9. Epilogue 1
Cassie
It’s two weeks after the festival. I stood on a stage in Bozeman with a microphone and three hundred people looking at me and I thought I was going to pass out.
My hands were shaking. My voice cracked on the second sentence of the keynote.
I could feel the sweat on the back of my neck and I was absolutely certain that every person in the room could see that I was a fraud who drew horses with the wrong number of leg joints and had no business being on a stage.
Then a little girl in the front row held up a copy of Barnaby the Brave Horse and said, “That’s my favorite book.”
And I was fine.
Not fine like the shaking stopped. Fine like the shaking didn’t matter. The fear was still there. But the girl with the book was there too, and she was more important than the fear.
I read the entire keynote without looking at my notes.
I did the panel. I signed two hundred books.
I met kids who knew Barnaby’s name and parents who thanked me for writing stories that made bedtime easier.
A librarian from Billings ordered forty copies for her system.
A teacher asked if I’d do a school visit in the spring.
I said yes. To all of it. Without making a spreadsheet first.
Cash drove me to Bozeman. He and Lola sat in the first row during the keynote. Lola held up her stuffed horse every time I mentioned Barnaby, which was frequently. Cash sat beside her with his arm around the back of her chair and watched me with an expression I’d never seen on his face before.
Pride. The kind that sits in a man’s eyes when the woman he loves does something brave and he knows exactly how hard it was for her.
Afterward, in the hotel parking lot, he pulled me against him and said, “You were incredible.”
“I almost threw up before the keynote.”
“But you didn’t. That’s the whole point.”
And Cash is building something.
He started with the cattle operation, which he runs like a man who was born to work land even if it took him a decade of riding bulls to figure that out.
The east herd. The west herd. The grazing rotations.
The breeding schedule. He handles it the way he handles everything: instinctively, thoroughly, and with a grin that makes Jake do whatever he asks without questioning it.
But the youth program is where his eyes light up.
He’s been planning it for months. Not with spreadsheets.
With conversations. With Brynn about curriculum.
With Raiford about funding and insurance.
With Sawyer Cross about safety protocols, because a vet who’s grumpy about people is surprisingly thorough about protecting kids from horses.
Cash is talking to the school district about weekend sessions.
He’s identifying horses in the string that are calm enough for beginners.
He’s already got a name: Wylde Ranch Youth Horsemanship.
“You’re building something,” I told him last week, watching him sketch a rough layout of the training area on a napkin at the kitchen table.
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I’m not surprised. I’m impressed.”
I’ve been staying at the cabin more nights than not.
Not officially moved in. There was no announcement.
I just stopped going home. My clothes migrated to his closet.
My books appeared on his shelves. My colored pencils took over the kitchen table.
My toothbrush appeared next to his last week. Neither of us commented on it.
It’s a Saturday afternoon in late September.
The aspens are just starting to turn. I’m at the cabin working on Book Five.
Barnaby Goes to the Rodeo. Cash has been helping with the research, which mostly involves him telling me stories from the circuit that are either inspiring or completely unsuitable for children, depending on how many details I let him include.
Lola is at the main house with Elise. Cash is in the barn with Beckett. The ranch is quiet.
My phone buzzes.
Caroline: What are you doing right now?
Me: Writing. Barnaby is learning to be brave at a rodeo.
Caroline: Art imitating life.
Me: Ha. What’s up?
Caroline: Mom wants to know if you and Cash are coming to Sunday dinner.
Me: Obviously. Cash is bringing pie. He can’t bake but he insists on trying.
Caroline: Brave man.
I’m smiling at my phone when I hear a truck. Not Cash’s truck. Something different. A black pickup, clean and quiet. No bumper stickers. No rattling trailer. The kind of truck that belongs to someone who takes care of things.
It parks beside Cash’s. The contrast is almost comical.
A man gets out. Tall. Broad through the shoulders. Dark hair cut short. Tan jacket. Boots that have seen work.
I know who he is before I see his face.
Jesse Williams.
Also: the man who broke my sister’s heart six years ago.
Cash comes out of the barn. He sees Jesse and his face splits into the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on him. They meet in the yard. The hug is hard and brief and involves an inordinate amount of back-slapping.
“Jesse Williams.” Cash steps back, grinning. “You look like hell.”
“You look domestic.” Jesse’s voice is low. Quiet. He looks at the cabin. The toys on the porch. The second car in the driveway. “Heard you settled down.”
“Completely. It’s disgusting.” Cash throws an arm around him. “Come on. Meet Cassie. And Lola. She turned three in August. She’ll make you eat hay.”
I come down from the porch. Cash is grinning, his arm still around Jesse’s shoulders.
“Cassie, this is Jesse Williams. We rode together on the circuit. Jesse, this is—”
“We know each other,” I say. My voice comes out sharper than I intend.
Cash blinks.
“Jesse dated my sister,” I say to Cash while looking at Jesse.
The yard goes quiet. Cash’s arm drops from Jesse’s shoulders. He looks between us.
“Your sister?” Cash says slowly.
“Caroline. Caroline Benton. Six years ago. Ring any bells?” I say to Jesse.
Jesse’s face changes. The tired resignation shifts into something more raw. He doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t deflect.
“Yeah,” he says. Quiet. “That’s me.”
“You left her.”
“I did.”
The honesty disarms me. I expected excuses. He’s just standing in the yard admitting it.
Cash is looking at me. “I didn’t know,” he says.
“Of course not. How would you?”
Jesse shifts. “Is she… is Caroline in town?”
“She’s supposed to come by this afternoon,” I say. And then I stop. Because she’s pulling up right now.
Jesse looks between us. “I should go. I don’t want to cause—”
“Stay,” I say. Surprising myself. “Just… stay.”
Caroline gets out holding a coffee from Wylde Beans. She’s wearing jeans and a tank top and her dark hair is down and she looks like a woman who has her life together and is not expecting it to be disrupted.
Then Caroline sees him.
She freezes. She’s standing in the yard with Wylde Beans coffee going cold in her grip and six years of carefully constructed composure crumbling in real time.
Jesse is perfectly still. The smile is gone. His face is raw and open and guilty and hungry all at once.
“Caroline,” he says. Like the name has been sitting in his mouth for years.
“Jesse.” Her voice could cut glass. But her eyes can’t.
She puts the armor back on. The armor she built after a twenty-three-year-old cowboy chose the rodeo over her and drove out of Wylde Mountain without looking back. Caroline’s jaw tightens. She turns to me. Her eyes are blazing and I can see the exact moment she realizes I knew.
“I’m going to see Lola,” she says. Clipped. She heads inside.
Jesse is still standing in the yard. Coffee forgotten. Eyes on the door Caroline walked through.
“Jesse,” Cash says. “You okay?”
Jesse takes a breath. “I was an idiot,” he says. Simply. Like a fact he’s accepted.
“Was?” Cash asks.
Jesse doesn’t answer.
Inside the cabin, Lola’s voice carries through a window. “Aunt Caroline! Horsies!”
Outside, the September sun is warm in the valley and the aspens are catching the first gold of fall.
And I have a feeling my sister’s life is about to get interesting.
Whether she likes it or not.