Chapter 4 #2
“Right. Before you start wheezing and blaming it on ‘the altitude.’”
He lets out a laugh and holds up both hands. “Fine. You win. You’re a damn tank. Happy?”
“Now that’s a compliment I’ll accept.”
He rolls his eyes, still smiling. “Alright, I’ve got shit to do. Pipes to check before they decide to burst on me.”
“Try not to pull anything.”
He waves me off and heads toward the barn, muttering something under his breath that I’m pretty sure includes the words cocky little shit.
I glance back at the pen just as the Wilding girl finishes up with the horse.
She’s crouched beside one of the gates, notebook balanced on her knee, explaining something to Dottie—the only trainer here with half a brain, apparently. Whatever she’s showing Dottie clearly makes sense because the woman nods like she’s just been handed a blueprint for salvation.
She’s chewing on the end of a pencil, eyes narrowed in concentration. Her brow pinches just slightly, focused, but not tense. She’s sketching something on the page—fast, fluid strokes like she’s chasing the thought before it slips away. Left-handed.
I notice that, for some reason. The way her hand moves, how it curls around the page, smudging the side of her palm without her seeming to care.
I’m not sure why I’m paying attention to any of it. But I am.
She glances up—just for a second—and catches me looking.
Shit.
I probably look like some guy with nothing better to do than stand here, staring at the new girl.
She doesn’t say anything. Just blinks once, then looks back down, like I was never in her line of sight to begin with.
I watch her pass the notebook off to Dottie, then push her hair out of her face, the gesture automatic. She doesn’t linger, doesn’t wait for feedback. Just turns and walks away like she hasn’t completely rerouted my attention without meaning to.
She cuts across the pen to grab her bag, and I know I should let her go.
But I don’t.
“Hey!”
She turns fast. Not startled—just alert.
Her hair fans out a little with the movement, the sun catching enough of it through the windows of the pen to turn the strands copper at the edges.
For half a beat, something flickers across her face—something unsure—but it’s gone just as fast, replaced by a steady kind of calm that reads like instinct. Measured. Controlled.
Her eyes are blue.
Not soft blue, not sky or ocean or anything easy. They’re sharp. Pale in the center, deeper at the rim. Blue like cracked ice or rain hitting pavement. The kind of blue you only ever see once and then remember for the rest of your life.
“Thanks,” I say, clearing my throat. “For what you did in there. Took guts.”
She doesn’t smile. Doesn’t deflect. Just gives a simple nod. “Just doing what needed to be done.”
I step forward and hold out my hand. “Sawyer Hart.”
She hesitates for a second—just long enough that I start to wonder if she’s going to ignore me entirely. But then she slowly reaches out and slides her hand into mine.
Her fingers are small, but her grip is solid.
“Wren Wilding.”
Wren. It suits her. Direct and a little sharp.
I glance toward the pen. “You always throw yourself into shit-storms like that?”
She cocks her head. “Only the ones where people are being complete assholes.”
I let out a breath that sounds close to a laugh. “So, all of them.”
There’s a twitch at the corner of her mouth, like she’s trying not to smile. Like she doesn’t want to give me that win.
She shifts her bag over her shoulder. “Tell your guys that if I see a whip again, I won’t be as polite next time.”
“You were being polite this time?”
Again, that gets a ghost of a smile. Barely there, but it’s something.
I smile back. “How’s your family holding up with all this water mess?”
Her mouth flattens. “Barely. We’re waiting to hear back on an exemption, but it’s not looking great. If the county doesn’t approve it…” She trails off, then shakes her head. “It’s going to be a disaster.”
I nod once. “Yeah.”
“At least your family’s good for a while, though, right? Shared household and all that.”
“For now,” I say. “But it won’t take long before it hits the rest of us. Especially my clinic.”
That gets her attention. “Clinic?”
“Vet clinic. In Bozeman.”
Her eyebrows rise, just a little. “You’re a doctor?”
“Technically.”
She tilts her head. “Technically?”
“I’ve seen more testicles than most human doctors, but yeah, more or less.”
She laughs at that—bubbly and a little breathless, like it caught her off guard. It’s the sort of sound that feels like sunshine in a cold room. And I don’t realize how much I want to hear it again until it’s gone.
She shakes her head like she’s trying not to smile again. “Do you always lead with castration talk, or is that just a vet thing?”
“Depends,” I say. “Do you always start your day by telling grown men how idiotic they are? Or is that just a Wren thing?”
That earns me her full smile. And Jesus—it’s a nice one.
Not practiced. Not polite. Just real, like it snuck out of her before she could stop it. All sharp cheekbones and soft edges, like she only lets herself be unguarded when she forgets to be careful.
And then instinct kicks in. That familiar pullback. That internal warning that reminds me why I don’t go there anymore. Why I stopped letting people get close.
There’s something about grief that doesn’t let you move forward. You don’t stand still, exactly—but you don’t arrive anywhere new, either. You just orbit the life you had. I’ve built walls around that orbit. Work. The gym. Distance. Predictability. It’s how I survive.
Because once you know what it’s like to lose everything, you stop letting yourself want anything.
So I keep my walls up. I keep my life clean and distant. I don’t make room for soft smiles and bright laughs and women with eyes like hers.
But I look at her, really look, and something flickers in my chest—brief and inconvenient. It’s not attraction, not exactly. It’s recognition. She’s got that same quiet caution I recognize in myself. It doesn’t come from shyness, but from surviving too many things you didn’t ask for.
She stands like someone who’s had to carry her own weight for a long time. Like someone who’s learned the difference between being alone and being left.
And I get that. God, I get that. It makes it hard to look away. Maybe because I know what it’s like to live behind walls you don’t remember building in the first place.
Maybe because I think she does, too.
She starts to turn towards the pen doors, like that’s it—conversation over, moment passed. But then, just before she walks off, she glances back over her shoulder.
“Thanks for not being an asshole, Sawyer. Makes my job a little easier.”
I smirk, and before I can open my mouth to respond, she’s gone.
And I stand there for a second longer than I should, wondering what the hell just happened.
And why I kind of hope it happens again.