Our eyes met across the space, sunlight washing in from the windows at my right. The room seemed to narrow around that single moment, the noise pulling back, a sharp and unwelcome heat tightening under my ribs. His expression didn’t shift at all.
I tore my gaze away.
Mrs. Kowalski rested a warm hand on my shoulder. “Your uncle loved this place,” she said gently. “Wyatt said he wanted folks to gather somewhere Ray loved, and this felt right.”
My throat tightened. I didn’t want it to feel right. I didn’t want Wyatt to know anything about what Ray would’ve wanted. I didn’t want the floor under my feet to steady just because Wyatt prepared it. But it did. And I hated that almost as much as I hated how much I needed it.
As I moved through the room, people hugged me, pressed plates into my hands, and offered condolences that blurred together.
The food disappeared quickly, trays emptied and refilled by staff moving with quiet efficiency. Laughter mixed with tears. Stories drifted like smoke up toward the vaulted wooden beams. It should’ve been comforting. It wasn’t. It was too much. Too loud. Too kind. Too relentless.
I felt overwhelmed, untethered, as if the room kept shifting beneath my feet. Even with the fire glowing, none of the warmth seemed to reach my bones.
But every time I felt myself tipping toward the edge, I sensed Wyatt nearby. Never approaching. Never inserting himself. Just close enough to anchor.
I kept catching glimpses of him. Checking that the staff had enough trays prepared. Speaking quietly with olderranchers, steadying them when emotion caught them off guard. Adjusting a dimmer light so the room wasn’t so harsh. Pouring coffee for a widow whose hands shook too much to lift the pot herself. Standing near the fireplace while talking with the minister, posture relaxed but controlled, as if the entire room ran on the same quiet pulse he carried.
Each moment tightened something deep inside my chest. I hated that he made this easier. I hated the strange, unwanted softening in me every time my eyes drifted in his direction.
By the time the room emptied, the tension I’d been gripping dropped all at once, leaving me hollow and shaking. I finally turned to where he stood watching me from a careful distance.
He didn’t step forward or speak. He simply waited, steady and patient, like he understood something in me needed space to decide which emotion would surface first.
“You didn’t have to help me today,” I whispered.
“Yes, I did.”
The simplicity of it landed like a hand pressed firm and warm against my sternum, steadying something I hadn’t admitted was slipping.
“Do you want me to drive you home? ” he asked.
I wanted to tell him no, I wanted to tell him to leave me alone. I wanted to walk all the way back to the ranch in these terrible shoes before I let him see me shake again. But I was so tired. My body ached from holding itself together.
“That would be great, thank you,” I whispered. His jaw tightened like he hadn’t expected me to say yes. He reached into the pocket of his suit coat and pulled out a phone.
“Holt’s going to bring my truck; we can take yours. Then you don’t have to worry about figuring out how to get it home.”
He walked me to the truck withouttouching me. He opened the passenger door. I climbed in. He shut it gently, then rounded the hood and slid behind the wheel.
When we reached the ranch, he pulled up to the house and put the truck in park. I stared at the front steps for a long minute before I had the strength to move to the door.
“Thank you. For everything,” I said quietly.
Wyatt nodded once, expression unreadable. “Anytime.”
I stepped out of the truck, closed the door behind me, and walked toward the house. The grief pressed down on me again, but something else lingered beneath it.
Something I didn’t have the energy, or the courage, to name. I sank down the door once I made it inside, pulled my knees up to my chest, and sobbed.
Eleven
Wyatt
My truck rolled into Ray’s yard just as Tessa closed the front door behind her.
The house swallowed her up, the screen banging once and then settling. For a second, I just stood there in the gravel, staring at that closed door, my hands empty, my chest feeling like someone reached in and wrung it out.
Holt cut the engine, and the field settled into its usual sounds: a few heifers bawling in the back pasture, the faint rattle of the windmill that never quite spun right anymore. Holt climbed out, closed the door with a solid thunk, and squinted across the hood at me.
