Marisol froze.
I stepped forward. “Mae.”
Mama Mae lifted a hand without looking at me. “I’m not asking to satisfy curiosity, boy. I’m asking because I run this ranch and I protect what’s mine. If trouble followed you here, I want to know what shape it might come in.”
Marisol looked at me like she was asking permission.
I nodded once.
So she sat down on one of the old rocking chairs next to Mama Mae and told her. She didn’t cover every detail and didn’t mention what had happened between the two of us. But she shared about Lucas’s job and how he’d found himself in way over his head. Then the convoy, the attempted intercept, and how we’d fled in the middle of the night.
Mama Mae listened without interrupting, her face going hard and still in that way that made me understand why grown men feared her.
When Marisol finished, Mama Mae reached over and squeezed her hand. “You did what you had to do.”
Marisol’s eyes filled. “Doesn’t feel like it.”
“That’s because you’re still in it,” Mama Mae said. “Give it time. The fear’s going to catch up. When it does, you let it. You don’t swallow it and pretend you’re fine.”
Marisol nodded, her throat working.
Mama Mae’s gaze shifted to me then. “And you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You keep running this the way you started,” she said. “Tight. No gaps. No hero nonsense.”
I held her stare. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And,” she added, her voice softer, “don’t forget you’re allowed to be human too.”
That one hit harder and deeper than the rest.
Mama Mae stood, wiping her hands. “I’m putting Owen with Lucas today. The rest of the ranch is covered. If someone so much as sneezes at the property line, we’ll hear it.”
Marisol whispered, “Thank you.”
Mama Mae smiled. “Honey, you don’t thank me yet. You just eat and breathe and let my boys do what they do.”
She walked off, already barking a question at someone about feed deliveries.
Marisol stared after her, stunned.
I let out a soft laugh. “She’s intense, but she means well.”
“I can tell,” she said. Her voice went soft. “I’ve never had anyone mean well like that.”
Something in my chest twisted. I wanted to touch her. Pull her close. Remind her she wasn’t alone now. But the kitchen was full of eyes, and I didn’t trust myself not to claim her in front of everyone. I couldn’t. That would mean letting down my guard again and I wouldn’t make that mistake twice.
Instead, I held out my hand. “Come on. I promised Lucas a horse.”
Marisol rolled her eyes, but the corner of her mouth lifted as she slid her palm into mine.
The pasture was still damp with morning dew when I led them toward the corral. Lucas practically vibrated, excited and nervous and trying to act like he wasn’t. Owen walked next to him, easy and watchful, tossing him a few calm instructions like it was the most natural thing in the world to keep a kid safe on a ranch.
Marisol hung back. “I told you I don’t ride.”
“You can,” I said. “I’d never put you on a horse that won’t take care of you.”
