Now I'm stretched between two places. Clark Ranch during the day—every day. My family's ranch whenever I can squeeze it in. Dad runs it mostly, but he's getting older, needs help I can't always give.
Long nights. Short sleep. Never enough hours for either place.
That's why I brought Chace in. After the accident, he needed something solid, somewhere he could work without the pressure of proving anything. And Clark Ranch made sense—he'd worked there for Hazel's dad before the circuit, knew the land, knew the rhythm. I guess technically he worked for my dad’s ranch, but the extra hands at Clark Ranch help.
It helped both of us. I needed reliable help. He needed purpose.
Or it did help. Until Hazel came back and everything got complicated.
I shift my weight and finally let myself look at her again.
She's laughing now, head tipped back, the sound carrying just enough to hit me square in the chest. I remember that laugh—summer nights after long days, the four of us sprawled in the bed of someone's truck, talking about nothing and everything. Her laugh was the best sound, uninhibited and genuine, the kind that made everyone else start laughing too.
I haven't heard it in five years. Now Chace gets it. Gets her ease, her warmth, her presence.
And I get her walls.
She doesn't get to slide into the rhythm we all bled to maintain and act like the past is something we can politely ignore. And she sure as hell doesn't get to pretend there wasn't something between us.
I shouldn't have yelled at her about the colt. The danger was real, but so was the anger I've been carrying for five years. Watching her step in like she belonged there—it cracked something open.
I scrub a hand over my jaw, guilt creeping in despite my best efforts. I shouldn't have yelled at her like that, shouldn't have dressed her down in front of Chace, shouldn't have made her feel small on her own family's land. Mae would've been disappointed in me. Hazel's dad would've been too.
But damn it, she makes it hard to be fair.
And then the rodeo. I shouldn't have told her she couldn't come. The second the words left my mouth, I knew it was a mistake, knew how she'd take it, knew exactly what fire I was lighting.
But I couldn't help it. The thought of her here—at our rodeo, with our people, slipping back into the life she abandoned like she'd earned the right—made something snap inside me.
She doesn't get to just show up and reclaim everything. Not without acknowledging what she left behind.
Not without acknowledging me.
The music swells, the announcer's voice cutting through the air as the next event is called. Around me, people cheer and shift, moving toward the stands.
Across the grounds, Hazel lifts her chin and scans the crowd. For half a second—just long enough to feel dangerous—her eyes land on me.
Something flickers there—heat, challenge, something I recognize too well.
Then she turns away, dismissing me like I'm nothing.
I exhale slowly, heat crawling up the back of my neck—longing mixed with fury, tangled so tight I can't separate them.
Fine. If she wants to pretend she didn't blow my world apart five years ago, I can play that game too.
I'm not done being angry. Not yet.
Not until she understands what it cost to keep this place standing while she was gone.
Not until she sees what she walked away from.
Chapter six
Hazel
The rodeo hits me all at once.
I hadn't realized how much I'd missed it until I'm standing in the middle of it, surrounded by sound and movement and the low, vibrating hum of something that lives in my bones. The announcer's voice crackles over the speakers. Boots scuff dirt. Laughter rises and falls in loose waves, and somewhere nearby a horse snorts, impatient and familiar.
