Chapter 5 #3
Ridge has a reputation, and the truth is—he’s earned most of it.
He’s been turning on the charm since grade school, all easy smiles and well-timed compliments.
The rodeo circuit only gave him a stage.
Somewhere along the way, people started calling him the Rodeo Romeo —first as a joke, then not so much.
His face is on posters in every arena from here to California.
He’s been interviewed for news segments, featured in magazine spreads and—unfortunately—he really was Mr. July in a cowboy calendar. That one sold out twice.
Still. Watching him now, quiet for once, eyes still lingering on that door, I wonder if Miller’s the one girl he might actually give a damn about.
I almost feel bad for him, so I throw him a lifeline—a way out of this conversation—because that’s what big sisters do.
I clear my throat and lean a little toward Boone, keeping my voice casual, like I’m not about to drop something heavy into the middle of dinner. “So they were right about that horse at the Hart’s place today. He’s…a lot.”
Boone glances up from his plate. “What kind of a lot?”
I glance toward Ridge for half a second. He gives me a small nod, subtle. A thank-you he doesn’t quite want anyone else to see.
“The kind of a lot that makes you think he’s been through some serious shit,” I say. “Skittish. Paranoid. He doesn’t trust a soul.”
Lark’s eyes go soft, concerned. “Oh no. Is he okay?”
I hesitate, pressing my lips together. “He will be, I think. But the trainers they had working with him were…” I shake my head. “One of them brought out a whip.”
Boone’s chair scrapes against the floor as he sits up straighter. “What the actual—?”
“Vaughn didn’t know,” I add quickly, holding up a hand. “As soon as he saw it, he fired them. On the spot.”
Boone exhales and leans back in his chair again, like that made him feel a little better but not much. “Still. What asshole thinks that’s the move with a horse like that?”
“Assholes who shouldn’t be allowed within fifty feet of an animal,” I say, stabbing a piece of cucumber with more force than necessary.
Lark’s still watching me, eyebrows drawn together. “And you’re okay? That sounds awful.”
I nod. “I’ve seen worse.”
And it’s the truth. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t stick with me.
“So that’s how you spent your day?” Boone asks, one brow raised.
I take a bite of salad. “Just your typical afternoon of emotional triage and horse whispering.”
Across from me, Ridge smirks. “Sounds like a party.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, well, you missed the part where I almost got trampled. Real shame.”
He picks up his fork, points it at my plate. “What is this? Your sad little mac and cheese?”
“It’s—” I start, but he’s already scooping a bite. “Okay, maybe don’t—”
Too late.
He pops it into his mouth like he’s expecting butter and sharp cheddar and childhood memories. The chew is slow. His jaw muscles visibly pause. A full-body halt. Then a blink. Another blink.
And then a grimace like he just licked the underside of a cow.
“ Fucking dammit ,” he says, reaching for his napkin and spitting into it with the dramatic flair of someone who’s been personally wronged. “What the hell was that?”
Across the table, Boone loses it. Lark is hiding her face in her hands, shoulders shaking with laughter. Even Hudson makes a strangled sound that might be a laugh, might be a wheeze.
I calmly take a bite, only to find he’s not exaggerating. It tastes like shit, just as I suspected. “That, dear brother, was cashew cheese.”
Ridge stares at me, wounded. “Why would you ever do that to pasta?”
“It’s dairy-free,” I say sweetly. “Very on trend. Very gut-friendly.”
“You should warn people about that shit,” he mutters, wiping his tongue on his napkin.
“Where’s the fun in that? Misery loves company.”
He shakes his head and points at me with his fork. “You’re dangerous.”
“ You stole food off my plate. You played yourself.”
Boone raises his glass in my direction. “She’s got a point.”
Ridge glares at all of us as he pushes my plate a few inches farther away from him like it might try to jump back into his mouth.
“I need a palate cleanser. Someone pass the rolls.”
“You’re welcome to them,” I say. “But they’re gluten-free.”
Ridge sighs. “Of course they are.”
Lark pushes back from the table and claps her hands once. “Alright. It’s officially bedtime.”
Hudson groans. “But Ridge just got here.”
Ridge reaches over and ruffles his hair, earning a scowl for it. “I’m home ‘til the new year, bud. We’ll have plenty of time to annoy each other.”
Boone lifts his water glass. “See? A whole month and a half of non-stop bickering. A Christmas miracle.”
Lark rolls her eyes and starts gathering plates, nudging Boone’s knee with hers. “Can you grab the diaper bag? I’m gonna go rescue the twins from Miller before she convinces them to them to cuss.”
“Too late,” I say playfully just as Lark leans down and pulls me into a hug. She smells like lavender and baby lotion. Lark’s always been the kind of soft that doesn’t demand anything from you. The kind you don’t mind leaning into.
Mom walks in from the living room, Jack limp against her shoulder, his dark curly hair damp with sleep. She kisses his temple before carefully handing him over to Lark. He stirs, frowns like he’s about to protest the betrayal, then tucks his head back under Lark’s chin.
“I’m gonna go check on the horses,” I tell Mom, pushing back from the table.
She nods. “Alright, sweetheart. Layer up. It’s really coming down out there.”
I open the hall closet and grab an extra jacket, tugging it over my sweatshirt, then find the thickest gloves we’ve got in the bin below. They smell faintly of pine and old saddle leather, as if they’ve soaked up decades of Montana winters and still hold the memories.
“Loretta,” I say, catching her just as she’s covering the leftover mac and cheese with foil, “dinner was amazing. Thank you.”
She grins at me, cheeks flushed. “I’ll try a different vegan cheese next time.”
I smile, even though we both know there’s no such thing as good vegan cheese. “Looking forward to it.”
The wind screams through the trees, dragging snow in sideways sheets that sting against my cheeks.
It’s one of those blizzards that makes your bones ache before your skin even has a chance to go numb.
I keep my head down and push through it, one boot in front of the other, barely able to see more than a few feet ahead.
The house disappears behind me like it’s never existed at all, swallowed up by white.
The barn’s about sixty yards away, but in this weather, it might as well be miles. My fingers are already tingling by the time I reach the side door, the cold metal handle biting through my gloves. I push it open, duck inside, and close it behind me with my hip, hard enough to rattle the hinges.
Inside, it’s quiet. Cold, but still. It settles in your chest and makes it easier to breathe.
I didn’t come out here to check on the horses. Not really. I came out here because I needed somewhere that didn’t feel like it was closing in on me.
The house is too warm, too full, sometimes. Too many conversations I’m not part of. Too many silences I don’t always know how to fill. It’s easier to come out here and talk to the horses. They don’t ask what’s wrong. They don’t try to fix me. They just stand there, breathing steady in the dark.
I flip on the dim barn lights and walk down the aisle, passing Elvis, who must’ve snuck out here at some point from the main house. He’s curled up in a pile of straw.
“You’re lazy, you know that?” I mutter. He lifts his head and blinks at me like he’s heard that before, which he has. Often.
And then I see Ringo.
He’s standing in his stall. Big, broad-shouldered, with a dark chestnut coat that still somehow catches the light in this half-frozen barn. His mane’s a little unruly and his eyes are warm in a way that makes something sharp in me go soft.
I got him when I was fifteen. Right after I started competing in reined cow horse events on the youth circuit. He was green and unpredictable and way too much horse for me. But I figured him out. Or maybe he figured me out. We made sense in a way that nothing else did back then.
He’s been my best friend ever since.
Which is, objectively, pathetic. I know that. Most people have actual friends. Group chats. Text threads that aren’t just appointment reminders from their dentist.
But I’ve never been good at making friends.
Not because I don’t want to—I do. I just don’t come off the right way.
I’m too quiet until I’m too blunt. I don’t know how to smooth things over with small talk or play nice when I don’t feel it.
I skip the part where people ease into knowing each other, and by the time I’ve said something too honest, it’s already over.
People like people who make them feel comfortable.
Who knows what to say and says it with a smile.
I’ve never been good at that. I’m the one who notices too much, who remembers things you didn’t mean to share.
I’m reliable, sure. The one you call when you need a favor or a ride or someone to hold the hard stuff.
But that’s not the same as being wanted.
It’s not the same as being easy to love.
Ringo doesn’t mind that I’m quiet or weird or not exactly the life of the party. He just leans his head over the stall door and exhales a warm breath against my cheek, like he’s checking to make sure I haven’t turned to ice.
“Hey, you,” I murmur, brushing my fingers along the bridge of his nose. His coat’s warm beneath my hand, solid and steady in a way I haven’t felt all day. He radiates heat and I rest my forehead against his, close enough to feel his breath.
I pat his neck once before stepping away, making my way down the row of stalls. Each horse lifts their head when I pass. I murmur soft hellos and brush my gloved hand over their noses like I always do. Gentle. Familiar. I don’t rush it. It feels rude to rush.
At the end of the barn, I duck into the old tack room.
It smells like leather and old wood and crisp winter pine.
The light inside is dim. In the far corner, behind an unused saddle rack and a stack of empty grain buckets, is my stash—a few stretched canvases, a crate of paint tubes, and a few worn paint brushes.
I drag it all out and carry it back to Ringo’s stall, where he’s already waiting with his head hanging low over the door.
The straw is cold, but I sink down into it anyway, legs folding beneath me. I set the canvas up on an overturned bucket, angle it toward the light, and pull off my gloves.
The cold hits fast. My fingers burn, then go numb at the tips.
I rub my hands together hard, trying to coax some feeling back.
The paint tubes are stiff in my hands, like they’re resenting me for bringing them out in this weather.
The pigments separate faster in the cold, and I’ve learned which colors hold up best. Titanium white always betrays me first. Cerulean blue holds out the longest.
I’ve been doing this almost every day for years.
Ever since I was sixteen and needed a reason to come out here that wasn’t about feeding or mucking or helping Dad wrap an abscess.
Back then, I used whatever scraps of cardboard I could find in the burn pile and pilfered paint from the school art closet.
Now I keep better supplies tucked away in the tack room, but the rest of it’s the same.
And I don’t mind the cold. Not if I get to paint.
Painting isn’t just something I do. It’s the one place where I don’t have to be anything for anyone. I don’t have to smile right or speak up or make myself easier to hold. The canvas doesn’t care if I’m too quiet or too much. It doesn’t care at all.
It just…lets me exist.
When I paint, the world goes a little softer around the edges. The thoughts that usually won’t shut up finally settle. I don’t think. I don’t plan. I just move—color to color, breath to breath—until everything feels a little more like mine again.
I squeeze a bit of ochre onto the palette, watching it resist the cold before finally giving in.
The brush in my hand is worn, the bristles a little frayed, but it still works.
I’ve used this one so many times I don’t even think about how to hold it anymore.
My fingers move before I ask them to. And that’s the magic of it, really—this one part of my life that doesn’t feel forced.
I don’t know what I’m painting. I never do at first. I just start, and eventually, the shapes turn into something that makes sense. I press the first stroke onto the canvas, and it’s messy and too dark, and I don’t care. It’s honest.
The barn is silent except for the sound of Ringo shifting in his stall, the soft creak of old wood, the storm still raging just beyond the walls.
I should be in the house. I should want to be.
But I’ve never felt more at home than I do right here—sitting on cold straw with numb fingers, covered in paint.
This is the place I come to remember who I am when everything else feels too loud.
And maybe that’s what a happy place is. Not somewhere warm or perfect. Just somewhere that doesn’t ask you to be anything but exactly who you are.
This is mine.