Chapter 1 - Ethan
Ethan Hayes took the final bend in the dusty private drive, his rented Subaru already disguised in a powdery coat of Montana dust. The land arched before him, and the blue-shadowed mountains—tall, stark, unyielding—rose in a wall against the morning sky. Sunlight flared along the hood as the car pulled into the gravel lot, spitting pale stones into the battered timber fence.
The main lodge dominated the spread, all rough-hewn beams and cathedral windows that caught the bright slant of June sun. Porches circled the structure in two stories of glossy red cedar. Beyond, the buildings scattered like an old western set: hay barn, bunkhouse, an orderly array of horse trailers and pickup trucks. To the east, a stand of pines bristled against the horizon, their resin-sweet air thick enough to taste through the rolled-down window.
He put the car in park, engine ticking down, and sat for a moment, staring out at the open country. The wind moved in the fields. Gold grasses rolled like surf. Already, he felt his shouldersunknot—until the reality of why he was here clenched them up again.
Ten years of marriage. Five months since the last fight, the final lawyer's call. And now, miles and miles from the echoing emptiness of the condo, Ethan arrived to this: nearly two weeks of self-imposed exile at Walker’s Edge Ranch, the loneliest luxury destination in the state. He stared at his reflection in the rearview. A man just shy of forty, beard flecked with gray, green eyes ringed with exhaustion and intent. Athletic once, at least when he had something to prove. His chest was tight as he gripped the door handle and swung out, gravel shifting under his boots.
The Montana air hit him—clean, sharp, edged with woodsmoke and distant livestock. Ethan inhaled hard. Maybe this would work. Maybe it wouldn’t. It was too late to turn back, anyway.
He popped the trunk and hauled out his duffel, the nylon strap biting into his palm. The others, he noticed, had arrived ahead of him. Several cars lined the lot: a Mercedes SUV caked with mud, a battered pickup bearing California plates, a yellow Jeep Wrangler with the top gone and the back seats buried in gear.
Ethan straightened his posture and hoisted his bag. He could do this. He was just here for the adventure, the solitude, the reset.
He heard it before he saw it: the shrill, braying call, the scrape of hooves. Somewhere near the outbuildings, a sudden movement blurred against the fence line. Voices rose in a scattershot of alarm, male and female, sharp with surprise. The guests at the porch turned to look as a horse—no, a colt, half-grown and snorting wild—shot from the open corral, its coat copper-bright in the sun. The animal galloped straight through the parking area, muscle and terror and beauty all in one bolting line.
Ethan’s brain froze, his body doubly so. He clutched his duffel in both hands as the colt veered, nostrils flared, hooves clattering across asphalt and then straight at him. Guests dove for cover; someone yanked a child clear by the backpack straps. The animal swept past within arm’s reach, close enough for Ethan to catch the heat and the corded lines of muscle beneath its flanks.
It was over in seconds, the colt’s momentum carrying it toward the stand of pines. Ethan let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. The sound of his own pulse filled his ears.
He glanced down: knuckles white on the bag, legs locked, every tendon drawn. The man he was five months ago would have said something clever, laughed it off. Instead, he exhaled again, waiting for the trembling to subside. His wedding ring had left a pale indent on his finger, a perfect absence.
Over by the corral, wranglers shouted, ropes trailing. Above it all, the sky pressed blue and limitless, unconcerned.
From the direction of the stables, a man moved toward the chaos, boots grinding grit and dust with each stride. Not a wrangler—at least not in the adolescent, summer-intern sense. This guy owned the ground he walked on.
He wore a black-and-grey flannel shirt rolled to the elbows, faded jeans, and a tan baseball cap stained dark with sweat at the crown. The way he filled the clothes was all muscle and tendon, every step precise, a calculated economy that made Ethan’s first, irrational thought: cowboy.
The colt, having lost its initial terror, circled back, wild-eyed, rope dragging. The man didn’t flinch as it barreled toward him. He stooped low, scooped up a coiled rope from a fence post, and pivoted with a sudden, graceful violence. The lariat looped through the air, wide and smooth, and dropped over the animal’s neck.
He set his boots, braced for the jolt. The colt hit the end of the rope and jerked sideways, legs splayed, dust boiling up in a cloud. The man absorbed the shock, biceps bulging under flannel, hands like vices. He slid forward, drawing in the line with measured give, voice pitched low and even—a tone meant to settle, not to scold.
“There,” he said, so quietly it was almost lost in the aftermath. “Easy, boy. I’ve got you.”
His face, when the hat slipped back, was all sharp planes and blunt edges: strong jaw dusted with a day’s growth, cheekbones carved clean, nose broken once and reset. Blue eyes, cold as the Flathead in February. A faint scar traced the right brow, not enough to mar but to emphasize.
Ethan felt the hairs on his neck stand up. The mix of control and gentleness was devastating.
The man led the colt in a slow, diminishing circle, still murmuring in that low register, and in seconds the horse’s panic bled away into sullen exhaustion. The show was over. Guests drifted back to the porch. The colt’s nostrils flared, breath shuddering, but the fight was gone.
The man’s eyes swept the scene, lingering for a microsecond on Ethan—long enough to register, to measure. Heat traveled down Ethan’s spine, hard and electric, as if the lasso had found him, too.
He looked away, pretended to adjust the zipper on his duffel, but his fingers wouldn't cooperate. They trembled with something unfamiliar, something he hadn't felt in years. He found himself waiting, hoping the man would speak to him. Instead, the cowboy—who had to be Cole Walker himself, the namesake of Walker's Edge Ranch that Ethan had researched obsessively before booking—led the colt back toward the corral, chin tucked against his chest as if silently scolding the animal.Just like that, the moment passed, and the ranch settled back into its routine.
Ethan let out a slow, shaky laugh, part relief, part something else. His chest ached with the rush of it. He replayed the way the man had moved—precise, unhurried, dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with physical safety.
His phone buzzed—a “welcome to Walker’s Edge” text from the ranch. The normalcy of it made him laugh again, softer. In the battered screen reflection, his cheeks were red.
He slung the duffel over his shoulder and, for the first time in months, felt the day wasn’t wholly out of his control.
The ranch yard was almost quiet again when a new sound split the air—boots, heavy and deliberate, walking over gravel. The kind of stride that expected things to get out of its way. Ethan turned, halfway to the lodge steps, and saw a man with silvered hair and a lean, wolfish build advancing from the direction of the covered garage.
He wore a crisp button-down and tailored jeans so dark they looked black, the shirt tucked and fitted like a uniform. His belt buckle was more restrained than expected, all the statement coming from the icy composure in his face. Sixty, maybe older, but with the posture of a man who ran the world on a schedule and would punish anyone who made him late.
He moved directly toward Cole, who had just finished looping the colt’s rope over a hitching post. The temperature in the air seemed to drop a notch.
“That’s the third time this month,” the older man said, voice like a scalpel. “You want to lose another horse, or are we trying for some new record?”
