Bramble settled at his feet, chin resting on Anson’s boot, golden eyes watching with quiet understanding. The wolfhound’s warmth anchored him, familiar and solid when everything else felt like it was shifting.
His phone buzzed again, and this time he pulled it out, intending to silence it completely. But the message caught his eye.
River: For real though, Anson, she’s great. Funny, smart as hell, patient. Asked about you. I think she’s actually into you, man, god knows why. Don’t blow this.
He stared at the screen, trying to sort through the tangle of emotions in his chest. Jealousy, still. But gratitude, too. For all his manic energy and endless teasing, River was a good friend. Better than Anson deserved most days. They all were.
He typed back, the first time he’d responded to any of them all night:
Thanks.
He set the phone aside and pulled his notebook from the shelf above his workbench. The leather cover was worn smooth from years of handling, the pages filled with sketches of designs, notes on techniques, lists of materials. And, in the back, drafts of letters to Maggie. Letters he’d rewritten three, four, five times before sending, searching for the right words, the perfect phrasing.
Anson flipped to a clean page and stared at it. What did he say now? How did he bridge the gap between the man who wrote those letters and the man who stood before her today, mute and terrified?
Bramble huffed softly, shifting to press more firmly against Anson’s legs. The wolfhound’s steady presence loosened something in his chest.
Maybe she was right. Maybe they started with letters, built from there. Maybe Maggie seeing him at his worst was the beginning of something real, not the end.
He picked up his pen and began to write, the words coming easier now, flowing onto the page without the usual stops and starts, the endless crossing out and rewriting.
Maggie,
Thank you for understanding. For seeing me—the real me—and not running. That’s rare. Bramble approves of you, which says more than any words I could write. He’s a better judge of character than I am.
I want to show you the forge tomorrow. If you’d like. It’s the one place I feel whole, where the broken pieces make sense. Where I can create something useful from nothing.
The man in the letters is still me. Just... a better version. The version that has time to think, to choose his words. To be brave. I’m working on bringing him into the real world. It’s harder than I thought it would be.
Would you meet me for coffee tomorrow morning? 7 am, by the forge. I’ll bring the coffee. You bring yourself. I’ll try to bring actual words this time.
Yours always,
Anson
He read it over, changed nothing, folded it carefully, and took it to the door.
But then he hesitated
The ranch was quiet.
Normal night. Except nothing felt normal anymore.
Across the yard, in Jo’s old cabin, Maggie was... what? Regretting her decision to come? Planning her escape?
No. Her letter said she wasn’t going anywhere. He had to believe that.
He pulled the door shut, closing out the cold, and set the note on his workbench.
Tomorrow morning, he’d give her the letter in person. He’d bring the coffee, try for actual conversation. He’d probably fail.But she’d given him permission to fail, to be awkward and scarred and imperfect. To be himself.
It was more than he deserved. More than he’d dared to hope for.
Bramble knocked against the backs of his legs hard enough to nearly send him face-planting into the forge, but he caught himself on the hot brick.
Just what he needed, more burn scars.
He straightened and glared over at his dog. “What?”
