Max
Sleep hadn’t come easy. It rarely did these days. Dreams had come in pieces—my dad’s calloused hand on my shoulder, my mother humming a lullaby in the kitchen. And then silence. That awful kind of silence that lingered after people leave, a cold echo in an empty house.
I got up before the sun, the floorboards groaning under my weight, and tugged on thermals, layered flannel over denim, pushing down the ache in my chest the same way I always did—by working.
The wind howled like it had a grudge against the world, a bitter, biting thing that rattled the old barn siding and stung any skinfoolish enough to peek outside. My breath plumed white in the frigid air.
I pulled my coat tighter around my shoulders and adjusted my scarf. Duke bounded ahead, fur dusted with snow, his tail wagging like he was thrilled about the Arctic conditions.
The fence line on the north pasture had been half-buried in snow when I checked it at dawn, and one section had snapped under the weight of a fallen branch.
I’d patched worse in worse, but this morning felt personal—like the ranch, the very land I was fighting for, was testing me, pushing me to my breaking point.
I trudged through the drifts, boots crunching, wire cutters in hand. The snow kept falling, thick and quiet, covering everything in a sheet of deceptive calm.
And then, like the universe had decided I wasn’t irritated enough, I heard footsteps behind me.
I turned. Ella.
Wearing mismatched gloves, a bright red knit hat pulled low over her ears, and one of my old flannels cinched awkwardly over her coat like armor against the cold, she looked like a walking contradiction—city-girl-turned-farmhand with enough stubborn determination to make me groan.
“What in the world are you doing out here?” I barked.
She puffed a cloud of breath and adjusted her scarf. “Helping. Obviously.”
“You’ll freeze.”
“Already halfway there.” She shivered and smiled like she found it funny. “But someone has to make sure you don’t throw out your back.”
I stared at her for a second too long, a flicker of something akin to reluctant admiration stirring in my chest. Then, with a grunt, I handed her the hammer.
“Hold the wire steady. If you let it snap back, you’re buying the coffee.”
“Deal.”
We worked side by side for a while, the only sounds our tools and the wind. She grunted with effort when she tugged the wire tight, her knuckles white around the tool. I didn’t say a word—but I noticed.
She didn’t complain once, didn’t ask to stop. Just dug in, snow soaking her boots, cheeks flushed from the cold, a faint tremor in her hands. She was tired, but she kept going.
She slipped at one point, nearly losing her footing on a patch of ice. I caught her elbow on instinct. “Careful,” I muttered.
“I’m good,” she said, though her face turned bright pink—whether from the cold or something else, I wasn’t sure.
When the last nail was driven in, I stood back and nodded. “Not bad.”
She grinned, brushing snow from her sleeve. “You mean I passed the cowboy test?”
I snorted. “You’re still wearing your gloves inside out.”
We started back toward the barn, snow creaking beneath our boots. Duke ran circles ahead, barking at shadows.
For a brief second, with the storm swirling around us and her laughing beside me, I forgot just how heavy things had been lately.
By the time we made it to the kitchen, we were soaked and windburned. I poured two mugs of coffee and handed one to her. She wrapped her hands around it like it was gold.
“This is the best coffee I’ve ever had,” she said, then winced. “Okay, maybe the second best. Once had this oat milk vanilla latte in—”
“Don’t finish that sentence.”
