Chapter 14
Colter had expected their night to end with a quick goodbye and a polite wave. Lucky for him—or unlucky, depending on how he looked at it—Sutton’s car refused to start, and he’d ended up driving the two ladies into town and back to their apartment.
But when they walked in, he was rooted in place with shock.
“Apartment” didn’t even begin to describe the six-hundred-square-foot, one-bedroom postage stamp. Sterile walls, two single-paned windows, and carpet that looked like industrial sludge. No matter how she tried to make it homey, it wouldn’t feel much like a home.
This was not the kind of place a little girl deserved to spend her birthday. He wasn’t sure there’d even be room for the people she’d already invited, let alone a class-full of kids.
He made his way to the bedroom and leaned against the doorframe, body suddenly heavy. Lynlee was curled up on the bed, eyes fluttering shut only to snap back open, fighting bedtime, while Sutton read from a book with a horse on the cover.
Closing his eyes, Colter let her soft, hushed voice wash over him, sleep-roughened and husky. It made him want to crawl into a bed, but only if it included just Sutton—naked, and eight uninterrupted, kid-free hours.
When she reached the end of the book, she leaned over and pressed a kiss to Lynlee’s forehead.
Her shirt rode up and the hem of her jeans rode down exposing a sliver of pink silk.
All Colter could think about was what kind of panties she had on and if they came with a bow he could slowly untie to reach her “present.” Then he reprimanded himself for thinking about his vet tech like she was an object—especially when she was in mom-mode.
“Sleep tight, Pumpkin,” Sutton said softly.
Impeccable timing, as always. His libido had never once picked an appropriate moment in its life.
“But I’m nots sleepy,” Lynlee protested, her eyelids already drooping halfway closed.
“How about I come back and check on you in thirty minutes. If you’re still awake, then we’ll read another book. Deal?”
“Thirty minutes!”
“That’s my final offer.”
Lynlee narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, clearly weighing the terms like a seasoned negotiator. After a beat, she nodded her agreement, though the pout lingering on her lips said she wasn’t thrilled about it.
A four-year-old with a better read on leverage than half his ranch hands.
Then Lynlee spotted Colter in the doorway and lit up. “Mister Colter, yous gonna come to my party?”
“You bet.” He glanced at Sutton, who looked so impossibly tender standing there with a kid’s book in hand that he completely forgot what he was going to say.
“We’re having a pony.”
“Hold on, Missy,” Sutton said. “There was no talk of a pinata or a pony. I’ll give you the pinata, but a horse is out of the question.”
“But it’s a pony party,” she said her eyes batting with disappointment. “I gots to have a pony.”
“Maybe we can have a pony cake.”
“Buts I already told everybody there’s be a pony.”
Sutton leaned over the bed and sighed, already bracing herself. “Okay, then Mommy will be very clear when everyone gets here that the pony is imaginary, made of cake, and does not poop in the yard. That’s the pony we can afford.”
Colter, who had been leaning against the doorjamb, trying to stay out of it, straightened. “Actually,” he said casually, “I’ve got a pony you can borrow.”
A prime example, he'd realize about ninety seconds too late, of the exact moment a good day goes sideways.
Lynlee’s head snapped up and her eyes went huge. “A real pony?”
“A very real pony,” Colter confirmed, fighting a smile. “Friendly. Likes apples. Goes by the name Happy.”
Lynlee let out a squeal, hopped out of bed and launched herself at Sutton’s leg. “Mommy! See! I tolds you!”
Sutton closed her eyes for half a second, then opened them and turned to Colter with a polite, tight smile. “That is incredibly generous of you,” she said evenly. “But we’re going to have to pass.”
Lynlee’s face crumpled. “But you said—”
“I said no live ponies,” Sutton replied gently but firmly. “That hasn’t changed. Parties are fun, ponies are big responsibilities, and Mommy’s answer is still no. Now lay back down.”
Lynlee crossed her arms, bottom lip jutting out. Sutton stayed right there with her, steadfast and unmoving. She was firm and kind, but unbudgeable when it came to parenting.
Just like his mom had been.
It caught him off guard, a small smile creeping in where grief usually settled like an old bruise.
He could almost hear his mom’s voice in the exchange, see the way she would’ve backed Sutton up without hesitation, while sneaking Lynlee a conspiratorial wink about cake being better than ponies anyway.
Was the ache still there? Sure. But it had softened, reshaped itself into something easier to swallow. Something livable that didn’t feel like it was suffocating him.
Watching Sutton hold the line with quiet certainty and love, Colter realized that memories didn’t always have to hurt to matter. Sometimes they showed up like this instead—unexpected and full of light.
“Now, time for bed.” When Lynlee didn’t budge, Sutton patted the pillow. “It’s Mister Colter’s bedtime too,” Sutton said, her eyes boring into his, asking him to play along.
“Yup. I’ve got to get home and go to bed. I have work tomorrow and I don’t want to let the animals down.”
Lynlee seemed to be studying him, as if trying to figure out if he was on the up and up. He was. After a full day in the sun and balancing a fine line between treating Sutton like a friend and employee, he was hammered.
“Good night, Mister Colter.”
“Night, Princess.”
Colter left the room, giving the girls some privacy.
Unsure whether to leave or wait until Sutton came out, he took a seat on the couch.
Staying it was. Only as the minutes passed, he became increasingly unsure about his decision, because the longer he sat there, the more it felt like he was hovering at the edge of something private and tender that Sutton had every right to keep for herself.
He was about to leave when Sutton walked out of the room.
Gone was the open smile from a moment ago.
In its place was a tight, sharp look that pulled her mouth flat and set her eyes blazing.
The kind of expression that warned someone they had just crossed a line, and she wasn’t about to let it slide.
“Don’t you ever make a promise to my kid without talking to me first.”
Colter raised his hands, stepping back slightly. “Whoa, hey, I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean? You just offered her a pony like it was candy at Halloween!” Sutton’s voice rose, with a razor’s edge of disbelief.
“I just wanted to make her happy. I didn’t think it through. I’m sorry.”
Sutton crossed her arms, still glaring. “Happy? You can’t just wave a pony in front of a four-year-old and expect zero consequences.”
“I know that now,” he said, his tone softening. “I messed up. I promise, no more surprises. Ever.”
Her eyes narrowed, skeptical. “You better mean it.”
“I do,” he said, a small, rueful smile breaking through. “Scout’s honor.”
“Were you even a scout?”
“No, but if it will make you stop looking at me like you want to cryogenically freeze my nuts, I’ll join the scouts right now.”
"There's no badge for that, but I'm sure they'd make an exception." Sutton’s lips twitched, fighting the corners of a smile. “I’m sorry if I overreacted, it’s just that Lynlee has been disappointed so many times in her little life that I will do anything to make sure it never happens again.”
“Even cryogenically freeze my nuts?” he said, smirking, though carefully keeping the tone apologetic.
“Even quitting my job.”
“Whoa. There is no world in which I would put you in a position to quit. I stepped over the line. It will never happen again.” He softened his voice. “And if I ever cross the line again let me know.”
“If you don’t know when you’re crossing the line then we have an even bigger problem than where I work.” Sutton narrowed her eyes, letting him feel the weight of her warning.
Colter raised his hands, a half-grin saying he knew when he was outmatched. “Point taken. No more surprises, I promise.”
“Good, because Lynlee deserves better than someone promising her the moon.”
“And you?” he said, his voice low. “Don’t you deserve someone who at least tries?”
Sutton blinked, as if caught off guard by the question. Her expression registered somewhere between no-one-has-ever-asked-me-that-before and I-don’t-even-know-how-to-respond, and in that moment he promised himself he’d never be another person to let either of them down.
He meant it about her, but the words kept going somewhere he hadn't planned, because somewhere in the last hour—between the bedtime negotiation, the pony standoff and Lynlee's arms around Sutton's leg like she was the axis the whole world rotated on—something had lodged itself in his chest that he couldn't quite locate or dislodge.
He didn't know anything about raising a kid—a fact he knew without question.
He knew vaccines and bloodlines and how to talk a panicked owner back from the ledge at two in the morning.
He knew how to carry weight without letting it show.
What he did not know was how a person got small enough to sit on the floor and make a four-year-old feel like the most important thing in the room.
Except he had done exactly that tonight, without thinking about it at all.
“I know I don’t make the kind of money that the other families do at her school,” she explained. “But that’s where I’m at right now. This apartment won’t be a forever place, but right now it’s our place.”
Colter swallowed around the sudden tightness in his throat. There it was again—that quiet, unbreakable pride. She wasn’t apologizing for her life. She was just stating it, owning it, and somehow that made him want to tear the world apart and hand her an easier one.
He didn’t see a woman scraping by. He saw someone building something solid out of sheer will, brick by brick, for a little girl who trusted her with everything.
“How much am I paying you?” he asked, already knowing the answer wouldn’t sit right.
“Shouldn’t you know the answer to that?”
“Irma handles billing.”
"Of course she does," Sutton said. "The one part of this operation with adult supervision. And you’re paying me enough.”
He shook his head once. “It’s clearly not.”
“How much did you pay your other interns?”
“I’ve never had an intern.”
“Then why did you hire me?”
“It might have been the twenty times you followed up on your resume.” That got him a genuine smile. “I figured someone who had that much determination deserved a shot to prove themselves.”
“And how am I doing?”
The uncertainty in her voice caught him off guard.
It made his chest pinch with the sudden realization that he should have said something sooner—acknowledged her hard work, the way she’d stepped in without hesitation, the quiet competence she carried, and how she handled the animals and their humans.
He wanted to kick himself for missing the chance to give her the praise she clearly deserved.
“Good enough to get a raise.” Then, without giving her space to argue, he said, “You’re getting a raise.”
“I don’t want a raise out of pity. I want it because I’ve earned it.”
Colter held her gaze, giving himself a moment to recalibrate.
He knew that look. She was drawing a line in the sand.
This wasn’t about money—it was about dignity.
About not being another person swooping in like a knight to fix things she was fighting like hell to handle herself.
The last thing he wanted was to bruise her pride when all he was trying to do was make her life a little less heavy.
Help, not rescue.
Support, not charity.
Two things that were hard for him to swallow, because helping was how he lived. It’s what drove his career, guided his hands when he worked with animals, and shaped the rules he lived by. It even threaded through the rare, complicated ways he allowed himself to connect with people.
He wanted to give Sutton a hand without taking over—to lift her up without diminishing her. For once, that balance felt both unfamiliar and necessary.
“Fine,” he said slowly, a corner of his mouth lifting. “You want to earn it? Then help me run the Paws for the Cause fundraiser.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a day that highlights adoptable animals and raises funds for the local animal shelter. Last year we raised enough to neuter and spay five hundred dogs and cats.”
“That’s amazing. I’d love to help.”
“You might want to know what you’re signing up for before you commit. It would mean running the whole fundraiser. Logistics, vendors, volunteers. Imagine chaos on steroids. You make it successful; you get the raise. One you earn fair and square.”
He watched her process it, watched that defensive edge soften just enough.
“Deal.”