“I’m fine,” I blurt reflexively, without turning to look at her. It’s a lie, but it’s easier than explaining the sudden absence of oxygen in my lungs. “I just need to go for a walk.”
I need space.
Teagan doesn’t press or follow. My boots hit the packed dirt harder than I intended, carrying me forward on instinct, toward the pasture, toward anywhere that isn’t right there, beside her—beside a future I’ve been pretending doesn’t terrify me. The thud echoes in the quiet of the morning. The ranch stretches out in front of me, wide and endless, the pasture painted gold by the rising sun. Normally, it calms me, but right now, it just reminds me of Rosie, standing in our kitchen.
My chest tightens, and my breaths come shallow and uneven as I walk faster, putting distance between myself and the bunkhouse.And Teagan’s concerned eyes.The space does nothing to quiet the sudden rush of guilt clawing its way up my throat. It hits hard and mercilessly, whispering the same things I’ve been telling myself since the moment I realized how attracted I was to Teagan. And again, when I realized she matters to me.
How can you do this?How can you care about someone else when Rosie doesn’t get to exist anymore?
I have never stopped loving Rosie. Not for a second. She lives in every memory; some of them still feel more real than the present. I loved her with everything I was. I built a life around that love. And some broken part of me has always believed that loving anyone else means I’ve betrayed her—that moving forward means leaving her behind.
And yet… there’s room in my heart for Teagan, too. I know, because I find myself caring about her more deeply with every passing day. That fact fills me with a different kind of shame. One that burns deeper. Teagan makes me a different man than the one I was with Rosie. Not better, just different, as I slowly see the world through different eyes. As much as I love feeling alive, part of me hates how easily it makes me forget the man I was when Rosie was here. The man who belonged entirely to her.
I drag a hand down my face and over my jaw, clenched tight enough that it aches.
I’m halfway to the barn when I hear my name. “Easton.”
I turn, finding James standing near the fence, his posture stiff, asalways.
“Fence line running along the driveway needs repair,” he says. “Could use another set of hands.”
It isn’t a request.It’s an offering.
I nod once. “I’ll grab my tools.”
We work in silence. The quiet between us isn’t uncomfortable. It’sfamiliar. James has been a man of few words since the day I met him. According to Teagan, that’s just who he is. He communicates through action and presence, talking only when necessary. The fence has sagged in several places, the posts worn loose from years of weather and strain. We move methodically, resetting them one by one.
“You seem different today,” he opines suddenly.
The words catch me off guard. I glance at him, but he doesn’t look up from his work.
“Just tired,” I answer.
He dips his chin, like I’ve given him the answer he expected, before fully returning to our work.
“I’ve been seein’ someone,” he shares nonchalantly as we reseat a post.
My head snaps up at his confession, while his stays rooted on our task. A fact that, based on what I can only imagine is a look of complete and utter shock on my face, I will be eternally grateful for.
“In town,” he adds. “For the past three years.”
The words feel enormous coming from him, as though he knew I needed them.
“You have?” I ask carefully.
“What? A man my age can’t date?”
His playful retort catches me off guard, and words blurt from me before I can stop them. “But… your wife?” Before they even fully spill from my mouth, I realize how hypocritical they are.
He drives another nail into the post, the sharp crack echoing across the ranch. “I still love my wife,” he says. “I’llalwayslove my wife.”
“How did you move on?”
“Move on?” he practically scoffs. “I didn’t move on. Icarriedon.” He places his gloved hand on my shoulder and gives it a reassuring paternal squeeze. “Love doesn’t replace love; it just makes it bigger.”
A gate clangs, the sharp metallic sound echoing across the pasture. James and I both look up instinctively to find Teagan in the paddock. She moves unhurriedly, the golden sun catching in her hair, as she leads Daisy toward the center of the field.
James follows my line of sight. He watches her for a long moment, his expression unreadable, before he tips his head faintly in her direction. “I think I’ve got it from here.”
