She was quiet for a moment. Then: "Me too."
I wasn't sure if she meant Rosie or something else entirely. I didn't ask.
"Horses can feel what you're feeling," I said, low and steady. "If you're sad, they know. If you're scared, they know. And they don't try to fix it. They just stand next to you until it passes."
"Like you're doing right now?"
I looked down at this five-year-old — tear-streaked, snot-nosed, wise in a way no kid should have to be — and my throat closed.
"Yeah, cowgirl. Like I'm doing right now."
She nodded, like that settled something important. Then she tucked herself tighter against my side and was asleep within a minute. Completely, totally, boneless-kid asleep, her head heavy on my bicep, one fist still curled around my shirt.
I sat there for a while. Not moving. Barely breathing. The weight of her against my arm was the heaviest thing I'd ever held — heavier than buckles, heavier than trophies, heavier than every eight-second ride I'd ever made. Because those things were mine. This was someone else's trust, small and warm and given without conditions, and the responsibility of it settled into my bones like something permanent.
Then I carried her inside. One arm under her knees, the other across her back, her head tucked against my shoulder. Iheld my breath on the screen door so it wouldn't slam. Laid her on the couch and tucked the stuffed horse under her arm, adjusting it until it was exactly right, because Maisie held her horse a specific way and I'd noticed.
I'd noticed.
When I came back to the porch, Callie was sitting on the step where I'd been. Arms wrapped around her knees. Head down. She wasn't crying, but she was close — the kind of close that lives in the tightness around the eyes and the way a person breathes too carefully.
I sat beside her. Not too close. Left the choice with her.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked. Quiet. Raw. No armor, no deflection.
I didn't give her the charming answer. I gave her the real one. "Because she's a great kid. And because you shouldn't have to do this alone. Because we’re friends.”
Silence. The night sounds filled it — frogs in the distance, a dog barking once down the street.
Then Callie, staring straight ahead at the dark yard: "If you tell anyone I cried, I'll deny it, and then I'll have you killed."
"Noted."
"I didn't cry. For the record. My eyes were... leaking. Stress response."
"Very scientific."
"I'm a very scientific person."
I smiled. She didn't look at me, but I think she felt it, because her shoulders dropped a fraction — the first time all night they'd been anywhere near relaxed.
She didn't thank me. She didn't need to. The fact that she was sitting beside me on this porch instead of inside behind a locked door said everything.
I drove home with the ghost of Maisie's weight on my arm — the phantom warmth of a small body that had trusted meenough to fall asleep. The road was dark. The ranch was still when I pulled in.
I sat on the porch for a while, looking at the sky. The stars were out — all of them, the way they only are in the country, away from city light, like someone had thrown a handful of silver across black velvet.
Callie on the porch step. The way she hadn't moved when I sat down beside her. The way her shoulders had dropped an inch when I'd saidI've got herand she'd realized she could stop holding everything for five minutes.
Maisie's fist curled around my shirt.
Eighteen minutes in the dark because her voice cracked on the phone, and I hadn't thought about it, hadn't weighed it, hadn't decided. I'd just picked up my keys.
I was just where I was supposed to be.
Chapter 6
Callie
