"Someone I'm not going to talk about at the feed store."
I said it kind. I said it final. I picked up the fence posts and loaded them into the truck, and gave her a nod that was polite and closed and left no ambiguity about what she'd find if she tried that door again.
But I felt the heat of it — Mrs. Cooper's eyes on the back of my neck. Clara Mae Henderson's sedan parked two spots over, Clara Mae herself frozen with a bag of birdseed and an expression that said the Book Club Coven would have this transcribed and distributed by sundown.
I knew how small towns worked. I knew the version that would reach Callie wouldn't be what I said. It would be what Amber said. The hand on my arm, the lean, the history — all of it loud and shiny, all of it perfectly positioned to make a woman who was already scared find one more reason to run.
I drove home with my jaw tight and a sick twist in my gut that had nothing to do with what happened and everything to do with what it would look like through the lens of someone who'd been taught by an expert that men couldn't be trusted.
The sky was going from gold to purple over the ridge, and the yearlings were moving like shadows through the south paddock below. The main house porch creaked under my boots as I leaned against the railing.
I pulled out my phone. Took a photo — the paddock at sunset, the yearlings running, the new fence line catching the last light. Sent it to Callie with a caption:Their new home. Maisie has work to do.
Then I stared at my phone like a teenager waiting for a text back from his first crush, which was exactly as pathetic as it sounds, and I did not care.
Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.
Twenty minutes I spent on that porch, convincing myself that twenty minutes meant nothing, that she was probably giving Maisie a bath, that Professor Quackington's quest for Bubblantis waited for no man's text anxiety.
My phone buzzed.
She's already asked if she can name them all.
I grinned. Typed back something about Maisie's naming rights being non-negotiable and the yearlings' emotional well-being being at stake.
Then a second message. Separate.
I slept well last night.
Five words. My heart damn near stopped.
I sat on that porch and read those five words six times and each time they hit different — tenderness, relief, want, wonder, the quiet devastation of a woman who'd spent two years not sleeping well, telling me that I was the reason she finally did.
I typed back:Me too. Best night of my life.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared. Disappeared. I watched those dots like they were the only thing in the universe that mattered.
Her reply: a single star emoji.
That was it. One star. No words, no heart, no declaration. Just a star — small, distant, shining.
I pressed my phone against my chest and grinned so wide my face ached. Because I was Clay Blackwood. I'd had numbers pressed into my palm at every bar in every rodeo town across the country. I'd had love letters and hotel keys and offers that would make a preacher blush.
And a star emoji from Callie Monroe was the greatest thing I'd ever received.
Momma found me on the porch. She didn't say anything — just sat in the rocker beside me and looked at my face, and whatever she saw there made her smile in a way that said she'd known before I did.
She rocked. I rocked. The yearlings settled in the paddock below.
"Your dad told me about the program," she said. "I'm proud of you, Clay."
"Thanks, Momma."
"And the other thing." She didn't look at me. Just rocked. "The thing that's making you grin at your phone like a man who's been hit in the head by something wonderful."
"What about it?"
"She's good for you. That's all." She stood. Squeezed my shoulder on the way past. "Don't stay out here all night."
