“I’m more worried about you getting back.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“If it gets too bad you could stay at mine.”
“I’ve got Ollie to get back to.”
“We could bring him.”
Cole stopped at the end of the driveway. He looked at her for a moment, long enough that she felt it.
“Aftyn. We both know you’re leaving. There’s no point in drawing it out.” He pulled onto the road.
She had nothing to say to that, because he wasn’t wrong. This was it. This was goodbye, and it was happening whether she was ready for it or not. She turned toward the window and blinked hard and watched the snow and didn’t say another word the whole way into town.
Chapter Fourteen
Monday morning Cole stood at the rail watching Landon try to work the chestnut mare again. She was having none of it. She reared back, sweat gleaming on her coat, and put Landon on the sawdust floor with a thud that echoed through the barn.
The snow had stopped overnight and left everything clean and bright under a sharp winter sun. He could see Mr. Barton out on his ancient blue tractor, working his way down the road clearing driveways the way he did every time it snowed, refusing payment the same way he always did, waving it off with a calloused hand and accepting nothing but a hot cup of black coffee. Cole had always liked that about him.
He leaned against the rail and let his mind go where it had been going all morning. Aftyn. The way she’d looked last night when he dropped her off, her breath clouding in the cold air as she told him she’d go see Sam after the breakfast rush. He’d almost asked her to call him after. The words had made it as far as his throat before he let them go.
The hollow feeling in his chest had been there since yesterday and ranch work wasn’t touching it.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
“Something wrong?” Rio came up beside him, boots quiet on the scattered hay.
“No.”
“You going with that.”
Cole’s grip tightened on the rail. “What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say you’re going to talk to her before she leaves.” Rio kept his voice easy. “Just ask her to stay.”
“We had an agreement.”
“Agreements change. You’re in love with her, Cole.”
He started to shake his head and then didn’t. His shoulders dropped. “Yeah. Doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes everything. You’d rather be miserable than swallow a little pride and have an honest conversation with her.”
Cole looked at him in the morning light, the exhaustion on his own face probably plain enough. “I’m too chickenshit.”
“Then man up and—” Rio stopped. His eyes went to the barn entrance where light was spilling in through the opening doors. “What the hell is she doing here?”
“Who?” Cole turned and felt his stomach drop. Callie was framed in the barn doorway, her perfume already reaching him across the space. “Son of a bitch.”
“Get rid of her,” Rio said. “Then go find Aftyn.”
Cole shot him a look and walked toward her, shoulders set, jaw tight. She stopped when she saw him coming and offered that smile he’d once found disarming. Right now, it landed differently.
“Good morning,” she said, her voice warm and practiced.
“What are you doing here, Callie?”
