Chapter 42
Boone had known loss before, but nothing had prepared him for the way his chest felt now, shattered and gutted. It was like he'd managed to lose the only things that mattered in a single damn day.
Boone swung his legs over the side of the bed, the wooden floor cold against his bare feet.
Each step toward the bathroom felt heavier than the last, like he was wading through concrete.
His rubbed his face, trying to wake up the part of him that wasn't already hollowed out from a night spent staring at the ceiling.
The sun hadn't fully risen, and the morning was silent except for the faint creak of the floorboards under his weight. He didn't know where to start—or if starting even mattered—but he knew he had to keep moving, because standing still only made the emptiness stretch wider.
He shuffled across the guest room above the barn, careful not to wake the horses or the early stirrings of the ranch. Down the steps, across the dirt yard. The cold morning air cut straight through the thin shirt on his back like it had an opinion about him.
He passed the bunkhouse, his chest tightening into a hard, airless knot, and with every step toward the main house he felt like he was dragging something behind him.
Boone opened the back door with sleep still clinging to him, expecting quiet. Maybe bacon if he was lucky. Instead, he walked into the kitchen and froze.
Rea and Colter sat at the table in the half-light of dawn, steam curling from their mugs like they'd been up for hours—waiting.
Neither spoke. Neither blinked. They just looked at him with the patience of people who had already decided how this was going to go down.
It felt like walking into a sentencing.
"Oh, hell no," Boone muttered, reaching for the coffeepot. "Whatever this is, I'm not awake enough for it."
Colter kicked out an empty chair, and it skidded across the floor. "Sit."
Boone poured coffee instead. "Pass."
"Vivi's gone."
"She's probably helping set up for the fair."
"No, dear." Rea's voice was soft. "Not out-for-the-morning gone. Gone-gone. She packed a bag and left for Jo’s last night."
Boone's jaw tightened as he stared into his cup. "People leave."
"That's what happens when you're a dick," said a flat, cutting voice from the laptop screen on the counter.
Boone looked up and saw Eli sitting in full fatigues, from what appeared to be the opposite side of the hemisphere. His expression was absolutely neutral and entirely judgmental.
"What the hell?" Boone said.
"Nan would kill me if I missed a family meeting," Eli said, like that explained anything. "Joining you live from an undisclosed location. Now, about Kayla." He paused. "I mean Vivi."
"Fuck you," Boone said. His took a sip of coffee, then set it down. It tasted like ash.
The final moments with Kayla flickered across his thoughts—her suitcase by the door, her little shrug like he'd never been worth unpacking for in the first place. The familiar sting twisted into something uglier.
Boone pressed his knuckles to the counter. "We are not talking about Kayla. Not this morning."
"Then stop acting like Vivi is Kayla," Colter said. "They're not even in the same species."
"She went behind my back." The anger rose fast. "She sent Virgil that letter without a word to me. I was blindsided. I didn't have time to think, didn't have time to prepare. I just had to stand there and take it."
"Wow,” Eli said with zero emotion in his tone.
"What the fuck does that mean?" Boone snapped.
"Vivi tried to help you," Eli said, his face coming closer to the screen. "Like actually help. And it didn't wind up the way she hoped. What a monster. Lock her up."
"Don't do that sarcastic bullshit."
"Then stop giving us material." Colter leaned back in his chair, folding his arms behind his head. "You're angry that someone cared enough to try? Well, get over it because that's what we're doing here."
"She went rogue." Boone's voice came out rougher than he’d like. "I told her I had a plan. I told her I'd handle it. I told her to stay out of it, and she did the exact opposite and then let me stand there unprepared when Virgil essentially killed our ranch."
His hands clenched at his sides while his chest rose and fell in uneven bursts. He looked between Rea and his brothers, searching for something—an argument, a lifeline, anything that would hold up under their steady, unflinching stares.
Nothing did. Because beneath it all, in some corner of his mind that he didn't want to look, he already knew.
"You were flailing," Colter said quietly. "And you didn't want anyone to see it. Especially her."
"Boone." Rea met his eyes and held them. "She wasn't trying to undermine you. She was trying to save something for you because you matter to her. That's not betrayal. That's the opposite of betrayal."
"Doesn't matter." His throat tightened. "She left."
"Yeah, no shit." Eli's voice came through the screen. "Because you pushed her. Because you always push. Because if you do it first, you think it will hurt less when they go."
Colter’s voice was low and meaningful. "Vivi is nothing like Kayla. She didn't leave to get away from you. She left because you made her feel like staying wasn't something you wanted."
"That's not—"
"It is." Rea said gently. "And for some reason that is frankly beyond me because that woman loves you."
The clock ticked into the silence, but Boone didn’t move. Hell, he wasn’t sure he could. Not when the woman he loved had told him she couldn’t be what he needed.
"If she loved me she wouldn't have—" He stopped then started again. "Love doesn’t work that way."
"Are you fucking kidding me," Colter said. "That's exactly how love works. That’s why she rebuilt this ranch with her bare hands and her own stubborn heart." He lifted a brow. "She looks at you like you hung the damn stars, Boone."
"It's embarrassingly obvious," Eli added. "Even from here."
Something hot and terrified lodged itself under Boone's ribs.
Love.
That one word felt like stepping too close to a ledge he wasn't sure he could come back from.
"Darling." Rea reached into her apron pocket and held up an envelope. His name on the front. "I found this on the table when I got up. I didn't open it."
He looked at it like it had fangs.
He wanted to know what it said but he was terrified all the same because once he opened it, it was real. She was gone—not just from the room, but from the version of his life he'd only just started letting himself believe in.
He took the envelope anyway, then exhaled slowly and slid the letter out.
A soft hit of lavender reached him before the words did, and something in his chest cracked clean open before he'd read a single line.
Boone~
I never meant to hurt you. All I wanted was to make things easier, but instead I cost you the one thing you've been fighting for.
Once, I would've done anything just to keep the peace. I would've become whoever you needed, even if it meant shrinking the parts of me that felt too big or too much. But I'm not that woman anymore.
I've learned that happiness built on compromise isn't happiness at all—it's survival. And I want more than that. So no, I'm not willing to trade my joy, my dreams, or the person I'm still becoming. Not even for someone I care about, even if that means I lose people along the way.
The bunkhouse is ready for the furniture delivery on Monday. I hope when you walk inside you'll see how much you mean to this town. And to me.
Loving you has been the bravest and hardest thing I've done in my life, and walking away will be the cost of it. But I can't keep my own dreams alive without destroying yours. So, if that means giving you up, then that's what I'll do.
Love, Boots
His family had been right. She loved him. After everything he’d said and done, she still loved him.
Boone sank into the kitchen chair like he’d been shoved there by a force far stronger than gravity.
The letter—her letter—lay in front of him like a reminder of everything he could no longer have.
He wanted to burn it or shred it or maybe swallow it whole—anything to make the ache behind his ribs stop, but he couldn’t.
He couldn’t stop smelling her on the paper, couldn’t stop thinking about her and the fiery spark behind those eyes.
“Fuck,” he muttered, voice trembling with all the raw fury he couldn’t put anywhere else. “I chased her away.”
He’d read the damn letter enough times to know every word by heart. Happiness built on compromise isn’t happiness at all. She hadn’t left because she didn’t love him. She’d left because somewhere along the way, he’d made her think loving him meant giving up pieces of herself.
Boone’s jaw clenched, teeth grinding. He shoved the chair back and stalked across the kitchen, boots scuffing the floor, hands balling into fists. He couldn’t leave things like this.
He’d never stop thinking about her, or her smart mouth and her stubborn streak.
The way she could piss him off before breakfast and have him fighting a smile five minutes later.
Somewhere along the way, the woman had gone from driving him fucking crazy to being the first person he looked for when he walked into a room.
“Fuck,” he growled again, running a hand over his face, which did nothing to tamper the sharp edge of panic slicing through his chest.
She’s gone. And I’m a fool who let her walk away.
His mind looped, obsessing over every interaction, every choice, every damn second he’d wasted not saying the words he should have shouted from the rooftops.
He didn’t care about the water rights, about the lawyer fees, about anything but finding her and her, making her understand that no letter, no mistake, no grudge could keep him away.
"She loves me," he said, barely above a whisper.
"Yeah, idiot." Eli’s voice was rough around the edges. "She does. And you love her right back. You've just been too much of a coward to say it out loud."
Boone didn't argue because he couldn't. He thought about what he'd said to her. “Maybe you need to decide if you can learn to.”
His stomach turned. “I have to find her.”
Colter pointed at the door. "Do it before she finds someone less stupid.”
Boone stood there, heart pounding, staring at the letter in his hand. Well, hell. He’d spent weeks telling himself he was protecting what was his, when the whole damn time he’d been the one driving her away.
He loved her, and if he didn't move right now, if he didn't go fix the thing he'd broken, he was going to lose her. And that wasn’t an option.
Vivi felt like she'd risen from the dead, her body rebelling against what had been a long, painful night on Jo's couch.
She'd managed a change of clothes and concealer over the worst of the shadows under her eyes, but the grief that had stared back at her in the bathroom mirror—there was nothing she could do about that.
So she grabbed her things and stepped out onto Main Street, which was already buzzing with excitement. Booths were being assembled, banners were strung between lampposts, and the smell of fresh pastries drifted through the air like the world hadn't just come apart the night before.
For a second she wanted nothing more than to hide behind a stall and cry into a sunflower. But there was no time—not with the festival needing attention.
Jo had come immediately when she'd called.
Hadn't asked what happened, hadn't asked what she needed.
Just picked her up, brought her home, and let her cry it out on the couch without making her explain a single word of it.
Jo's version of comfort was awkward shoulder pats, a steady supply of beer, and a rotating loop of fuck that guy and he's a bastard.
Every person she passed on Main Street gave her a worried smile, as if they could sense the grief rolling off her. She forced herself to grin and say “Morning,” while pushing down the tight coil of sorrow as she rounded the corner toward the main square.
Jo walked beside her like a personal bodyguard—shoulders back, eyes scanning, daring the morning to try something.
"Just keep walking," Jo said. "One foot in front of the other. Chin up, shoulders back. The stronger you pretend to be, the easier the day gets."
"Speaking from experience?" Vivi asked, watching her sideways.
Jo's shoulders stiffened—just briefly, just enough to notice. Then she met Vivi's eyes and didn't look away.
"Yeah," she said quietly. "I walked away from Eli once. I thought I had to. Thought it was the only way to protect him. To protect myself." A small, rueful pull at the corner of her mouth. "I kept waiting for the ache to go away."
"Did it?" Vivi asked quietly.
"No, but you learn to carry it differently. It becomes part of you, like a scar under your skin. Most days you don't even feel it. But it shapes you and can make you stronger, if you let it."
The festival noise seemed to soften just enough for Jo's words to settle between them.
"So you just live with it?" she asked. Because that sounded unbearable. She couldn't imagine another hour of feeling this way, let alone a lifetime of it.
"Yeah. And you fight for the people who matter." Jo glanced at her. "Even if it means risking the ache again. Because the risk is worth it. It's always worth it."
"Any advice for getting through today?"
"Keep your head high." Jo tapped her lightly on the chest. "Don't let him take up permanent residence in there. If a man's willing to let you walk out the door over a mistake—any mistake—you have to ask yourself what that tells you about him."
Vivi let out a shaky breath, the words hitting her like a gust of wind she wasn’t ready for.
"I messed up," she admitted, barely audible. "I shouldn't have gone behind his back. Even if I thought I was helping, I didn't trust him enough to handle his own fight."
Jo's eyes softened briefly. "That's not weakness, Viv. That's care, and care is never the wrong instinct. He should be grateful someone loved him enough to try." She paused. "The mistake wasn't caring. The mistake was the method. There's a difference."
"I know I overstepped. I know that. But I can't be someone who does nothing when the people she loves are struggling. That's not who I am."
"Then own the mistake," Jo said. "And don't let it break you. Those are two different things."
"I'm not leaving," Vivi said, and the steadiness in her own voice surprised her. "I decided Bridlewood is where I want to be and I'm not letting a man take that from me. Not even this one."
Jo's face broke into something that on anyone else might have been called a grin. She smacked Vivi on the back with enough force to knock her back a few inches. "That's my girl." She nodded toward the bustling square. "Now get out there. Show him, and yourself, that you're not someone who folds."
Vivi took a breath that actually reached the bottom of her lungs.
Fine. She’d come this far. Time to go make one stubborn cowboy eat his words.