I find Bex in the barn at seven.
She’s in the last stall on the left, the big foaling stall they use for overflow, wrapping the paint mare’s front legs.
Standing bandages—cotton, brown gauze, the careful figure-eight pattern that supports without restricting.
Her braid is half undone, black hair falling across her shoulder.
Her apron is off but her jeans are still dusty from the day’s work and there’s a smudge of hoof oil on her forearm and she’s talking to the mare in the low, steady voice she uses with horses.
Not baby talk. Not sweetness.
The voice of a woman who respects the animal and expects respect in return.
I stand in the stall doorway and watch her.
I’m not fighting anymore.
That’s the shift—the seismic, tectonic shift that happened somewhere between the voicemails and Earl’s porch and the bay’s hooves and Phantom’s hand on my shoulder.
I’m not fighting the way I want her.
I’m not white-knuckling against the pull.
I’m standing in a doorway looking at a woman I want and I’m letting myself want her.
Consciously. Deliberately. Not a loss of control—a choice.
The last time was a collision.
Desperate. Grief-fueled.
Two starving people crashing into each other because the hunger was louder than the guilt.
I don’t regret it—I’d do it again, against that wall, in that tack room, every desperate second of it.
But it wasn’t a choice. It was a detonation.
This is different.
This is me walking through the doorway with my eyes open and my hands steady because I have decided that Bex is mine and I’m done pretending otherwise.
She looks up and sees me.
Her hands go still on the bandage.
She knows. I can see it in the way her body responds—the slight straightening, the breath that catches, the shift in her weight toward me even though she hasn’t moved her feet.
She reads me the way she reads horses—instinct, attention, the ability to sense a change in energy before it becomes action.
And whatever she sees on my face right now is telling her exactly what I came here to do.
“Lee.” My name. Half question, half answer.
I close the stall door behind me.
She stands.
The bandage falls from her hand.
