The drive itself had been cleared, so I was able to navigate it with more ease than the main road. I still kept both hands on the wheel, though. No need to tempt fate. Not when I'd already had more than my share of bad luck today.
A light was on at the main house. I recognized it as the one for the living room, warm and golden against the darkness.
Someone was awake.
My heart lifted despite everything, hope flickering to life like a candle in a window.
The only question was who.
CHAPTER
TWO
Simon
“Easy, girl,” I murmured, running both hands down Ginger’s neck, feeling the warmth of her coat beneath my palms.
The mare was restless tonight, shifting her weight from hoof to hoof as if she could sense the storm rolling through the valley. Her ears flicked toward every sound, her breath clouding the cold air between us.
“It’s alright,” I told her softly, letting my tone settle into something calm and steady. “Just the snow coming down again.”
Outside, the world was white. Snowflakes drifted past the barn door, glinting in the lantern light before disappearing into the night. The storm wasn’t fierce. It was rather persistent though.
It had been snowing since late afternoon, the kind of slow, steady fall that promised the roads would be impassable by morning.
Calling it a storm was an exaggeration, but to Ginger, any change in weather was a reason to fuss. I couldn’t blame her. I’d been feeling that same restlessness all evening. Something lowand quiet, the type of energy that hums under the skin when the night gets too still.
At least, that’s what I felt whenever I got too still. Movement was how I kept myself steady. How I kept myself calm.
I ran a hand over her mane, the scent of hay and leather thick in the air. “You’d think after all this time, we’d both be used to it.”
The barn creaked in response, settling into the cold. Wind slipped through the cracks, a reminder of how old this place was, but also of how steady it could be. It was peaceful in its way.
It also made me ache a little.
This place had become my whole world. Two years ago, when I arrived at Coleman Ranch, I didn’t expect it to feel like home. I just needed work, a roof, and something to fill the long hours that grief left hollow.
I’d heard good things about the place. About how Atticus and the others made sure it was inclusive and how they looked out for their people.
I’d been a stranger then, rough around the edges, weighed down by things I didn’t talk about. But the rhythm of ranch life had a way of easing you back into the world. There was something healing about the routine.
Feeding the horses, mending fences, watching the land shift through the seasons. It all gave you purpose.
“It’s like riding a bike,” Bobby Allen had told me when I first started helping with the horses, which was his specialty. “You never really forget.”
He’d been right. Before long, I was back in the groove, spending my mornings out in the stables and my evenings in the fields.
Everyone here carried something—scars that didn’t show, stories they didn’t tell. We were all, in our own ways, healing.
And for the first time in years, I wasn’t the only one trying to put myself back together.
I brushed my thumb over Ginger’s bridle and sighed. “You’re lucky, you know that? You don’t have to think so much about what’s gone.”
She snorted, flicking her tail. I smiled despite myself.
When I’d first come here, I hadn’t expected to find family again. I hadn’t expected anything, really. I was just trying to survive. Losing Wren had gutted me in a way I didn’t have words for. The world had gone quiet after he passed, like someone had turned the sound down on everything.
He’d been sick for a long time. Too long.
