"I do," she admitted, and the sadness in her voice was unbearable. "But love isn't always enough, Beau. Sometimes it's the thing that destroys us. Your father's given you every opportunity—the best education money can buy, the Sterling name, a future most people would kill for. Don't throw it away for a girl who'll end up hating you when the dust settles and she realizes what you've cost her. Come home. Fix this before it's too late. Before your father..." Her voice broke. "Before I lose both of you."
The line went dead.
She'd hung up before I could respond, leaving me standing there with the phone pressed to my ear, listening to silence that rang louder than her words.
I stood in the middle of the pasture for a long time, phone clutched in my hand, the Oklahoma sun beating down on my shoulders, sweatsoaking through my shirt. The heifers resumed grazing, oblivious to human drama. The breeze carried the scent of wet earth and wildflowers—smells that had become home over these months. It should've been peaceful. It should've felt right.
Instead, it felt like the walls were closing in, inch by inch, squeezing the air from my lungs. Mom's words echoed on repeat. A girl you barely know. Temporary. She'll hate you.
And the worst part? Standing there in the mud, with my father's mortality hanging over me and Winnie's ruined privacy on my conscience... I was starting to think she might be right.
WINNIE
Good enough
Pawhuska, Oklahoma
14H00
"Sometimes strength means letting yourself break, just for a moment, so you can rebuild." – Unknown
***
The barn was quiet in that heavy, drowsy way Oklahoma afternoons get—dust motes floating lazily through shafts of sunlight, the distant, rhythmic drone of cicadas, the occasional creak of old wood settling under the heat.
I should have been training. Regionals were three weeks away. Three weeks. I hadn't run a full course in days. My times were slipping, my focus scattered like buckshot. But every time I thought about mounting up, about pushing Bandit through those tight turns with the precision we'd worked months to perfect, my chest tightened with a panic I couldn't name.
Instead, I stood in Bandit's stall, arms wrapped around his neck, my face buried in his warm, dusty coat. He tolerated it patiently, shifting his weight, his breath steady and calm against my shoulder. Horses didn't judge. They didn't ask questions you couldn't answer. They just were—solid and present, anchoring you when the world felt like it was spinning off its axis.
"I'm losing it, buddy," I whispered into his mane, my voice cracking. "I think I'm actually losing it."
Three days since the reporters. Three days of looking over my shoulder every time a car approached the driveway, jumping at shadows, flinching when my phone buzzed. Pops had tried to reassure me—the Sheriff was patrolling, we had legal grounds to press charges if they came back—but the damage was done.
They knew my full name. Naomie.
Hearing that name spat out by a stranger had cracked something open inside me I thought I’d sealed shut years ago. It wasn't just a name on a birth certificate; it was a reminder of what I was. A throwaway. A bundle left on a porch in the middle of the night.
Why? The question circled my mind like a vulture, just like it had when I was ten, and twelve, and sixteen. Why give me up? Was I too loud? Too expensive? Just... not enough?
If I hadn't been abandoned—if I had been kept, raised by people who wanted me—would I be different? Would I be softer? Would I fit into Beau’s world of galas and boardrooms, instead of feeling like an imposter in muddy boots? Maybe all the trolls right. Maybe a girl with no roots couldn't survive being transplanted into Sterling soil.
Beau.God, Beau.
He'd been working himself to exhaustion—fixing fences until his hands bled, buried in legal research until his eyes were red-rimmed—trying to fix what he'd brought into my life. But every time he looked at me, I saw the guilt eating him alive. The distance was growing, even when he held me close at night. We hadn't talked. Not really. Just surface-level reassurances and stolen kisses that felt more like apologies than affection.
I told him it wasn't his fault. But late at night, in the dark... a small, bitter part of me did blame him. Not for loving me. But for making me believe, even for a second, that a fairytale could survive in this dust.
I pulled back from Bandit, wiping aggressively at my eyes. I hadn't cried. Not since that morning on the porch. Crying meant admitting I was scared, and I couldn't afford to be scared. Not with regionals looming. Not with Pops counting on me. Not with Nana's legacy riding on my ability to keep it together.
But I was tired. So damn tired.
"Let's go for a walk," I told Bandit, grabbing his halter. "Just you and me. No expectations. No pressure."
He nickered softly, nudging my shoulder. I threw his saddle on—habit, mostly—but didn't tighten the cinch or mount up. Instead, I walked beside him, leading him out of the barn and toward the open fields that stretched endlessly under the wide sky.
We walked in silence, boots crunching on dry grass, hooves thudding softly. This was my church. This land. But even the land felt different now, tainted by the knowledge that people were watching. Judging.
We reached the edge of the east pasture, near the creek line. I stopped, leaning against a fence post while Bandit dropped his head to graze. I stared at my boots. The leather was cracked at the toe, the soles worn thin. I needed new ones for the competition. I needed to pay the entry fees. I needed to fix the trailer hitch.
