We’re supposed to hold position, breathe deeply, and wait for the trainer’s signal. Everyone else looks relaxed in the saddle. I’m gripping the reins too tight, and my pulse is already climbing fast. I hear gravel crunch under a hoof behind me.
Then Taryn Hartman, the equine psychotherapist who runs these sessions,says,“Trace, easy. Don’t rush him.”
And that’s all it takes, my chest goes tight, my lungs forget how to work. The world isn’t a pasture anymore; it’s sand and heat and gunpowder and noise I can’t hear yet because it hasn’t hit. Ranger shifts his weight, and I flinch like a shot is coming. I know it’s stupid. I know I’m safe. My body doesn’t care.
Taryn moves slowly, on purpose, coming to Ranger’s side without taking the reins. “You’re alright,” she says quietly. “He stopped because he’s waiting for you, not because something’s wrong.”
I nod, but I can’t unclench my jaw. She puts her hand on the saddle, not on me, and breathes deliberately until I finally match her rhythm. One breath at a time. One muscle at a time. One memory at a time. When the panic finally loosens its grip, shame comes right behind it but Taryn doesn’t let me drown in it.
“You didn’t fall apart,” she says before I can speak. “You caught yourself and didn’t get angry and that’s progress.”
I don’t know if it is, but for the first time in a long time, I want her to be right.
The memory fades, and I exhale.
I rub a hand over my beard and lean back against the wall, staring at nothing. I came here planning to keep my head down. Put the work in. Say the right things in therapy. Get out when I was steady enough not to be a problem to anyone. Somewhere along the way, that plan shifted. I didn’t notice it happening.
Breakfast has become a thing now. Miss Evie puts a plate in front of me, asks a question or two, talks about her day, and before I know it I’m telling her about mine too. She laughs, I laugh, and it’s easy. I can breathe around her. She treats me like me, not a problem or a diagnosis. Breakfast has become the highlight of my day. Half the time I’m already halfway through a meal before I even realize I sat down for one. Somewhere along the way, without me noticing, Miss Evie became important to me. She became family.
And then there’s Delta. I knew the second I saw her picture on a computer screen she was going to be a problem. What I didn’t expect was that she would be open to being a problem. The horse giving birth, her letting me name him, the breakfasts. She acts coy like she doesn’t know what is happening between us, what she is actively participating in making happen. We both know the truth. There is something building and we are both building it.
She’s my boss. I’m here for therapy. I told myself I didn’t have room for anything or anyone. Yet she is there. Always there.
I don’t know what to do with that part. She walks into a room and every cell in my body pays attention. She says good morning and I’m set for the whole damn day. She reaches for a coffee mug and somehow her hand ends up brushing mine, and I could swear the world stalls. It’s nothing anyone else would notice. It’s nothing I should notice. But I do.
I love Miss Evie. She is a riot half the time and a mother the rest of the time. But what I am beginning to feel for Delta is anything but motherly. And maybe it should worry me that the first time I have felt anything real for a person in years happens to be mother and daughter. Those damn Whitmore women. They are amazing.
But Delta… she is different. She is there all the time. I can feel her across the ranch. My mind used to be loud with thatlast mission, nothing but noise and memory tearing through me. Now it’s fading into the background and front and center is a tall, full-figured, beautifully brown ranch owner who knows exactly what she does to me every morning in her mother’s kitchen. Delta, Delta fucking Delta. I can barely get my work done for her and if I’m honest, I am not mad about it. Concerned, sure, but not mad.
She’s confident, controlled, and polished. She runs this entire operation. She’s the one everybody looks to, a woman like that deserves someone who can stand beside her without falling apart. I might look steady from the outside, but I know the truth: I’m held together with Elmer’s glue and generic scotch tape, and praying no one notices. What right do I have to even think about her that way? What future does a woman like Delta have with a man who can barely stand his own reflection some days?
I lean back again and let my eyes close. Maybe I shouldn’t expect anything from these small moments, the soft hellos, the shared smiles, the awareness we never acknowledge but both feel. Maybe it’s enough to simply exist near her, to enjoy whatever this is without demanding more from it than it’s capable of giving. But I can’t lie to myself: every day it gets harder to pretend I don’t want more.
And what the hell am I supposed to do with that. They say that I’m the one that’s dangerous but it’s her that’s starting to feel dangerous.
CHAPTER FIVE
Delta
We are halfwaythrough breakfast when her phone buzzes on the counter. She wipes her hands on her apron and picks it up, squinting at the screen. Her brows knit together, and then she mutters something low under her breath that sounds suspiciously like a cuss word.
I look up. “What is it, Mama?”
She taps the screen and exhales sharply. “It’s a reminder about your daddy’s symphony gala.”
The words land heavier than they should. “The Casper Symphony Gala?”
She nods, eyes going soft and far away. “Every year on our anniversary, your daddy and I went.” Her smile flickers and fades. “Last year, I told them to cancel the tickets. I told them there would not be any more Whitmore anniversaries to celebrate. That should have been the end of it.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out automatically, glancing at the screen.
Unknown Caller
My stomach flips, fast and sharp. I decline the call instantly and shove the phone back into my pocket like it burned me. I look up, hoping nobody noticed, but Trace is already watching me. His eyebrows drawn just slightly, head tipped like he caught something I didn’t mean to expose. I force a small shrug like it was nothing. His eyes stay on me a second longer than they should… then he looks away, giving me the privacy I didn’t ask for and clearly needed.
I breathe once, twice, trying to shake it off, and turn back to Mama as if nothing happened.
She swipes through her email, mouth tightening. “But here they are. The digital tickets, confirmation, the whole thing. They must not have processed the cancellation.”
