Chapter 19
It was official—Colter was a Grade-A jackass.
He woke to the unfamiliar weight of warmth and the very familiar ache of sleeping on a couch that had been designed by someone who hated spines.
For half a second, he thought he was still dreaming. The clinic was still caught in that sweet spot between night and the storm, before the phones rang, the doors opened, and the universe started handing out problems like party favors.
Then he looked down and the sleep was knocked right out of him because Sutton was curled against him, fast asleep, her body turned sideways so her head rested on his lap like it was a pillow.
One arm was tucked beneath her cheek, the other draped loosely across his thigh, fingers slack with trust. Her hair had slipped free from its tie sometime in the night and spilled across his leg, silky and warm through the thin fabric of his scrub pants.
He couldn’t remember when that had happened.
He remembered the long night in fragments: vitals steadying, alarms silenced, the two of them trading off watch in low voices, sharing stale coffee.
He also remembered catching her stealing glances when she thought he wasn’t looking, which worked for him since he was stealing some right back.
At some point he must have dozed off and at some point, she must have decided he was solid enough to lean on. And that was all kinds of interesting because it meant, on some level, Sutton trusted him. He still had a long way to go, but the door had been cracked open.
Carefully, he shifted his hand enough to rest it near her shoulder without waking her. Her breathing stayed even, lashes dark against her cheeks, and mouth was parted just slightly like she was mid-thought in a dream.
His chest tightened with something that wasn’t desire or lust. It was deeper than that. It was the kind of feeling that made him go very still, afraid that moving might shatter it.
From recovery, a monitor beeped softly, reassuring him that Patches was still stable.
Colter exhaled, quiet as he could, and let himself have one more minute—just one—of this strange, fragile morning where everything was okay, and the woman sleeping on his lap felt less like an accident and more like a promise he wasn’t ready to name.
Only her eyelashes fluttered open. One minute, she was warm weight and soft breath and the quietest trust he’d ever been handed. The next, Sutton jolted upright with an edged inhale, disoriented eyes darting around the office before landing on him.
“Oh my God—” She scrambled, tried to sit up too fast, and nearly launched herself off the couch.
Colter caught her elbow on instinct, breaking her fall.
“Easy,” he said, like his pulse wasn’t actively trying to beat its way out of his chest.
She yanked her hand back as if she’d been burned. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I would never—” Her face went pink, then pinker. “I must’ve fallen asleep. I didn’t mean to—was I—?”
“On my lap.” He shrugged like it hadn’t rewired his nervous system. “Yeah.”
Mortification crossed her face in real time. “I can’t believe I did that. That’s so unprofessional. I’m so embarrassed.”
He waved it off, forcing casual into his voice even though his body had cataloged every inch of her curled against him.
“Nothing to apologize for. And to be honest, I don’t even know how it happened,” he admitted. “One minute I was checking Patches’ vitals, the next I woke up and you were…there.” He tipped his chin toward his lap. “Figured it was my problem, not yours.”
That made her wince harder. “Colter.”
“What?” He softened, just a little. “It was actually kind of nice.”
“Nice?” she said cautiously.
“Yeah,” he said, quieter. “To know you trusted me enough to fall asleep like that.”
Something heated and charged settled between them, thick enough that he could almost hear it beat in tandem with his heart.
She cleared her throat, sitting straighter, smoothing her hair like it would help—it didn’t. “I swear I don’t make a habit of using people as furniture.”
“Funny, from where I’m sitting, it seems like you can’t stay away from me.”
Her eyes narrowed, but there was laughter there. “You’re the one who didn’t move.”
“Didn’t want to risk it,” he said easily. “You looked comfortable.”
“Sleep drunk is more like it.”
“Yet,” he added, eyes dropping briefly to where her head had been. “You chose my lap.”
Color climbed her cheeks again. “This never happened.”
“Sure, it did,” he said. “I just won’t tell anyone.”
She stood, pointing a warning finger at him. “You say one word—”
“What word would that be?”
She paused, studying him, then shook her head with a reluctant smile. “You don’t quit, do you?”
“Not when I’m ahead.”
“I didn’t realize we were engaged in a game.”
“Freckles, this is more than a game, and you know it.”
He watched her walk toward the door, heart doing something reckless and stupid in his chest, and thought—without humor this time—that this was how it started. Small moments. Soft ones. The kind that snuck up on you while you were asleep and rewrote the rules before you even knew you were committed.
Sutton had always known she was capable of professional self-sabotage, but falling asleep on her boss’s lap felt like an ambitious new low.
One minute she was curled up against him like aluminum wrap on a chocolate bar, drooling on his lap a mere inch from his—well, let’s call it “equipment,” and definitely in a place she should never be. The next she was following him to the ranch to collect Lynlee for school.
Sutton eased her POS Honda down the gravel road toward the Callahan ranch, the tires crunching against the loose stones like tiny percussion in the quiet morning. The September sun was just tipping over the horizon, spilling gold across the valley, painting the fields in shades of amber and rose.
Fall was flexing.
Sutton stole a glance at the ranch—the sprawling farmhouse, the barn in the distance, the fences lined with cows—and felt a pang she couldn’t name.
What would it be like to live somewhere with roots, with history threaded into every beam and every stone?
Somewhere with love that wasn’t transactional or conditional?
She thought about the foster homes she’d lived in. Rooms that smelled of bleach and strangers, walls that had held her only temporarily, never staying long enough for her to feel safe or settled.
After aging out, she’d couch-surfed until she’d graduated high school, then floated from one apartment to the next, stacking boxes and memories that never quite stuck. Each place was a stopgap, a pause, a reminder that home was something she’d never been allowed to keep.
Then she thought of Lynlee, and how incredible it would be for her daughter to grow up somewhere like Bridlewood—to wake to the same sun spilling over the fields every morning, to know that the walls around her held history, love, and a family that didn’t rotate like Sutton’s had.
And this ranch could be a soft place to land that would always be there—a family who would welcome her with open arms—a family who would treasure her.
She threw her car into Park and took in a fortifying breath, preparing herself for what she’d find inside.
A happy child or one that felt disoriented from waking up in a strange place.
After all, this was the first step in, what could be, Lynlee’s future of Saturday sleepovers and Sunday night dinners.
Before she could even catch her breath, the car door swung open and the crisp morning air smacked her square in the face, pulling her out of her spiral of what-ifs.
“Careful,” Colter called, resting his forearm on top of the door like he owned the sunrise. “If you don’t get out soon, your carriage is going to turn into a pumpkin.”
Sutton snorted. “I didn’t know coachmen drove trucks.”
“I guess today’s your day to learn something new.” He grinned in that way that made her stomach do a thing she tried not to notice.
She stepped out and into his space—easy to do since his energy could fill a room—and for a second neither of them moved. Everything about this place—about him—made her chest feel too full for words.
“Thanks for last night,” he said. “If you hadn’t stayed, I’d have lost Patches for sure.”
He was so tall, Sutton had to tip her head so far back she could see the sun. She considered him then, wondering how much of the guy in front of her she was allowed to trust.
“Why did you ask me to stay with you instead of Dr. Porter?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Why did you say yes?”
Careful not to overthink it, she settled on, “Because you needed me.”
The truth of it pressed down on her sternum heavier than she liked.
She had stayed because he needed her and she did not miss the jagged edge of recognition that followed.
She was careful with her daughter, bordering on overprotective even, yet here she was bending her own rules for a man’s needs without stopping to consider the ramifications.
Sutton told herself it was situational, harmless. Still, the quiet question lingered: when had keeping her priorities straight started to feel negotiable?
“But you had to leave Lynlee with my family. I know how hard that must have been,” he said.
“It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I trust you so therefore I trust your family.”
Again with the blind trust. What was happening to her?
“Smartest choice you’ve made all week,” he said, giving her a look that made her toes curl.
“Or the dumbest,” she teased, heading to the front door. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
He chuckled, and the heaviness she'd seen riding him all night eased, just enough for her to catch a glimpse of the easy-going man underneath.
Colter opened the door with a small flourish. “Ladies first.”
Sutton stepped inside, following him into the ranch house and through the family room.