, all quarter horses in various shades of chestnut, palomino, and roan.
One of them, a blue with a single white sock and a little streak of white down her face, catches my eye right away.
She’s calm. Curious. Doesn’t flinch when I approach, just noses at my hand and snorts gently against my wrist.
“She’s pretty, ain’t she?” Rick asks. “She’s only been under the saddle a few times. Needs a rider with patience.”
“She’s perfect,” I say before I can stop myself.
Colter’s already watching me, that little frown tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You don’t wanna look at one that’s a little more trained?”
I glance up at him, heart full. “You can train her a little more, right? And teach me how to do it?”
“Kayla,” he sighs. He already regrets bringing me here, I just know it.
“Please? I love her.”
“Should I be worried?”
I grin. “Depends. You gonna train my horse?”
We have a pretty epic stare off for a few seconds, one that I win when Colt nods. Rick immediately starts gathering paperwork for us to sign, muttering under his breath about how much easier it is to do business when I’m around. I’m led back to the truck, Colt’s hand steady at the small of my back.
“The things I do for you,” he groans, leaning down for a kiss before opening my truck door.
“You know,” I say once we’re both in the cab again, “this might be the most Montana date in history.”
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” he mutters, pulling out a small brown leather halter from behind the seat. There’s a gold nameplate across the bridge of the nose, but no name. “Hal’s gonna engrave it, and then show you his best saddles.”
“Colt, you can’t spend all your money on me.” Even if I’m a simple girl who really likes it.
“Kayla, it’s not even close to all my money. And even if it was, I get to choose what I do with it.”
“You act like you’re some kind of millionaire.”
“Maybe not quite, but you seem to forget my family founded this town. We have our hands in a number of businesses, a successful ranch that’s been paid off, and no mortgage.”
That sounds an awful lot like he’s saying he’s rich. “Are you rich?”
He shrugs, like it’s not a total bomb drop. “I don’t know why you’re so surprised.”
“You literally don’t own a pair of boxers that don’t have a hole in them.”
“They still do their job, regardless of a hole,” he argues.
“You’re crazy.”
“Fine, I don’t have to buy you a horse.”
“Wait,” I grab his hand. “I didn’t say crazy was a bad thing.”
“Oh, I see,” he chuckles, giving my hand a squeeze. “Well, we’ve got about 45 minutes until we get to Hal’s. Better start thinking of names.”
“Oh, I have one already, don’t worry.”
“You do?”
“Mhm. Her name is Wildflower.” Like the valley in the mountains.
“Wildflower? I like it.”
“Good. I mean, it wasn’t up to you, but good.” I smile cheekily.
He laughs, that low rumble that vibrates in his chest. “Alright then. Wildflower, it is.”
I glance out the window, the fields blurring past in the fading light. “You know, the first time you brought me out to the valley, I thought you were just trying to impress me. Like, look at this cowboy and his wildflower field. Real smooth.”
Colter chuckles. “And did it work?”
“Obviously.” I grin. “But this? Buying me a horse? This is next-level cowboy flex.”
He shrugs, eyes still on the road. “It’s not about impressing you. It’s about building something with you. You said you wanted to stay. That this place felt like home. I just figured it was time you had something that tied you to it. Something that was yours. Is yours.”
My throat tightens a little. “I already have something that ties me to Montana. You and Ben.”
He lifts my hand to his lips and presses a kiss to my knuckles, his eyes still on the road but his smile unmistakable.
The rest of the drive is quiet in the best way. Comfortable. Familiar. Like we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.
And maybe we are.
Because when a man gives you a horse, a dog, and a wildflower field, when he stalks the fridge with your favorite creamer, and when the boy at home is already calling you family, that’s not just love.
That’s home.