– Anonymous Rancher
***
Solene Duval was the kind of girl who treated the world like it was her personal backdrop, and everyone else was just an extra who hadn’t learned their lines.
She was undeniably beautiful—I wasn’t blind. Legs that went on for days and that effortless, glossy way of looking like she’d stepped out of a magazine even after a five-hour drive. You could see why a guy like Beau would hook up with her. She was a trophy.
But there was something else too—something I recognized when she climbed out of that Mercedes. The way her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. The way her hands gripped her designer bag a little too tight. She looked like someone who’d driven five hours not because she wanted to win Beau back, but because she was running from something.
The next day, Solene slept until 10 AM. I’d heard her stirring around dawn—probably jet-lagged from her glamorous Dallas time zone—but she didn’t emerge until the sun was high and the real work was already underway.
I’d avoided Beau as much as humanly possible. He’d wanted to talk about feelings last night in the barn, and then suddenly his “girlfriend”—or whatever the hell she was—decided to show up here, turning the whole ranch into her personal rom-com set. Feelings could wait. Manure couldn’t.
I started the morning in the barn, mucking stalls with a vengeance that had even Bandit eyeing me sideways. Beau had wandered in around 6, looking like a man who’d slept about as well as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. His eyes found me immediately, and for a second, I thought he might try to corner me—apologize, explain, beg. But I grabbed a pitchfork and started on the next stall before he could open his mouth.
“Morning,” he said, voice tentative, like he was testing thin ice.
“Morning.” I didn’t look up. Scoop, toss, repeat. The rhythm was meditative.
“Winnie, about last night—”
“Pops needs help with the fence line,” I cut in, my voice flat. “South pasture. You should check the posts before the herd moves over.”
He hesitated, then sighed, a heavy sound that echoed in the quiet barn. “Yeah. Okay. But we need to talk. Soon.”
“Sure.” Scoop. Toss. The manure hit the wheelbarrow with a satisfying thud.
He lingered for another beat, waiting for me to crack. I didn’t. Eventually, he grabbed a hammer and headed out to deal with his hangover and the fence. Good. Let him stew. Let him deal with his Dallas import.
By 10:30, I was back in the kitchen, wiping down counters after a quick breakfast.
The screen door creaked open, and in swept Solene.
She looked like she’d been styled by a team of professionals for a “rustic chic” photoshoot. A white linen blouse tucked into high-waisted shorts that barely covered her ass, espadrilles that screamed “I’m slumming it but make it fashion,” and oversized sunglasses perched on her head like a tiara.
“Oh my god,” she said, stopping dead in the doorway and wrinkling her nose at the faint smell of bacon grease. “Is that… meat? In the air?”
“It’s a kitchen,” I said, drying my hands. “We cook food in here. Sometimes meat.”
She shuddered dramatically. “God. It sticks to your pores. Do you have, like, a green juice? Or avocado toast? Something that doesn’t scream ‘heart disease’?”
“We got apples in the orchard,” I said evenly, biting back a smile. “Or coffee. Fresh pot.”
“Coffee’s fine. Black. No sugar. My trainer would kill me.” She slid onto a stool at the counter, crossing her legs. Her eyes scanned the kitchen—the worn wooden cabinets, the scuffed linoleum—with what I expected to be disdain.
But instead, something flickered across her face. Longing, maybe. Or exhaustion.
“This place is so… different,” she said quietly, fingers tracing the grain of the wooden counter. “Like, actually lived-in. Our place in Dallas is all marble and glass. You can’t touch anything without leaving fingerprints.” She looked up, catching herself. “I mean, it’s gorgeous. Obviously. But it’s…” She trailed off.
I poured her coffee without missing a beat, sliding it across the counter. “But it’s not home.”
She blinked, surprised. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She took a sip and made a face. “It’s strong. Like, sludge.” But she took another sip anyway, cradling the mug like it was grounding her. “Listen, Winnie, right? I… I know this is weird. Me showing up here. But Beau—” Her voice cracked slightly. “He’s been ghosting me. Well.. I’ve kinda ghosted him too I guess. Not just texts. Calls. Everything. And then I see these photos on his Instagram—dirt under his nails, cowboy hats, sunrises—and he looks… happy. Actually happy. Not fake Dallas party happy.”
She set the mug down, her manicured nails clicking against the ceramic. “I needed to see it for myself. Because if he’s actually choosing this—” She gestured around the kitchen, at the ranch beyond. “—then maybe I need to figure out what the hell I’m doing wrong.”
