"Don't forget the part where your pants split," Bradley adds, and everyone laughs.
I should be mortified, but all I can focus on is Mia's face—how it's lit up with genuine amusement, how she's leaning forward with her chin propped on her hand, completely absorbed in these stories from my past. There's no trace of the broken woman I held through tears yesterday. This version of Mia, laughing at my teenage humiliations, fits seamlessly with my family in a way I never expected.
"What about the time Sebastian decided to perform surgery on Bradley's teddy bear?" Dad asks, reaching for the coffee pot. "What was that bear's name?"
"Bart," Bradley says. "And it wasn't surgery, it was a damn autopsy. Complete with little labels made of paper."
Mia turns to me, eyebrows raised. "How old were you?"
"Seven," I admit. "Already knew I wanted to be a doctor."
"He stuffed that bear with fresh cotton and sewed it back up," Dad adds. "Even made a little surgical mask out of Ruthie’s dish towel."
Throughout the meal, I watch Mia more than I take part in conversation. The way she laughs with her whole body when Sawyer tells her about the time Bradley and I got stuck on the roof during a thunderstorm. How she leans in when Hailey starts talking about moving to Montana. The gentle way she thanks Ruthie for the food, earning herself an approving nod from the woman who's been more mother to us than housekeeper.
Mia catches me staring and raises an eyebrow. "What?"
"Nothing," I say, but it's everything.
Watching her here, surrounded by the pieces of my past that I've kept separate from my life in the city, I'm struck by an absolute certainty that steals my breath. This woman—brilliant, fierce, compassionate Mia with her wild curls and wilder heart—is it for me. She's my person. My future. My forever.
The realization should terrify me. Instead, it settles in my chest like the most natural thing in the world, as inevitable as sunrise over the Montana mountains. As if my heart has just been waiting for her to show up and claim the space that's always been hers.
"Your face is doing something weird," she whispers, leaning in close. "You okay?"
I reach under the table, find her hand, and thread our fingers together. "Never better," I tell her, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, it's the absolute truth.
Chapter 37
Mia
The creek water sparkles in the afternoon sun as it washes over the smooth stones. Digging my toes into the checkered blanket beneath me, I watch Sebastian cast his fishing line with an easy grace I've never seen in him before. Here, away from the hospital, his shoulders have lost that constant tension. He says something to Bradley that I can't quite hear, and his brother's responding laugh carries across the water, unfamiliar and yet somehow right. Like pieces of a puzzle finally finding their proper place.
I reach my hand toward the creek, letting my fingers trail through the icy water. The cold bites at my skin, but I welcome the sensation—something real and immediate that anchors me to this moment, to this place so far removed from the chaos of my life just days ago. My mind still flashes to Cheryl's still form, to the monitors gone dark, to my own hands pushing uselessly against her chest. But those images feel more distant here, like photographs fading in the sun.
"You look deep in thought," Hailey says, settling onto the blanket beside me. Her dark hair is pulled back in a loose pony with wisps escaping around her face in the gentle breeze.
"Just appreciating the quiet," I tell her, pulling my hand from the water. "This place is so different from the city."
Sebastian glances back at me from where he stands thigh-deep in the creek, his fishing waders making his legs look comically bulky compared to his trim torso. The smile he sends me is small but loaded with meaning—checking in without hovering. I wave, signaling I'm okay, and he turns back to his conversation with Bradley, who's demonstrating some complicated-looking cast.
"I imagine it's quite the change of pace," Hailey says, pulling a water bottle from a small cooler. She offers it to me before taking one for herself.
“It is,” I reply, unscrewing the cap. My gaze is still on Sebastian when my next words slip out, "He's different here." On cue Sebastian’s head tips back as he laughs at something his brother says. "I'm seeing all kinds of new sides to him."
"Montana has a way of stripping away the pretenses," Hailey says, her voice taking on a wistful quality. "When I first came here, I thought I'd never adjust. Everything felt too big, too quiet, too... real."
Her words catch my attention, and I turn to study her profile. There's something in her expression—a hint of hard-earned wisdom—that makes me curious. "What brought you to Walker Ranch?"
"A job listing," she says with a small smile. "And the desperate need to be somewhere, anywhere, else." She doesn't elaborate, and I don't push. We all have our reasons for running.
“Do you ever regret it?” I ask, dipping my fingers back into the creek to draw lazy circles in the water. “Coming here?"
She's quiet for a moment, her gaze drifting across the creek to where Bradley is showing Sebastian how to adjust his grip on thefishing rod. There's something in the way she watches him that tells me more than her words ever could.
"It was the scariest thing I've done," she finally says. "But also the most rewarding." Her eyes flick back to mine. "Sometimes the things that terrify us most are exactly what we need."
Her words hit closer to home than she could possibly know. I think about Sierra Mercy, about the badge I threw at Henderson, about the career I might have destroyed in a moment of grief-stricken rage. The thought of going back, of facing those pitying looks and whispered conversations, makes my stomach clench.
