27. Wade
WADE
I waited at the kitchen table in the rented house.
The place was quiet in a way the ranch had never been, all that space pressing down on the silence.
I'd been sitting there since six in the morning, and it was barely eight.
The coffee in front of me had gone cold an hour ago.
I wrapped my hand around the mug anyway, just to have something to hold onto.
Today was the rodeo grounds.
I'd promised Callie the day. No interruptions. No work. No phone calls pulling me away at the last second with some emergency that couldn't actually wait. Just her and me and the place where we'd met. The place I'd been avoiding because going back there meant looking at everything I'd thrown away.
I'd gone once already, alone, a couple of weeks after she'd asked. Sat in my truck by the rail until the sun started down and tried to remember what it felt like to be the man who'd promised her everything. The man she'd believed in.
I hadn't told her about that.
My phone sat beside the mug, screen dark.
I stared at it like I could will it not to ring.
The fear sat in my chest, heavy and familiar, the same fear I'd been carrying for weeks.
I'd slip. I'd fall back into the man who'd made every wrong choice for ten years straight.
I'd pick up the phone, say yes to whatever they needed, let work pull me away from her one more time.
And she'd be done.
Not angry. Not hurt. Just done.
Don't let it happen.
I pushed the mug aside and stood. The house felt wrong around me, all sharp corners and bare walls and furniture that didn't belong to anyone. I'd signed the lease without looking at the place twice. A roof, four walls, somewhere that wasn't the ranch. That was all I'd needed.
It wasn't home. It was just where I slept.
Callie's wedding ring was in my pocket. I pulled it out and held it up to the light.
The metal was warm from being against my leg, the band thin and scratched in places I'd never noticed before.
Ten years on her hand, and I'd never once stopped to really look at it.
All that work she did — the calves, the dogs, the animals nobody else wanted to touch — and she'd never taken it off. Not once.
Until she did.
The divorce was still going ahead. The lawyer had papers on his desk, waiting for us to show up and make it official. The ring didn't change that. I kept it anyway. I didn't know what else to do with it. Leaving it behind felt wrong. Giving it back felt like admitting I'd lost her for good.
Maybe I had.
I closed my fist around it and shoved it back in my pocket.
The phone rang.
My stomach dropped. I knew before I looked at the screen.
Marcus didn't call unless it was the kind of problem that needed me on it personally, and he hadn't called in weeks.
I'd stepped back from the business. Handed off the day-to-day operations.
Told him not to reach out unless the whole damn thing was burning down.
I picked up. "Yeah."
"Wade, we've got a situation." Marcus sounded tight, clipped, the way he always did when money was on the line and the clock was ticking.
"Nordstrom wants to move up the launch. They're pushing for next month instead of fall.
It's a hell of an opportunity, but we need you on the call today. Two o'clock. Non-negotiable."
Two o'clock.
I was supposed to pick up Callie at nine. The rodeo grounds were twenty minutes outside town. We'd be there all day. I'd told her I was hers for the day. No interruptions. I'd promised.
"They won't wait on this," Marcus said. "This is the kind of deal that doesn't come around twice, and you know it. We've been chasing Nordstrom for two years. If we don't move now, they'll go with someone else and we're done."
I did know that. A year ago, I would've said yes before he finished talking.
I would've called Callie, told her something came up, promised to make it up to her later.
And I would've believed I meant it. She would've nodded and said she understood, her voice going quiet in that way that meant I'd hurt her again and she didn't have the energy to fight about it.
Then I would've gotten on the call, closed the deal, and felt like I'd won something.
And she would've gone to feed the orphan calves by herself. Again.
"Wade?" Marcus's voice cut through. "You still there?"
"I'm here."
"So you'll do it? I'll send you the briefing in ten minutes. We can prep before the call."
The ring in my pocket felt like it weighed ten pounds.
My mouth went dry. This was it. This was the exact test I'd been afraid of, the one I'd been waiting for since the day she walked out.
The call that would prove I hadn't changed at all, that I was still the same man who'd put the business ahead of her every single time it mattered.
The man who couldn't say no when work needed him.
The man who'd lost her.
Say no. Just say it.
"I can't," I said.
The line went quiet. I could hear Marcus breathing on the other end, probably trying to figure out if he'd heard me right. Hell, I was trying to figure out if I'd actually said it.
"You can't," he repeated slowly.
"No."
"Wade, this is Nordstrom. This is the deal we've been working toward for two goddamn years. If we don't jump on this right now, they'll go with someone else and we lose everything."
"Then they go with someone else."
"Jesus Christ." Marcus let out a hard breath, and I could picture him on the other end, running a hand through his hair, pacing his office. "What the hell is going on with you? This isn't like you."
That was the point. It wasn't like me. The old me would've been on that call without a second thought. The old me would've told Callie the business needed me, and she would've stepped aside like she always did. Like I'd taught her to.
"I've got somewhere I need to be," I said.
"More important than this?"
"Yeah." My voice came out rough, but I meant it. "More important than this."
I ended the call before he could say anything else. My hand was shaking when I set the phone down on the table. The fear was still there, sitting in my chest like a fist, but something else was there too. Something that felt like I'd just cleared a fence I didn't think I could jump.
I grabbed my keys and headed for the door.
---
Callie was waiting outside when I pulled up to the rescue office.
The little apartment above it, where she was staying.
She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail, jeans and boots like she was going to work, and she didn't smile when she saw me.
She just came down the steps and got in the truck without a word.
"Hey," I said.
"Hey."
She didn't look at me. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, staring straight ahead through the windshield. I wanted to tell her about the call. About Marcus and Nordstrom and saying no. About choosing her over the business for the first time in ten years.
Don't.
She didn't need to hear it. She didn't need me pointing out that I'd finally done what I should've been doing all along, like I deserved a damn medal for showing up. She needed me to just be here.
"You ready?" I asked.
"Yeah."
I pulled out onto the road. The silence between us wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't angry either. It was careful. Cautious. Like we were both trying not to break something fragile that might not survive if we pushed too hard.
I kept my hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road. My phone stayed in my pocket. It didn't ring again.
The rodeo grounds sat just outside town, the same stretch of dirt and rails and bleachers where I'd spent half my youth getting thrown off animals that didn't want me on their backs.
I'd won my first championship here. Met Callie here.
Kissed her for the first time against the rail after a night where I couldn't take my eyes off her.
The parking lot was empty when we pulled in. The place looked smaller than I remembered, or maybe I was just bigger now, worn down by all the years that had passed since the last time I'd been here with her.
I parked near the rail. Callie got out before I did, and I followed her across the lot. She walked right up to the fence and leaned against it, her arms crossed on the top rail, staring out at the empty arena like she was looking for something.
"You remember that time we came out here, early on?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"I was so scared." She shook her head, and I caught the edge of a smile, small and far away. "That horse was mean. Everyone told me not to get on him. Said I'd get hurt."
"You got on him anyway."
"I did." She looked at me then, and her eyes were softer than they'd been in weeks. Maybe months. "You told me I could do it."
I remembered that. I remembered standing at this exact spot, watching her climb into the saddle, and thinking I was seeing something I'd never seen in anyone else. Someone fearless. Someone who didn't give a damn what anyone else thought, who just went after what she wanted.
Someone I wanted to keep knowing.
"You didn't need me to tell you," I said.
"Maybe not." She turned back to the arena, and the smile faded. "But it helped."
We stood there for a long time. The sun climbed higher, burning off the last of the morning cool.
My phone stayed in my pocket. I didn't check it.
Didn't think about Marcus or Nordstrom or the deal I'd walked away from.
I thought about her. About the way she'd looked on that horse, flushed and alive and so damn beautiful it hurt.
About the way she'd looked at me after, laughing and breathless, like I'd given her something she'd needed.
I hadn't seen her look like that in years.
She didn't say this was a test. She didn't tell me she was watching to see if I'd stay, if I'd keep my word, if I'd finally put her first. But I knew.
I could feel it in the way she stood next to me, close but not touching, waiting to see if I'd pull out my phone or check the time or make an excuse to leave early.
I stayed.
The morning stretched out, quiet and slow.
We walked the perimeter of the arena, her boots kicking up little clouds of dust. She told me about a calf she was trying to save, one that wouldn't take the bottle no matter what she tried.
I listened. I asked her questions. I didn't try to fix it for her or wave it off as something small.
I just let her talk, and I paid attention.
At some point she stopped walking and looked at me. Really looked at me.
"You're different," she said.
I didn't know what to say to that. My chest went tight.
I wanted to tell her I was trying. That I was scared as hell I'd slip back into the man I'd been, the one who'd let her down every single time.
That I didn't know if I could keep this up, if one day at the rodeo grounds was enough to prove I'd changed.
But I didn't say any of it.
"Maybe," I said.
She studied my face, her eyes moving over me like she was trying to figure out if I was real or if this was just another promise I'd break the second something more important came along. I stood there and let her look. My pulse kicked up. My hands felt useless at my sides.
God, she was close. Close enough that I could see the freckles across her nose, the ones I used to count when we were younger and stupid and she let me.
"I don't know if it's enough," she said quietly.
"I know."
And I did know. I knew the divorce was still going ahead. I knew she hadn't forgiven me. I knew one morning at the rodeo grounds didn't undo ten years of me choosing wrong, of putting work ahead of her, of making her feel like she didn't matter.
But I also knew I wasn't going to slip back. I wasn't going to be that man again.
I'd said no to Marcus. I'd turned down the deal. I'd shown up, and I'd stayed, and I hadn't asked her to thank me for it.
She didn't say she still loved me. I didn't say it either. We just stood there in the middle of the empty arena, the place where we'd started, and I let the silence hold all the things we couldn't say out loud yet.
The fear in my chest loosened. Not gone. Just quieter.
I wasn't that man anymore.