I made it halfway to the barn before I had to stop and breathe. The note in my pocket felt heavier than it should—a few ounces of paper carrying the weight of everything I'd lost. I wanted to turn around. Wanted to get in my truck and drive until I found him. Wanted to be the brave woman Jack believed I could be.
Instead, I kept walking toward the barn.
But somewhere underneath the armor, something was shifting. Cracking. Making room for the terrifying possibility that who I was might not be who I wanted to be anymore. That the walls I'd built weren't protecting me—they were trapping me. That safety wasn't the same as happiness, and surviving wasn't the same as living.
Jack had shown me what living could look like. And even though he was gone—even though I'd driven him away with my cowardice—I couldn't unsee it.
I couldn't unfeel it.
The question now was what I was going to do about it.
21
Maggie
The morning was a disaster I refused to acknowledge.
I threw myself into work like my life depended on it. Check the feed schedules. Review the irrigation timeline. Walk the fence line near the north pasture. Keep moving. Keep busy. Don't think about the empty cabin. Don't think about the note burning a hole in my pocket. Don't think about Jack driving away while I slept, putting miles between us with every passing minute.
Don't think. Just work.
It almost worked. For about an hour.
I reorganized the supply room that didn't need reorganizing. Updated the vaccination records that were already current. Made a list of repairs that could wait until spring and then starred half of them as urgent anyway. When thoughts of Jack tried to creep in, I shoved them down and found something else to do.
I snapped at two cowboys before eight a.m.
The first one was five minutes late—five minutes, which on any other day I wouldn't have noticed. He backed away with both hands raised, muttering an apology he didn't owe me. Iwatched him retreat toward the parking lot and couldn't make myself care.
I kept moving.
I rewrote the day's schedule three times, each version more aggressive than the last. The whiteboard in the office looked like a battle plan instead of a work roster—tasks stacked on tasks, no breaks, no room for error. When a ranch hand asked a simple question about feed delivery, I bit his head off so thoroughly that he retreated without another word.
My eyes stayed dry through sheer force of will—because if I started crying now, in front of everyone, I might never stop.
No one knew what was wrong. No one dared ask.
I moved through the morning with my spine locked straight and my face carefully blank, because if I let even one crack show, I'd shatter into a thousand pieces right there in the dirt. The nausea sat low in my stomach—that awful churning that comes when you know you've broken something and everyone's about to find out. I smiled when I had to. Gave orders. Checked things off lists. Performed the role of Maggie Blackwood, woman who has her shit together, while my insides liquefied with shame.
No one could see. No one could know I'd fucked this up.
Until Wyatt.
He approached mid-morning, concern flickering beneath his usual intensity. He fell into step beside me as I stalked toward the barn, his voice careful in a way that told me he was trying not to spook me. "You okay, Mags?"
"Fine." The word came out like a blade. "Just busy."
He studied me for a long moment. He'd seen me stressed, angry, exhausted. He'd never seen me like this. "Have you seen Jack this morning? I wanted to?—"
"He's gone."
Wyatt blinked. "Gone? What do you mean, gone? Did something?—"
"What part ofgoneis confusing to you, Wyatt?" The words ripped out of me, louder than I intended, sharp enough to draw glances from across the yard. "He left. He's not here. There's nothing else to say about it, so can you please just—" I stopped. Pressed my hand to my forehead. The silence around us was deafening. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—I'm sorry."
"It's okay. We're good,” he said straight away. But his eyes said something else entirely. Something careful and worried and far too knowing.
He retreated. Smart man.
