Behind her, the door opened.
Tanner leaned against the frame, giving her space without retreating. “Everything all right?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “They want me to come back.”
His expression didn’t change. “And?”
“And they’re willing to make it easier.”
Cole joined them, Adrian just behind. No one spoke. No one asked for details.
They were waiting.
She turned to face them fully. “If I leave now, it would stop this.” Adrian’s voice was quiet. “It would pause it.”
She nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
Cole studied her carefully. “We won’t stop you.”
“I know.”
“And we won’t hold it against you if you go.”
That mattered more than reassurance.
She looked past them, out towards the open land, the fence lines, the gate in the distance. This place hadn’t promised permanence. It had offered structure, honesty, and room to stand upright.
She drew a steady breath.
“I’m staying,” she said.
Not because it was safer.
Not because she was protected.
“But because leaving would mean agreeing that my no was temporary,” she continued. “And it isn’t.”
Something settled then — not loudly, but completely.
Cole nodded once. “All right.”
Tanner smiled, small and genuine. “Glad to hear it.”
Adrian’s gaze softened, just a fraction. “Then we move forward.” She felt it — the shift from contingency to intention.
This wasn’t a pause any more.
It was commitment.
Later, as the day unfolded and the ranch returned to its steady rhythm, she realised something else.
She hadn’t stayed because she was afraid to leave.
She’d stayed because, for the first time, the ground beneath her feet felt like something she could claim as her own.
And that choice, once made, didn’t feel heavy.
It felt right.
