Mav grinned. ‘Wanna tell her that?’
Benji wasn’t upset enough to stop his smile from spreading. ‘Hell no.’
Mav clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I’m not going to preach. Just … I dunno. Don’t be afraid to fightwithher instead offorher all the time.’
Sierra knew that they must have been having a serious discussion by the way Benji looked so sad, and still, the moment he reached her on the dance floor, he forced a smile and grabbing her hand, twirled her. When she laughed, he did it again, but this time, he stepped to her and stopped her body with his own so that she was pressed against him.
The band had transitioned to ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ by Chris Stapleton, and Sierra and Benji danced, their bodies melding together and moving completely in sync. His big hands held her gently, one linked with hers and pressed between them, against his chest, one riding low on her back.
Sierra closed her eyes and let him lead her, completely trusting that he would carry them both through the steps. She had forgotten that they had once loved to dance, and now, with the happiness from the day in her heart and Benji’s familiar body warming her in the cold winter night, she regretted that they had lost all those little, unthought of joys. Things like dancing and joking and teasing and holding hands.
As they twirled under the oak tree, Sierra realized that sometime in the past year, the old swing had fallen down. She hadn’t even noticed.
The list of things they’d lost without noticing went on.
And although she knew that it was pointless to look back on things she couldn’t change, Sierra desperately wanted to find them again. ‘We need to hang a new swing from the tree,’ she said. ‘It’s a crime that Poppy doesn’t have one.’
Benji glanced back to where the old swing used to hang. He nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. I’ll see what I can do.’
And wasn’t it so simple for him – to give, to love?
Sierra wanted that.
She wanted to heal.
She wanted to move forward.
She wanted to live.
Chapter 24
Hunt Ranch, Santa Barbara County – December, 2025
A few days later, Sierra stood in the arena dressed in jeans and boots, and shouted, ‘Stop holding her back, Skye!’ The horse and rider turned the barrel far too close, so that by the time they were taking the straight, they’d lost a full second trying to avoid the barrel and realign Smokey’s body. It might not have mattered now, but in a competition, every mistake added time.
Sierra waited for them to come to a halt right in front of her before looking up at Skye. ‘You’re still afraid.’
‘I—’
Sierra held up one hand, cutting the other woman off. ‘You’re still afraid,’ she repeated. ‘And, Skye, that is completely normal. It’s rational. But other than that, you ladies have everything else you need to get the times you want. I can’t train you not to be afraid. That’s something you’re going to have to work on yourself.’
Skye slumped in the saddle, dejected. She toyed anxiously with Smokey’s mane. ‘I’ve only fallen off once before …’
Sierra nodded. ‘It’s always terrifying.’
It didn’t matter how good a horseman a person was, if you rode every day, eventually you would fall off or get thrown when your horse spooked at a shadow or something else stupid happened. It was the one thing everyone raised on horses understood.
‘It took me two weeks to get back on,’ Skye admitted. She sighed. ‘I can’t lose this – riding. It’s my life, you know. It saved me.’
Sierra nodded. There was a time when she would have said the same thing, when she couldn’t have imagined going even a day without a ride. ‘Maybe you don’t compete then. Maybe it’s enough to just race in training. To have fun.’ She shrugged. ‘It was for me.’
‘Yeah, but you weren’t afraid. I’m afraid, and I don’t like knowing thatthat’swhat’s stopping me.’
Sierra thought about that for a long moment: the subtle difference between choosing not to do something because you simply didn’t want to and avoiding doing it because you were afraid.
How many things had she given up on in the past year because she was too afraid? Too afraid to trust, to love, to live. Too afraid to move forward. Instead, she had cocooned herself in safety, in a sterile environment in which she controlled every aspect of her life and avoided all those risky variables that living came with.
Too many times.
