Chapter 10 Maggie #2
"True enough." Wyatt leaned back in his chair. "Though Dad says you've got a real gift with the horses. That filly—Dancer—she's been a handful for months. You've got her following you around the paddock in ten days."
"She's got good instincts. She just needed someone to be patient enough to let her use them."
"Patience." Ivy smiled at her husband. "See? The man understands patience."
"I have patience," Wyatt said with a hint of frown just for Ivy.
"You have many wonderful qualities, baby. Patience isn't one of them."
They smiled at each other—that private smile couples had, the one that held a whole history. My chest tightened.
"Maggie runs a tight operation," Wyatt said, turning back to Jack. "If she says you're doing good work, that's high praise."
"I aim to earn it."
His eyes flicked to me. Just for a second. Our gazes caught and held—barely a beat, nothing anyone would notice—and then he looked away, turning his attention back to Daddy's question about cattle futures.
He gave nothing away. Not a flicker. Not a trace.
Which was exactly what I'd asked for.
So why did it feel like I was suffocating?
"Maggie." Hunter's voice, low and quiet beside me. "You're staring."
I jerked my attention back to my plate. "I'm not staring. I'm observing."
“Well, you've been observing the same man for twenty minutes."
“Shut up!” I hissed under my breath.
Hunter made a sound that might have been a laugh, if Hunter ever actually laughed. "Okay." A long pull from his beer. "Just be careful, Mags."
My eyes narrowed at him. Did he know something I didn’t? "Careful of what?"
He didn't answer. Didn't have to. His silence said plenty—and from Hunter, silence was the loudest thing he had.
After dinner, Momma directed cleanup with the same authority she'd directed setup.
"Hunter and Clay, you're on dish duty. Stephanie and Liam, you're drying. And if I find a single plate in the wrong cabinet, you're both on breakfast duty for a month."
"This is child labor," Clay said.
"You're thirty-one,” Wyatt chuckled.
"It's adult labor. Which is arguably worse."
"Maggie." Momma caught my arm as I reached for the stack of serving platters. "Leave those. Walk with me."
It wasn't a request. Louisa Blackwood didn't make requests. She issued instructions that sounded like invitations but had the structural integrity of military orders.
We walked toward the wedding tree, just a few steps from the porch. The oak's branches spread wide overhead, silver-edged in the moonlight.
"Beautiful night," Momma said.
"It is.” I felt like I was holding a grenade with the pin pulled, waiting with bated breath for the explosion.
"Good dinner."
"Your brisket's never missed."
"Mmm." She was quiet for a moment, and I knew—the way you always knew with my mother—that the real conversation hadn't started yet. "I told you this morning I'm not asking questions. And I meant it."
She stopped walking. Turned to face me.
"But I'm telling you what I see." Her voice was gentle, which was somehow worse than sharp.
"I see a man who watches you when you're not looking.
The same way you watch him." She held up a hand before I could protest. "He's charming, your Jack.
But not the way Clay's charming—all flash and no follow-through.
Jack's charming like deep water. You don't realize how far down it goes until you're already swimming. "
"He's not my Jack.” Even as I said it, it felt like a lie.
Her head tilted, eyes searching mine. “Isn’t he?"
The silence between us stretched. The wedding tree creaked overhead, branches shifting in the night wind.
"He fits well here," she said, softer now.
"Your father's already talking about making him permanent.
And I trust your father's judgment about men—God knows I married him, and that worked out.
" She squeezed my arm. "Whatever's happening, Maggie—or not happening, if that's what you need me to believe—just know that I see you. And I'm here when you're ready."
She walked back toward the house, her posture straight, her stride unhurried, the absolute certainty of a woman who'd said exactly what she meant and not a word more.
I stood under the wedding tree and tried to remember how to breathe.
The evening wound down in familiar patterns.
Wyatt and Ivy on the bench swing, talking low, their hands intertwined. They'd nearly lost each other over the years of silence and not knowing. Watching them now, careful and grateful, made something ache behind my ribs.
Liam and Stephanie at the tree line, his arm around her shoulders, her head against his chest. Two people who knew what loss looked like—his parents taken by violence, her sense of safety stripped from her—finding quiet in each other.
That kind of closeness didn't come easy.
It came from choosing it every day, despite everything that argued against it.
Momma and Daddy by the fire pit, her feet in his lap, his hand on her ankle. Forty years, and they still touched each other like it mattered.
I'd watched them all my life. Learned what love looked like by observing. Just never figured out how to have it for myself.
Jack was near the fire pit, talking to Daddy about something involving a lot of hand gestures—the Fort Worth stallion data, if I had to guess. Sully had made friends with Momma, who was scratching behind his ears while the dog gazed up at her with total devotion.
They looked like a family.
He looked like he belonged.
Clay dropped into the chair beside me, two beers in hand. Offered me one. I took it even though I hadn't finished my wine.
"No thoughts," I said preemptively. "Just tired."
"I wasn't going to ask."
"You were absolutely going to ask.” Clay was as nosy as a Southern mama trying to matchmake her son.
"Okay, I was going to ask." He clinked his bottle against mine. "But not what you think."
"What, then?"
He was quiet for a moment, watching Jack across the yard. "He asked me about you today. Professional stuff at first. But then he asked something else."
My stomach tightened. "What?"
"He asked what makes you laugh." Clay looked at me sideways. "Not what makes you smile, not what makes you relax. What makes you laugh. Like it mattered to him. Like it was important information."
I didn't know what to say to that. The beer bottle was cold in my hand, and my throat was tight. I was suddenly, furiously aware that I was going to cry if I didn't change the subject immediately.
"I told him your sense of humor's an acquired taste," Clay continued. "Dry, sharp, and slightly terrifying. Like a good whiskey."
I cleared my throat. ”That's… actually accurate."
"I'm perceptive." He took a drink. "Look, Mags. I'm not going to do the thing where I pretend I don't see what's happening, because I respect you too much for that. And I'm not going to give you a speech about being careful, because Hunter's probably already done that."
"He has."
"Figured. That's his love language—cryptic warnings and meaningful silences." Clay turned to face me fully. "So I'm just going to say this once, and then I'll shut up about it forever. Ready?"
"Probably not."
"You spend so much energy taking care of this family.
Every crisis, every problem, every Sunday dinner—you're the one making sure it all works.
And you're incredible at it. We'd fall apart without you, and I think sometimes we forget to tell you that.
" He paused. "But somewhere along the way, you decided that taking care of everyone else meant you didn't get to have things for yourself.
And that's bullshit, Mags. It's total, complete bullshit. "
My eyes were burning. I blinked hard.
"If there's something good in front of you—and I'm not saying there is, because apparently we're all pretending—but if there is…
" He bumped his shoulder against mine. "You're allowed to reach for it.
You're allowed to want things. You don't have to earn it by managing every goddamn detail of everyone else's life first."
I didn't trust my voice. Took a long drink of beer instead.
Clay seemed to understand. He leaned back, looked up at the stars, and let the silence hold us for a while.
"Love you, sis," he said eventually.
"Love you too." It came out rough. "Even when you're being annoyingly insightful."
"I contain multitudes." He stood, stretched, and grinned down at me. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go see if there's any pie left before Sophia eats it all."
He sauntered off, and I sat alone with my beer and the stars and the weight of everything I wasn't saying.
Jack found me near the dessert table as I was wrapping the last of the pie.
"Good dinner," he said, voice low. The kind of thing any polite employee might say.
I finished wrapping the last pie, ignoring the subtle tremor in my hands. "Momma's brisket doesn't miss."
A pause. "You've been quiet tonight."
"I've been unwinding with my family."
"You've been hiding,” he corrected without accusation. Just observation.
I glanced around. The yard was thinning—Sophia heading for her car, Hunter already gone, Wyatt and Ivy drifting toward their cabin. No one watching.
"This is harder than I thought it would be," I admitted. "Watching you fit in with my family like you've always been here. Pretending I don't—"
I stopped. I was not going to go down that road. Not now. Not this soon.
"Don't what?" His voice was quiet. Close.
"Don't know you. The real you." I folded the foil over the pie plate with exaggerated precision, not looking at him.
"Everyone sees the polite new hand. The good horseman.
The guy who says ma'am and helps refill the lemonade.
" I swallowed. "They don't know about Clearwater.
About Sarah. About the screen door." My voice dropped.
"About what you said to me in the truck. "
He was silent for a long moment.
"They don't have to," he said. "Not yet."
"I know. I just—" I pressed my palms flat on the table, steadying myself.
"I'm keeping you in a box. This whole thing—us—it's in a box.
And I'm watching my family live their lives out loud, and Wyatt and Ivy are on the swing, and Liam's got his arm around Stephanie, and my parents are being disgustingly in love after forty years, and I'm standing here wrapping pie and pretending I don't have someone too. "
The words came out before I could stop them. Before I could edit or manage or perform.
Jack's expression didn't change. But something behind his eyes shifted—a warmth, a recognition, a patience that was starting to feel less like restraint and more like faith.
"You're not ready," he said. Not a question.
I stared down at the pies and forced the quiver out of my chin. “No,” I whispered.
"That's okay."
I shook my head, looking up at him again. “It doesn't feel okay. It feels like I'm lying to everyone I love."
"You're not lying. You're taking your time." He reached over and adjusted the foil on the pie—a small, practical gesture that put his hand close to mine without touching it. "There's no rush, Maggie."
"Everyone keeps saying that. You. Ivy. Like time is this unlimited resource, and I've got all of it."
"You've got more than you think."
I looked at him. He looked at me. The yard was empty now, just the two of us and the string lights and the wedding tree presiding over everything with its ancient, patient branches.
"Later?" I asked.
"Later," he said. And this time, when he walked away, I let myself watch him go.
I stood under the tree for a long time after that.
I wasn't there yet. I knew that.
But standing in the dark, listening to the wind move through the old oak, I could feel something shifting. Not a decision—not yet. More like the ground preparing for one. The soil turning over. The first green thing pushing up through dirt that had been packed hard for a very long time.
I gathered the last of the dishes and walked back to my cabin.
Not empty, exactly. Not tonight.
Tonight it just felt like mine. And for the first time, that felt like enough.