I knew how to carry this. I'd been carrying it for years.
But this loss was different. This one I'd chosen.
Sully shifted beside me, pressing closer. His head dropped onto my thigh, warm and heavy, and I let one hand fall from the steering wheel to rest on his neck.
"It's just us again, buddy," I said quietly. "For now."
For now meant there was still a chance—however small, however fragile—that Maggie would read my note and understand. That she'd get in her truck and come find me, and when she did, she'd be ready to choose me out loud.
I pointed the truck north and drove.
The road stretched ahead, empty and familiar. Texas giving way to Oklahoma, eventually to Kansas, eventually to wherever I decided to stop. Sully slept in the passenger seat, and I drove with the steady rhythm I'd grown used to over years of running.
Maggie had made me stop running. She'd made me want to stay—not just at Blackwood Ranch, but in one place, one life, onefuture. She'd made me believe I could have what my parents had. What Owen and Louisa had.
And then she'd introduced me as the ranch hand.
I understood why. But understanding didn't change what I needed—to be chosen. Out loud and in public, without shame or hesitation.
God, I hoped she'd come.
Sully made a soft sound beside me. I rubbed behind his ears without taking my eyes off the road.
"I don't know, buddy," I said. "I don't know if she'll come."
But I hoped.
The miles stretched out ahead, endless and empty. I didn't know what came next. But I knew one thing: I wouldn't stop loving her. Not today, not tomorrow, not if I drove to the other side of the country and never looked back.
Maggie Blackwood was written into my bones now. Whatever happened next, that would never change.
20
Maggie
I woke slowly, reaching for warmth that wasn't there.
My hand found empty sheets. Cold sheets. No weight beside me. No steady rhythm of breathing that I'd fallen asleep listening to, counting like heartbeats, letting it lull me into the deepest sleep I'd had in weeks.
For a moment, I kept my eyes closed. Told myself he'd just gotten up to use the bathroom. To make coffee. To let Sully out. Any of the dozen small rituals that had become familiar over the past weeks, the little intimacies I pretended not to notice and secretly treasured.
Jack always woke before me. Always slipped out of bed with that quiet efficiency, careful not to disturb me. Always had coffee waiting by the time I stumbled into consciousness. I'd complained about it once—told him I wasn't helpless, I could make my own damn coffee—and he'd just smiled and kept doing it anyway.
But the cabin was too quiet.
No coffee maker gurgling. No soft pad of footsteps. No Sully's nails clicking against the hardwood as he followed Jack around, loyal shadow that he was. No low murmur of Jack's voice ashe talked to the dog—those one-sided conversations I'd pretend I couldn't hear, the soft way he spoke to Sully like the dog understood every word.
Just silence. Heavy and wrong and absolute.
I opened my eyes.
The room was bright with morning light—later than I usually slept, which meant Jack had let me rest. Had tucked the blankets around me before he left, the way he sometimes did. Had probably stood in the doorway watching me sleep for a moment, that soft expression on his face that made my heart do stupid things.
Except his boots weren't by the door.
His shirt wasn't draped over the chair where he always left it.
The coffee maker sat cold and dark on the counter.
