Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Marshall
Friday
I’m back on the trail.
That trail.
Help me, I’m back there again.
The sun is low, just enough gold spilling through the pines to turn everything beautiful, which is wrong, because nothing about that day was beautiful. The air smells of dust and cedar.
My horse shifts beneath me, anxious, but Luke…
Luke’s laughing.
That laugh… easy, bright, too big for his twenty-year-old body. He glances over his shoulder at me, teeth flashing white, hair whipping in the breeze.
“Come on, Marsh!” he calls. “You’re slower than Grandpa’s old mule today.”
He rides ahead, always ahead, always too damn fearless for his own good. I want to yell at him to slow down, but the words catch in my throat.
They always do in the dream, same as they did in real life.
The trail narrows. The wind shifts.
My stomach drops.
Something is wrong. I feel it before I see it.
“Luke,” I whisper. My voice is barely a sound, swallowed by the forest. “Wait.”
But he doesn’t hear me. He never hears me.
Instead, he pushes his horse into a faster trot, humming some stupid tune, something about girls and cold beer and a summer that never ends, and I want to reach out, grab his shirt, pull him back.
But my hands won’t move.
My legs won’t move.
All I can do is watch.
There’s a crack, just sharp enough to slice the air.
The sound that has lived in my nightmares for over a decade.
His horse rears, front legs shooting skyward, eyes rolling white. Luke’s humming stops, replaced by a yell—surprised, scared, too late.
“Luke!”
I scream this time. I do. But the forest swallows it whole.
Everything slows.
His hands claw for the reins.
The world tilts.
And then.
Impact.
A sickening thud as his body hits the ground headfirst, the weight of the horse crashing down after. Bones snap loud as brittle twigs.
I feel it in my own chest.
It’s me breaking.
It’s me dying.
I jump off my horse, knees hitting the dirt so hard they bruise, and scramble toward him. But the ground stretches beneath my palms, pulling me back, holding me in place as Luke lies there, crumpled and still.
Too still.
His eyes might be open, but they’re staring past me at nothing. His lips part just barely—he’s about to say something, same as he always did after falling off a horse: “Don’t tell Mom.”
But nothing comes out.
Not breath.
Not sound.
Nothing.
His blood is warm on my hands. It soaks into my palms. I press down hard, too hard, trying to keep him here, trying to keep him whole, trying to keep him alive.
“Come on, Luke,” I choke out. “Come on, kid. Don’t you do this. Don’t you leave me.”
But he’s not moving. He never moves.
The forest around us goes silent.
Not peaceful. Dead.
Then something grabs my shoulders, hands hard as iron clamps, and yanks me back. I dig my heels into the dirt, fight with everything in me, scream until my throat tears.
“Let go! He needs me. Let me go!”
The world blurs.
Luke fades.
The forest dissolves.
All that’s left is the sound of my own pulse pounding in my ears, loud as a war drum.
You failed him.
You failed him.
You failed him.
I wake with a shout.
My body jerks upright, heart slamming against my ribs, trying to break free, breath tearing out of my lungs in ragged gasps. Sweat slicks my hair to my forehead, icy and burning at the same time.
For a second, just one awful second, I don’t know where I am.
Then the shadows settle into familiar shapes. The old dresser. The window. My boots by the door.
Home.
Not the forest.
Not that day.
But my hands still shake as if they’re covered in blood.
I press the heels of my palms into my eyes and drag in a breath that feels too shallow.
It’s the same nightmare I’ve had a thousand times.
The same guilt that wakes me. The same truth that settles, heavy as a stone on my chest:
If I had gotten to him sooner, if I had yelled louder, if I had made him slow down…
Maybe he’d still be alive.
Maybe the ranch wouldn’t have fallen on my shoulders alone.
Maybe I wouldn’t still be waking up this way twelve years later.
But “maybe” doesn’t change things. “Maybe” doesn’t bring him back.
Responsibility is the only change I can rely on now. That and work.
Keeping this ranch alive is the only shot I have.
Because if I fail at this, at the one thing Luke loved as much as breathing, then I lose him all over again.
I suck in one more breath. Then I get up.
Grief might own my nights, but the land owns my days.
The ranch needs me. The horses don’t wait.
And I’ll be damned if I lose anything else I love.
“Come on,” I mutter to myself, rough as gravel. “Ain’t fixin’ a thing sittin’ here.”
The room is dark except for the thin line of dawn pushing in around the curtains. I swing my legs over the side of the bed, feet brushing the floorboards I still need to sand down one of these days.
There’s a draft coming under the door. House always settles in the cold.
Or maybe I do.
The kitchen is quiet enough to hear the tick of the old wall clock. I pour black coffee into a chipped mug, the one with Luke’s initials carved into the handle.
Kid thought he was funny, “claiming” things that already belonged to both of us.
The coffee tastes burnt, just the way I want it. Makes it easier to wake up.
Outside, the air is bone dry, the kind that crawls up your throat and settles there. Been weeks without real rain.
The grass crunches under my boots as I cross the yard to the stables, and every step reminds me how thirsty the land is. Thirsty land makes nervous horses, and nervous horses make long days.
I don’t mind long days. Long days mean less time for thinking.
Inside the barn, the horses shift when they hear me. Familiar weight settles in my chest.
Animals don’t lie. They don’t expect much. Just patience. Steady hands. And someone who won’t give up on ’em.
“Easy now,” I murmur, running a hand over Midnight’s flank as he leans into me, eyes half closed. “Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen to you today.”
He huffs because he doesn’t believe me. Can’t blame him.
I hum an old country tune without realizing it, something my dad used to sing under his breath when the mornings were cold enough to bite your nose. Sound fills the quiet barn.
Horses love it. Makes them think everything’s fine.
I wish my own mind worked the same way.
Footsteps crunch outside before Wyatt appears in the doorway, hair damp. Looks like he just rolled outta bed and dunked his head in water out of spite.
The man looks too calm for someone who’s probably been up half the night reading medical journals.
“Mornin’,” he says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“Mornin’,” I echo, tipping my hat out of habit.
He stands next to me, reaching over the stall to scratch Midnight behind the ear. “Feel that?”
I lift my face. There’s a shift in the air, still dry, but the kind of dry that comes before something breaks. The smell is faint, almost imaginary, the promise of rain whispering from somewhere far off.
“Storm’s comin’,” I say.
Wyatt nods. “Heard the same from Emmett. Said the clouds were building over Dusty Spur last night.”
“Could use the rain,” I mutter, glancing toward the pasture.
The grass is too pale. The air too still. Makes my skin itch with unease.
“We could,” he agrees. “Though lightning’s a real problem.”
I roll my shoulders, trying to shake off the tension crawling along my spine. “Let’s hope it’s rain first, thunder second.”
Wyatt shoots me a look that says he’s hoping the exact same thing. Then he pats Midnight’s neck and steps back.
“You sleep at all last night?”
The question catches me sideways, sharp enough to make my jaw clench. He asks it softly, though.
He already knows the answer and isn’t judging me for it. Wyatt’s good at that.
“Enough,” I lie.
He doesn’t call me on it. Just nods, the way you nod at a skittish animal you don’t want to spook.
“We’ll keep an eye on the weather,” he says, reaching for the clipboard near the tack room. “If we need to move the herd, better to know early.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Good plan.”
But my mind’s already drifting, back to the dream, back to the sound of Luke’s laughter turning into a scream, back to the way the world fell apart in one second I couldn’t change. Couldn’t fix.
Couldn’t save.
I grip the stall door hard enough for the old wood to creak.
Wyatt glances at me, worry flickering in his eyes, but he doesn’t push. He never does. Instead, he just gives me that small, understanding nod, the kind that says he’s here if I need him.
“Storm or not,” I say, forcing myself calm, “we’ll handle it.”
A breath of cool drifts into the barn, stirring dust motes in the morning light. It smells almost of rain.
Wyatt smiles faintly. “Yeah. We will.”
I tip my hat, hum under my breath again, and get back to the horses, back to the work that keeps everything quiet in my mind. Back to the routine that holds me together.
Because storms come whether you’re ready or not.