She lingers by the door for a moment before opening it. “You’re gonna be alright, you know. You were always tougher than you looked. Got a lot of Alice in you. Your daddy, too.”
I don’t answer.
Dawn doesn’t say anything else. Just nods once, mouth pressed in a hard line, and walks out the door.
I don’t move right away. The sound of her footsteps fading into the hallway hits me harder than I expect, like something in my chest is shifting out of place, like the silence she leaves behind is louder than her voice ever was.
I let out a breath—tight, shaking—and press my hand to my mouth to keep the cry from escaping.
God, this hurts.
This is the part no one tells you about when they talk about running your own business. They talk about freedom and building something and chasing a dream. Not about how it feels to cut out someone who’s been part of the bones of a place. Someone you loved. Someone who let you down.
My eyes sting. I wipe them fast, fingertips swiping away the wetness before it can fall. I grab my purse and keys off the hook, slip out the back door before anyone can ask me where I’m going, and slide into the car.
The second the door shuts, the quiet swells.
I sit there for a second, hands gripping the wheel, my forehead resting lightly against it. What I want, more than anything, is Boone.
His voice. His arms. The steadiness in him that always finds me when I can’t find myself.
My chest aches with it—how badly I want to see him, to feel him, to know I’m not carrying this alone. He has this way of making the worst things feel survivable just by being nearby. Like nothing’s too big when he’s around.
I shift into drive and head toward the ranch.
That place feels like mine now. Not out of nostalgia or memory, but because of what it holds—my son’s laughter echoing through the barn, the smell of Molly’s cookies drifting out the kitchen window, Boone’s work boots by the door next to mine. The way Hudson leans into Boone when he’s tired, how he runs through the fields like the world is brand new and his for the taking.
It’s not just land and fences and livestock anymore.
It’s late dinners on the porch. It’s watching Hudson pitch in the front yard with Boone. It’s riding Moose until my thighs ache, then sitting in the grass and letting the sun kiss the back of my neck while Boone leans over me and says something quiet that makes me laugh.
It’s home. Not because I grew up near it, but because I grew into it.
And today, when everything feels just a little too heavy, it’s the only place I want to be.
********
By the time I pull up to the main house, my chest feels like it’s been scraped raw.
I sit there for a second, hands still gripping the steering wheel, trying to decide if I want to cry, sleep, or crawl under the covers and stay there until next spring.
Instead, I take a breath, push the door open, and step into the quiet.
The second I cross the threshold, something hits me hard enough to stop me in my tracks.
It smells like Molly’s chicken and dumplings.
My stomach turns with something that’s not quite hunger. Maybe relief. Maybe disbelief. The house is still, no voices echoing down the hallway, no boots stomping around the porch. Everyone’s probably out on the ranch or having lunch at Loretta’s. Which makes the timing of this even more—
I step into the kitchen and stop cold.
The table is covered in a soft, cream-colored tablecloth I didn’t even know Molly owned. Two tall candles burn at the center, little flickers of gold dancing in the daylight. The plates are the nice ones—real china with pale blue flowers around the rim—and next to each of them sits a glass of wine and a can of Diet Coke.
There’s a speaker on the counter, something old and tinny crooning from it softly—Fleetwood Mac, maybe. My eyes drift to the stove, where Boone’s standing in jeans and a T-shirt, one of Molly’s aprons tied around his waist.
He’s stirring something in a pot, completely unbothered, like this is something he does every Tuesday.
There’s a plate of cinnamon crumb cake cooling on the counter behind him. My favorite dessert. I know it without even tasting it because the smell alone nearly drops me to my knees.
