The main house was the only home base I'd ever had. Twelve years on the circuit — motel rooms, arena parking lots, Weston's couch, the back seat of my truck when the motels were full — and I'd always come back here between rides. Never had a reason to get my own place like the others. Wyatt and Ivy had theirs on the east side of the property. Liam and Stephanie had theirs. Maggie and Jack had the foreman's cottage. Even Hunter had renovated the apartment above his workshop two years ago, which Momma still hadn't forgiven him for. She'd raised seven kids in this house, and now it was just her and Dad and me rattling around in it, and the silence drove her crazy. She'd started talking about grandchildren with the subtlety of a woman placing a catering order — notifbutwhenandhow manyandI've already picked out the crib.
The thing was, I'd never minded coming back. Some guys on the circuit hated home — it felt small after the arenas, the noise, the road. For me, it was the opposite. The road was the job. This ranch — the creak of the stairs, the smell of Momma's kitchen, the sound of Dad's boots on the porch at five a.m. — was the reason the job made sense. You went out. You rode. You came back. That rhythm had been the backbone of my life since I was nineteen.
Now the riding was done, and I was just... back. With no departure date and no next event, and a body that was making it very clear that the rhythm had changed, whether I was ready or not.
Momma was already in the kitchen. Coffee made, biscuits in the oven, the morning light turning her hair golden at the edges. She was reading something on her phone with her glasses perched on her nose, and the whole scene was so bone-deephomethat it ached in a way my ribs couldn't account for.
"Morning, baby."
"Morning, Momma."
She looked up. Scanned me the way she always did — fast, thorough, missing nothing. Her eyes tracked the way I held my left arm, the stiffness in my walk, the careful way I lowered myself into the chair. She'd been watching me ride since forever. She knew the difference between Clay-after-a-good-ride and Clay-holding-himself-together-with-tape-and-pride.
She poured me coffee. Set it down with a biscuit and a look that saideat.
"Jack was telling me about the south pasture yesterday," she said, casual as weather. "Those quarter horses they brought in last spring — he's been watching a young mare that caught his eye. Good instincts, he says. Smart mover." She sipped her coffee. "Maggie's been talking about expanding the program for months. They've got good stock, but they need someone who can see the bigger picture. Someone who knows performance horses from the inside." She paused, light as air. "You've always had that eye, Clay. Even as a boy, you could look at an animal and see what it was going to be before anyone else could."
The sentence hung there. Casual on the surface. Deliberate as a chess move underneath.
I took a bite of biscuit and didn't respond, because responding to one of Momma's planted seeds was how you ended up watering it.
She smiled. She could wait.
Then she shifted gears with the seamless precision of a woman who'd been managing Blackwood men for three decades.
"The party was lovely. Everyone seemed to have a wonderful time." A sip of coffee. "That young woman Savannah brought — Callie? — she seemed very sweet."
I shot her a glare. ”Momma."
She shrugged innocently. ”I’m just saying she seemed nice."
"You're scheming."
"Oh hush, I am making conversation over breakfast." She looked at me over her glasses. "She has a lovely daughter. Maisie, wasn't it? The one who tried to bribe you with a lollipop?"
"And a hair ribbon. And her stuffed horse."
"And you made her a pinky promise about riding lessons."
My eyes narrowed at her. ”How do you know about the pinky promise?"
She smiled into her coffee mug — the smile that said the only reason we maintained the illusion of privacy was because she allowed it.
"I know everything, Clay."
She did. It was terrifying.
I finished my biscuit, kissed her cheek, and escaped to the barn before she could plant anything else. But the seeds were already in the ground. I could feel them.
Hunter was under a piece of equipment when I found him.
Just his boots sticking out from the belly of the old Massey Ferguson that had been acting up since September. His workshop was organized the way Hunter's brain was: precise, functional, with no wasted space. Tools spread out on a shop rag by size, a trouble light hung from the undercarriage casting everything in that orange glow that smelled like motor oil and dust.
I didn't announce myself. Just grabbed a wrench off the bench and started on the alternator housing that had been rattling loose. Hunter's boots shifted when he heard me working. He didn't say hello. Didn't need to.
We worked side by side for a good twenty minutes. The wrench clinked. Something tightened. Two brothers fixing things without having to talk about it.
I'd grown up in this barn with all of us — the whole pack of Blackwoods — but Hunter had taken root here in a way the rest of us hadn't. While Wyatt ran the ranch and Liam was working cases, and Luke was down in Dallas, and I chased buckles on the circuit, Hunter was here. Fixing what broke. Building what was needed. Keeping the machinery of this place alive with his hands while the rest of us were living our louder lives somewhere else.
