We dress with secret smiles and soft looks that melt me from the inside out. Every brush of his fingers, every shared glance is like a spark we’re both still carrying, lit deep in our bones.
As we step out of the barn, the morning sun filters through the thinning clouds, melting what’s left of the snow in slow, glittering patches. The air smells like thawed earth and fresh beginnings.
“I want to show you something now that the snow’s melting,” Sam says, lacing his fingers through mine.
I bump his shoulder playfully. “Another ancient baby-making spot?”
He throws his head back with a laugh, the sound echoing.
“I suppose anything can be a baby-making spot if you try hard enough.” He gives me a wicked grin that makes my stomach flip. “But that’s not it. Wait right here.”
He jogs back toward the house, and I watch him go, heart tripping with affection.
A minute later, he returns, carrying a guitar case in one hand and a folded blanket in the other.
Curious, I let him take my hand again, and together we walk. The ground is soft beneath our boots, spring waking up in muddy patches and fresh green shoots.
But I hardly notice any of that.
Because just ahead, the landscape opens into something out of a postcard.
A thicket of trees—tall, quiet, full of shadows and filtered light—stands like a curtain, and beyond it, the mountains rise in the distance, snow still dusting their peaks, their edges sharp against the softening sky.
It’s breathtaking.
“Sam…” I whisper, awe blooming in my chest.
He glances at me, smiling like he already knew it would hit me like this. “It’s my favorite spot on the whole ranch. Not many people know about it.” He inhales. “Air’s different out here. Fresher.”
He spreads the blanket out in the clearing, setting the guitar case down beside it.
“This is where I go when I want to remember why I’m still here. Why I stayed.”
I sink down beside him, the moment stretching between us.
And I think I get it. Because sitting here with him, surrounded by beauty, history, and the hush of somethingbeginning, I’m not just seeing the ranch through his eyes. I’m feeling it in my chest. I’m starting to understand why people plant roots. Why they stay.
“When I first came back,” Sam says, his voice low, eyes on the mountains, “I’d come out here, just willing a song to come to me.”
He pauses, the wind brushing past us like it’s listening too.
“But it didn’t,” he continues with a wry, bitter laugh. “Not a word. Not a damn note. For the first time in my life, music felt… gone.”
My chest tightens.
He turns to look at me, something softer in his eyes now. “I haven’t had the urge to write in a while. Not until you showed up.”
Slowly, he reaches for the guitar case beside him. The leather is scuffed, the edges worn smooth in a clearly well-loved long-traveled kind of way. He unlatches it with a quiet click and pulls out the instrument, its wood warm and rich against the morning light.
He holds it like it’s sacred. And maybe it is.
“I’d like to play something for you,” he says.
My breath catches. Because this? This isn’t just a song. It’s everything he hasn’t said. Everything he’s been holding back.
So I nod, silent, heart thudding as I settle in beside him on the blanket.
He tunes it for a moment before exhaling. The first strum is soft, but it carries something raw beneath it. His fingers move like muscle memory is taking over, like the song was always inside him, just waiting for the right moment to come out.
