I shift closer, the wooden swing groaning slightly beneath us. “Maybe you had to leave first to find your way back.”
She turns her head, our eyes meeting. There’s no deflection this time. No sass to hide behind. Just Avery. Brave and vulnerable and heartbreakingly real.
“I don’t want to waste any more time,” she murmurs.
My chest tightens. “Then don’t.”
She stands suddenly, stepping away from the swing, and I think for a heartbeat she’s going to bolt, retreat into whatever fortress she’s lived in for the past decade. But then she stops, turns, and holds out her hand.
I take it.
We don’t speak as we cross the porch, as she leads me around the side of the house where the moonlight falls soft across the wide yard. Crickets sing in the tall grass. The scent of hay and wildflowers drifts on the breeze, but all I can focus on is her, her hand in mine, the nervous rise and fall of her chest.
We stop beneath the windmill, the same one I used to sneak under as a teenager when I needed to breathe. She looks up at me, her features half in shadow, half in light. And I swear I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than the mess of emotions playing across her face.
“I used to come here for comfort and quiet, just look out over the ranch from this spot," She looks up at me suddenly, I’m scared,” she whispers.
I nod. “Me too.”
And then I pull her in.
Her arms wrap around my waist like she’s afraid I’ll vanish if she doesn’t hold on tight enough. I bury my face in her hair, breathing her in, strawberries and sunshine and something purely Avery. Her heartbeat thunders against my chest, fast and wild, syncing with mine like they’ve always been meant to meet here, in this exact moment.
“I’m here,” I murmur into her hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She nods against me, her fingers fisting in the back of my shirt. “Good. Because I don’t think I can do this alone.”
“You’re not alone.”
And we stay like that, wrapped up in each other, hearts exposed, the whole world shrinking to the space between us. No more running. No more pretending. Just her and me and the promise of something real.
Chapter sixteen
In the Wake of Forgiveness
Avery
The morning sun slices through the bedroom curtains, warm and golden and too damn honest.
The air smells faintly of hay and old wood, the scent of home slowly winning out over city polish. Outside, I hear the soft whicker of horses in the distance, a rooster crowing from somewhere near the barn, and the rhythmic thud of boots on gravel, Ranch hands, probably already halfway through the morning chores.
The hum of the ranch waking up wraps around me like a heartbeat, steady and grounding. Cash’s scent lingering like the ghost of everything we said under the stars. I sit up slowly, the ache in my chest not from regret, but from something deeper. Relief. Peace. Maybe even love.
I pad across the room, tug on a hoodie over my tank top, and follow the faint hum of voices toward the kitchen. Emmy’s giggle rings out, light and free, and I find her perched on the counter, swinging her legswhile Cash flips pancakes like he was born with a spatula in hand.
“Morning, sunshine,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. That look, soft and steady, hits me harder than any grand gesture. Because this? This is real. And maybe I don’t have to keep running anymore.
After breakfast, I find myself wandering toward the study, the room I used to avoid like the plague. But something inside me knows it’s time. Time to face what Dad left behind, without the bitterness clouding everything.
The old leather chair creaks as I sit, dust motes dancing in the air like memories refusing to settle. I open the bottom drawer of the desk, the same one I tore apart weeks ago but stopped looking after I found the last letter. But this time, I spot something more, a slim, leather-bound journal tucked beneath a stack of tax folders.
My breath catches.
The first page is blank. The second… not so much.
“To my daughter, who will hate me before she understands me.”
I close my eyes. His handwriting loops and slants just like it did on the birthday cards he never forgot to send, even the year I swore I wouldn’t open it.
