"Perfect sense."
The quiet she meant was everywhere—cattle lowing in the distance, hawks crying overhead, the creak of saddle leather, the steady four-beat rhythm of hooves on packed earth. Wind through the mesquite trees making them whisper secrets. A mockingbird running through its entire repertoire from a fence post. Life happening without cameras, without agenda, without anyone trying to package and sell it.
We rode the fence line slowly, me pointing out where repairs were needed, Stephy asking questions about ranching. How did you know when to rotate pastures? What did the different grass types mean? Why did some sections have electric fencing and others just wire?
And I answered them all.
"You really love this," she smiled, watching me dismount to tighten a sagging wire. I wrapped the loose end around the post, using the fence pliers to twist it tight, feeling the satisfaction of something fixable being fixed. "The ranch. The work. All of it."
"It's honest," I said, testing the wire's tension. "You fix something, it stays fixed until weather or cattle mess it up again. You take care of the land, it takes care of you. No politics, no games, no backstabbing or image management. Just work and results."
"Must be nice." There was a wistfulness in her voice that made me look up.
She was silhouetted against the sky, hair escaping from her ponytail to catch the light like copper wire, looking like something out of a dream. Or maybe a memory—the girl she'dbeen before Nashville, before LA, before the world tried to package her into something sellable. Just Stephy on a horse, beautiful in her simplicity.
I’d never loved her more than I did in this moment. Seeing her on my land, on the horse I got for her, looking peaceful—content even. Sun in her golden hair, face free of all that expensive makeup they caked on her, clothes simple.
"Having something that's exactly what it appears to be."
I nodded. Just once. Her smile in return was soft. An unspoken conversation that had nothing to do with the land and everything to do with her.
We rode on, following the fence until it met the creek. Copper Creek, the town’s namesake, ran clear and cold from the recent rain. The water gurgled over limestone rocks worn smooth by centuries of flow, creating little pools where perch and sunfish hid in the shadows. Huge oak trees lined the banks, their branches creating a cathedral ceiling of green.
I slid off the horse first, then reached up. Stephy placed her hands on my shoulders, trusting me in a way that tightened something low within me. When I lifted her, her body skimmed mine—warm, soft—and she let out a tiny, surprised breath that I felt more than heard.
She landed close. Too close. Close enough that I caught her scent—lavender soap, wild grass, and the kind of sweetness that made a man want to stay right where he was.
“Jelly legs,” she laughed, gripping my arms as her knees threatened mutiny. “Why didn’t you warn me about jelly legs?”
“Because it’s adorable,” I murmured. “Like a newborn colt trying to pretend it’s graceful.”
She swatted my chest, but was laughing. We let the horses drink while we sat on a boulder that had been there since I was a kid—a huge piece of limestone, worn smooth on top from generations of Blackwood kids sitting on it. The shade from theoaks made the temperature drop ten degrees, and the sound of water over rocks created nature's white noise.
"Wyatt and I used to come here to fish," I said, picking up a flat stone and skipping it across a calm pool. Three skips before it sank. "Never caught anything worth eating, but that wasn't really the point."
"What was the point?"
"Being brothers. Being quiet. Being away from everything." I found another stone, smooth and perfect. "I used to come here after Mom and Dad died, too. When Soph and I first moved here, I mean. I’d sit right here and try to make sense of it."
Stephy's hand found mine without hesitation, our fingers interlacing naturally as breathing. Her palm was warm, a little rough from the reins, perfect against mine. "Did you ever? Make sense of it?"
"No. But I learned to live with not making sense of it. Some things just happen, and you survive them, and eventually they become part of your story instead of the whole story."
She leaned into me, her head finding that spot on my shoulder that seemed designed for her, where the curve of her skull fit perfectly into the hollow below my collarbone. We sat like that, listening to the symphony of water and wind and birds. Her thumb traced patterns on my hand—circles, figure-eights, abstract designs that made my skin electric.
"I used to dream about this," she said quietly, her voice barely louder than the creek. "When I was in hotel rooms in cities I couldn't remember the names of. Places where everyone called me Stevie and nobody knew I was afraid of storms or that I can't eat strawberries or that my favorite movie is stillThe Princess Bride. I'd lie in those expensive beds with their too-many pillows and dream about sitting with you, just being quiet together."
I turned to look at her, and she was already looking at me. Those green eyes clear and deep as the water, holding nothing back. The sun through the leaves created patterns on her face, and I could see every freckle the LA makeup artists had hidden, every line that showed she'd laughed and cried and lived.
The pull between us was magnetic, inevitable as gravity. I could see her pulse fluttering at her throat like a trapped bird, watched her lips part slightly, unconsciously. She leaned in just a fraction, and her eyes started to close.
It would be so easy to kiss her. So right. So perfect. To taste that mouth I'd dreamed about for five years, to pull her against me and show her exactly how much I'd missed her, wanted her, loved her.
I pulled back, gentle but definite, and saw the flash of hurt in her eyes before understanding replaced it. The moment hung between us, charged and fragile.
"Not because I don't want to," I said quickly, needing her to understand. "God, Steph, I want to. I've wanted to since the moment I saw you on that porch in the morning sun. Hell, I've wanted to since Austin, since always. But you're still healing, and I won't... I can't be another person who takes something from you before you're ready to give it."
Her eyes filled with tears, but she was smiling, this soft, wondering thing that made my chest ache. "How are you real? How are you this good?"
