And she was right.
I go to the window. The sky's starting to lighten to that pre-dawn gray that turns everything soft and uncertain. The outline of the cabins are visible from here, dark shapes against darker hills. Cabin 5 has a light on.
She's awake too.
The thought squeezes my ribs. I press my palm flat against the window glass and count the way my brother Alban back in Granitehart Ridge taught me years ago when the nightmares got bad. Four in. Hold. Four out. It doesn't help. Nothing helps except the plan I made at three a.m. when I finally stopped pretending I'd sleep.
Two weeks. I have that long to prove this is real. To prove I'm not some spring break memory she's embarrassed about. To prove that what we had wasn't just good. It was right, the kind of right you don't find twice.
I dress in jeans and a work shirt after showering, my hands shaking while I button it. Ridiculous. I'm forty-five years old, not some kid with his first crush. But my body doesn't care about logic. It remembers her hands in my hair, the sound she made when I kissed her neck, the way she looked at the sunrise with her face tilted toward the light. Her horse spooked on the second day, and she played the panic off with a sharp laugh. She white-knuckled the saddle horn and called it embarrassing, which was her way of apologizing for being human enough to be afraid.
In the kitchen, I make two mugs of coffee, black. Add a splash of milk to one. My phone buzzes on the counter. Alban.
Three rings before I answer.
"You sounded weird a couple days ago," he says instead of hello. "What's going on?"
Bracing my hip against the counter, I close my eyes. "She's here."
Silence. Then: "Spring break girl?"
"Her name's Sloane." The phone shifts in my grip. "She checked in yesterday. Corporate wellness program, here for two weeks."
"Holy shit." Movement on his end, probably getting ready for a mountain patrol. "She came back?"
"She didn't know it was the same ranch." The words are difficult on my tongue. "Didn't know I'd be here."
"But she stayed."
"She didn't have a choice. Her company mandated it."
More silence. Alban's good at letting quiet do the heavy lifting. Finally: "What are you going to do?"
"I've been lying to myself for seventeen years, Alban. Telling myself I moved on. The second I saw her name on the guest list, every wall came down."
"Good."
My eyes open. "Good?"
"When you know, you know." His voice goes firm. "And when you know, you act. That's what Dad always said."
The porch light at Cabin 5 is a lonely beacon in the dark, and I know she’s behind that door, likely halfway to calling a rideshare already. "Suppose I give it everything," I say, the admission aching in my chest, "and she still walks?"
"Have you said the words yet, flat-out told her you fell in love with her back then?"
"No."
"Then what are you waiting for?"
"She’s spooked at being here. I can see it in the way she won't meet my gaze. If I press her now, she’s gone before she’s even unpacked. I have to let her find her own way back, or I’ll lose her for good."
Alban’s voice drops an octave, the grit of hard-won wisdom cutting through the static. "Show her the life she could have. Every sunrise, every broken fence, every night on the ranch. Ialmost let Neve walk because I thought silence was strength. It wasn't. It was just cowardice. Don’t let her go without a mark on her heart."
His warning anchors itself in my chest, solid and immovable. The indecision that’s been eating at me since I saw her name on the roster finally starves to death. I know exactly what I have to do, and I know I can't wait another hour to do it. I nod even though he can't see me. "I won't."
"Call me if you need backup. Neve will want to meet her."
I almost smile. "Tell your wife she can't have her before I do."
