Chapter 16 #2
The days that followed slipped into something gentle—a rhythm I hadn’t known I’d been missing.
We worked side by side in easy silence, our movements syncing without thought. Him lifting, me steadying. Me holding a gate, him herding cattle through. The tension that had once crackled between us was still there, but softer now—not a storm, just a hum, steady and alive.
Mornings started with coffee on the porch, the air cool and gold with sunrise, the world quiet except for the lowing of cattle and the wind turning the windmill. Sometimes we talked—about nothing and everything. Sometimes we just sat, listening to the land wake up.
In the evenings, we rode. Not to work, not to check fences—just to ride. The hills rolled out before us in green and gold, the sky wide and endless. Some rides we talked. Others, we didn’t say a word. We didn’t need to. The sound of hooves and the creak of leather said enough.
Once, when the sun was dropping low and painting everything in firelight, he glanced over and smiled—that slow, unguarded grin I’d thought I’d never see again.
“Feels like old times,” he said.
“Better,” I answered, surprising both of us.
He nodded, eyes warm under the brim of his hat. “Yeah. Better.”
Louisa noticed, of course. She always did. She didn’t say anything, just smiled a little wider at dinner, the corners of her eyes soft with knowing.
It wasn’t forgiveness in words. It was forgiveness in motion—in shared chores and quiet rides, in the space where anger used to live, being filled with something steadier. Something that might, if we were brave enough, grow back into love.
On Thursday evening, Owen announced a cattle drive. "Got to move the herd from the winter pasture up to the high country for summer grazing. Two days, overnight camp. All hands needed."
My heart jumped. I hadn't been on a cattle drive since I was seventeen.
"You up for it, city girl?" Clay challenged, grinning.
Despite my apprehension, I smirked. ”Try to keep up, cowboy."
Friday morning came dark and early, 4 AM, with stars still bright in the sky. We saddled up in the pre-dawn darkness, headlamps creating circles of light, horses stamping and eager. The whole family was going, and for the first time since I got here, I began to feel like I truly belonged.
Wyatt led my horse over—the golden palomino I’d been riding since my first week back. Honey’s coat gleamed in the late light, that warm, burnished gold that made her look half-sunshine, half-memory.
“She’s good for distance,” Wyatt said, running a hand down her neck, his voice low and rough around the edges.
He crouched to check the cinch, his fingers sure and efficient, the brush of his knuckles against leather somehow making my pulse skip.
“Steady temperament. Won’t spook if things get western. ”
I raised a brow. “Define western.”
He glanced up at me from under the brim of his hat, one corner of his mouth curving into that lazy, dangerous smirk I’d almost forgotten—the one that had once been my undoing.
“Unpredictable,” he said. “Chaotic. Real.”
The words hung between us, slow and deliberate, his gaze holding mine just a beat too long.
Like us, I thought, but didn’t say.
Honey flicked her tail, impatient, and Wyatt stepped back, his expression settling into something softer—but that smirk lingered, faint as a secret.
The herd was three hundred head, Black Angus mostly, with some Herefords mixed in.
As the sun rose, painting the world in shades of pink and gold, we moved them out.
The sound was incredible—hundreds of hooves on dirt, the occasional bellow, the creak of leather, the calls of the cowboys keeping them in line.
I rode flank with Wyatt, keeping the stragglers from wandering. The work was hard, constant vigilance, dust in everything, but God, I'd missed it. The simplicity of it. The purpose. The way everything else fell away except the task at hand.
"Looking good out there, Dallas," Jimmy called, grinning under his weathered hat.
By noon, we were ten miles from the ranch, the landscape changing from flatland to hills, mesquite giving way to oak and cedar. We stopped at a creek to water the cattle, everyone dismounting to stretch legs and grab lunch from the chuck wagon Hunter had driven out.
"You're doing good," Wyatt said quietly, standing beside me as we watched the cattle drink. "Like you never left."
"Some things you don't forget."
"No," he agreed, and I knew we weren't talking about cattle drives.
As the sun set, we made camp in a valley between two hills, the cattle settling for the night. The chuck wagon became the center of our temporary world, coffee pot always going, beans and cornbread for dinner. We sat around the fire as darkness fell, passing a bottle of whiskey, telling stories.
“Remember that time Ivy roped that bull at sixteen?” Clay said, grinning into his beer, his voice carrying easily across the crackle of the fire. “Damn thing dragged her halfway across the pasture before she’d let go.”
The group erupted in laughter, a few of the hands shaking their heads.
“Stubborn,” Wyatt said, and though his tone was easy, there was warmth in it—a kind of fondness that made something flutter deep in my chest. His gaze found mine across the firelight, steady and familiar, like we were the only two people in the world. “Always was stubborn.”
“Determined,” I corrected, arching a brow.
That earned me a small, crooked smile—the one that tilted more to one side, the one that always looked a little like temptation.
“That too,” he said softly, voice low enough that the words were for me alone.
The air between us hummed. The firelight painted his face in gold and shadow, catching on the sharp line of his jaw, the curve of his mouth. He looked relaxed, but his eyes—those dark, knowing eyes—gave him away.
The temperature dropped fast once the sun slipped behind the hills, that high-country chill creeping in from the edges of the night.
The stars came out clear and close, like you could reach up and touch them.
Bedrolls were spread out around the fire, rough shapes in the flickering light, but there weren’t enough for everyone.
"Ivy can share with Maggie," Owen said, but Maggie was already curled up with her back to Clay for warmth.
"She can share with me," Wyatt said quietly. "We're friends, right? Friends can share."
My heart hammered as I nodded, trying to look casual. We went as far from the fire as possible without losing its warmth, and lay our bedrolls side by side, close but not touching. The stars above were brilliant, no light pollution for miles.
I shivered, pulling my jacket tighter.
"Cold?" Wyatt asked.
"A little."
He shifted closer, not quite touching but close enough that I could feel his warmth. "Better?"
“Yeah." Too much, actually.
We lay there, pretending to sleep while the fire died to embers. The camp quieted, snores rising from various bedrolls. A coyote howled in the distance, answered by another. I rolled onto my back with a sigh and tried to count the stars.
"Can't sleep?" he whispered.
"Too many stars," I whispered back. "Forgot how many there were out here."
"City lights wash them out?"
"City lights wash everything out."
He turned onto his side to face me, the fire burned down to embers behind him, throwing just enough light to turn his face into shadow and suggestion. Beyond us, the land stretched out in silver and blue, endless and quiet.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said softly. His voice was low, roughened by smoke and wind and everything we’d survived. “Not just back in Copper Creek. Here. On this drive. Under these stars.”
Something in my chest fluttered. “Me too.”
He studied me for a moment, eyes tracing over my face like he was memorizing it all over again. “Even with everything? The mess, the complications, your father, the truth?”
I swallowed, the air cool against my skin. “Especially with all that. At least it’s real now. At least we’re not pretending.”
A small, quiet smile curved his lips. Then he reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from my face. His fingertips lingered at my temple, warm and rough, the touch feather-light but enough to make my breath catch.
“Ivygirl…”
The sound of it—soft, reverent—rolled through me like music I hadn’t heard in years. No one had called me that since before everything broke. Hearing it now felt like coming home and losing my balance all at once.
“We’re supposed to be friends,” I reminded him, but my voice came out unsteady, breathy, like even the word friends knew it was a lie.
“Friends,” he agreed, though his thumb was tracing slow, careful circles along my cheekbone, and I was leaning toward him, helpless against gravity.
My knee brushed his under the blankets, and for a split second, he went perfectly still. He tried to hide it, but I felt the tension ripple through his body—tight, hot, unmistakably male.
A small, wicked thought flickered through me. I scooted closer, even though I knew I shouldn’t. “You’re warm,” I whispered. It wasn’t a lie. I was cold, but that wasn’t why I was inching closer with every breath.
His breath hitched. I didn’t have to look down to know exactly why. “Is this okay?”
“Yeah, just keeping a friend from freezing,” he murmured, but his voice had gone low, thick, and I could feel the heat of him throbbing through the inches of air between us.
“Right,” I whispered. But the space between us was disappearing, the air charged and soft and aching.
“Absolutely,” he said—right before his hand slid into my hair, his palm finding the back of my neck like it had every right to be there.
And then he kissed me.
Not desperate this time. Not furious or broken. Just slow and sweet and inevitable. The kind of kiss that spoke of memory and forgiveness, of all the words we’d never gotten right. The fire’s last light flickered across his face, and the night wrapped around us like a secret.