Chapter 15
Riley
I had never been this happy. It terrified me.
I woke in Liam's bed. Our bed now. The thought still caught me off guard sometimes—the possessive pronoun, the way it implied permanence. Ours. Like this was something that belonged to both of us. Like I had a right to be here.
The morning light filtered through the curtains, soft and gold, painting stripes across the quilt his grandmother had made. I didn't move. Didn't want to break the spell of this quiet moment before the day demanded anything from us.
Instead, I watched him sleep.
His face had softened in a way it never quite did when he was awake. The easy smile he wore like armor, the constant awareness, the habit of looking out for everyone else—sleep stripped all of it away.
His sandy hair was a mess against the pillow, darker at the roots. Stubble roughened his jaw, catching the light. Familiar details. Earned ones.
The kind of body that came from work, not effort. Broad shoulders, lean lines, built for lifting, fixing, staying on his feet longer than most people could.
I didn’t think cowboy.
I just knew my chest tightened when I looked at him—and I didn’t look away.
There was something about him that made me want to protect him.
The thought didn’t make sense. He was the one who’d been stepping in front of things. Who’d been taking the hits.
Still, lying there, watching him sleep, I felt it. The urge settled low and steady, unfamiliar. The instinct to stand between him and whatever might reach for him next.
I’d always been the one on watch. The one who stayed awake. The one who made herself useful by being necessary.
I didn’t know what to do with wanting both—holding the line and leaning into someone else’s strength at the same time.
Part of me kept waiting for this to fracture. For the moment something would slip, break, prove that this was temporary. I’d learned to expect that.
But each morning I woke up here, his arm heavy across my waist, his breath warm at the back of my neck, it felt harder to doubt.
Solid.
Staying.
Mine—not claimed, not taken.
Just… there.
And for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel the need to brace for it disappearing
The weeks that followed blurred together in the best possible way.
Mia rode Honey now with a confidence that made my chest ache.
She'd graduated from the round pen to the pasture, trotting circuits around the fence line while Liam called instructions from the rail.
The mare who wouldn't let anyone near her six months ago now nickered when she heard Mia's voice, nosing at her pockets for the apple slices she'd learned to expect.
“She’s a natural.”
Liam leaned on the rail, forearms crossed, eyes tracking the easy rise and fall of Mia in the saddle. The corner of his mouth lifted, pride slipping through before he bothered to hide it.
“Better seat than you, that’s for sure.”
Mia grinned from the rail, legs swinging, dust on her jeans like a badge of honor.
“I have a great seat.”
Liam didn’t even look offended. He stayed relaxed against the fence, eyes still on the pasture.
“You fell off twice yesterday.”
I shot her a look. She didn’t flinch.
“The horse moved unexpectedly.”
She tipped her head, considering that for half a second.
“The horse was standing still.”
I reached for Liam’s shoulder, more reflex than intention. He caught my hand easily, fingers closing around mine, pulling me in before I could decide if I meant it.
He kissed me there by the fence, easy and unguarded, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I let him.
Didn’t even think about pulling away.
That was new too.
The casual affection.
The way he touched me like we’d been doing this for years instead of weeks.
A hand settling at my back as we passed in the hallway.
His fingers finding mine across the dinner table, brief and absentminded, like muscle memory.
The way he’d come up behind me while I was washing dishes, arms wrapping around my waist, his chin resting on my shoulder—no agenda, no rush. Just there.
I was still getting used to that. To being held without having to earn it.
Riding, on the other hand, was a disaster.
I was terrible at it. Genuinely, embarrassingly bad. My body couldn’t find the rhythm no matter how many times he explained it, and I bounced in the saddle like a sack of potatoes while the horse carried on, patient and unimpressed.
Liam tried very hard not to laugh.
He failed about as badly as I did.
“Relax your hips,” he said, walking alongside the horse, one hand light on the bridle.
“My hips are relaxed.”
He glanced at me, lips twitching.
“Your hips are the opposite of relaxed. Your hips are staging a protest.”
I shot him a look. The horse kept going, unbothered.
He didn’t give up. Kept talking me through it, calm and unhurried, the same way he did with Mia. The same way he’d worked with Honey. Like he expected progress, not perfection. Like he wasn’t keeping score.
Dinners started to matter more than I expected.
The three of us around the kitchen table, passing dishes back and forth, voices overlapping. Mia talking with her hands, jumping from one story to the next. Liam and I trading looks over the rim of our glasses—small, quiet acknowledgments that said are you seeing this?
One night, while Mia was deep into some drama involving her friend Sofia and a missing pencil case, it hit me.
Not as a thought. As a settling.
This was what I’d wanted her to have.
A table where people stayed. Where no one raised their voice. Where no one disappeared halfway through dinner. A place that didn’t feel temporary.
And then—lower, slower—I realized something else.
I wanted it too.
Not just to build it. To sit in it. To eat without tracking exits. Without listening for the shift in tone that meant it was time to get ready to leave. My shoulders eased without me telling them to. I laughed at the pencil case story and didn’t miss half of it running through contingencies.
I stayed.
I watched Liam laugh, full and easy, watched Mia roll her eyes at him, watched the space between us hold.
For once, I wasn’t bracing.
Wasn’t guarding.
Wasn’t alone in a room full of people.
I didn’t have a word for it yet.
I just knew I’d stopped feeling lost.
The crew cookout happened on a Saturday in late May.
Cal and Lucy arrived first, Gabrielle toddling between them on unsteady legs. She was walking now, a little over a year old, and Lucy kept one hand hovering near her shoulder while Cal carried the diaper bag like it contained classified documents.
Owen showed up with two coolers of beer and a bag of ice, because apparently, you could never have too much of either. The rest of the crew trickled in over the next hour, filling the yard with noise and laughter and the smell of burgers on the grill.
I watched Liam move through the crowd, comfortable and easy, slapping backs and trading jokes. This was his element. Surrounded by people who loved him, on land that had been his family's for generations, doing the simple work of feeding people and making them feel welcome.
He caught my eye across the yard and smiled. Not the easy grin he gave everyone, but something softer. Something just for me.
I smiled back before I could stop myself.
“You’re different lately.”
I turned to find Lucy beside me, leaning against the pasture fence, Gabrielle drowsing against her shoulder. Lucy had that knowing look she got sometimes, the one that saw too much.
“Different how?”
“Lighter.” She tilted her head, studying me. “Less like you’re waiting for something bad to happen.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. She wasn’t wrong.
“It’s a good thing,” Lucy added. “You don’t have to carry everything alone anymore. That’s what family’s for.”
Family.
The word landed somewhere soft. I thought about what it had meant to me growing up. Mom passed out on the couch. Todd’s fists. The weight of Mia on my hip when she was small, both of us waiting for someone to come home who never did.
Family had been a burden. A responsibility. Something I fought for because I had to, not because it brought me joy.
But this. Cal flipping burgers while arguing with Owen about football. Mia showing Kowalski and Reyes how to feed Honey without getting their fingers nipped. Liam catching my eye across the yard like I was the only person he wanted to see.
This was something else entirely.
“Thank you.”
The words felt unfamiliar in my mouth. I hesitated, then tried again, quieter.
“For being here. For… this.”
I gestured vaguely toward the yard—the noise, the people, the easy way no one seemed to be leaving.
She smiled and bumped her shoulder against mine.
“Where else would I be?”
Later, I went to grab another beer and heard Owen’s voice around the corner of the barn.
“So when’s the real wedding?”
I froze. Pressed myself against the wall. Knew I shouldn’t eavesdrop. Did it anyway.
Liam’s response was too quiet to catch. Just a low murmur, maybe a laugh, something that made Owen snort and say, “Yeah, okay, keep your secrets.”
But my heart was stuttering anyway.
Real wedding.
Like this one hadn’t counted. Like there was supposed to be another one, a better one, one that meant something beyond legal convenience.
Did Liam want that? Did I?
The question sat heavy in my chest for the rest of the afternoon.
That night, after everyone had gone, we sat on the porch in comfortable silence.
The stars were out, thick and bright, the way they only got this far from town. I could hear the horses shifting in the barn, an owl somewhere in the distance, the creak of the porch swing as we rocked slowly back and forth.
I stared out at the stars for a long moment.
“What do you want… from this?”
Liam turned to look at me. “Right now? Another beer, maybe. Possibly a sandwich.”
“I mean for the future. After the hearing. After…” I trailed off, not sure how to finish.
He was quiet for a moment. The swing creaked. The owl called again.
“I want to keep this place running,” he said finally. “Build it into something my grandmother would be proud of. Maybe expand the rescue program, take in more horses like Honey.”
“And?”
“And I want you here.”
The words came easy, like he didn’t need to rehearse them. Like this part was already settled.
“Both of you. I want Mia growing up on this land, learning to ride, bringing friends home from school. I want Sunday mornings where we don’t have anywhere to be. I want…”
He stopped. The porch swing creaked once beneath us. I could feel the pause—not hesitation, but care.
“I want kids someday, if that’s something you want too.”
He breathed out, slow.
“And I want to grow old here. On this porch. Complaining about my knees and watching the sunset.”
“That’s very specific.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.”
The swing shifted beneath us. I stared back at the stars and tried to imagine it. Growing old on this porch. Kids running through the pastures. A lifetime of sunsets and Sunday mornings and this man beside me, steady and sure.
“What about you?”
He turned his head slightly, waiting.
“What do you want?”
The question I’d never let myself answer. Because wanting things meant losing them. Because hope was just disappointment waiting to happen. Because I’d learned early that the universe didn’t give people like me happy endings.
But sitting here, his hand warm in mine, the stars bright overhead, I let myself say it.
“I want to stop being afraid.” The words came out rough, surprising me. “I want to wake up and not immediately think about what could go wrong. I want to trust that good things can last.”
“And?”
“And I want this.” I gestured vaguely at the ranch, the house, him. “All of it. I never thought I’d have a place that felt like mine. I never thought I’d have someone who…” I stopped. Swallowed. “I never thought I’d have this.”
“Me neither.” His hand tightened on mine. “But I’m not letting it go.”
“Neither am I.”
We sat there as the night deepened, the stars wheeling slowly overhead, and I let myself believe it might be true.
That night, lying in bed, I let myself feel safe.
Not the cautious, qualified safety of someone who knows the other shoe is about to drop. Not the temporary reprieve between crises. Actual safety—bone-deep and real.
Todd was out there somewhere. I knew that. I knew that he’d find a way to make our lives hell again.
But right now, in this room, with Liam’s arm around me and his heartbeat steady against my back, I believed it might be okay. I believed we might actually make it.
The final hearing was in one week. Seven days, and Mia would be mine forever. Legally, permanently, irrevocably mine. No more court dates. No more judges. No more Todd lurking at the edges of our lives, threatening to take her away.
One week.
We just had to make it one more week.
I closed my eyes and let myself drift, Liam’s warmth solid beside me, the house quiet around us.