I glance once more at the men behind him, then back at him. “But I also didn’t come here to pretend this doesn’t matter.”
The words sit between us, steady and honest, and for the first time since I stepped out of the truck, the tension doesn’t spike.
It settles.
Like everything just shifted into something we can’t walk away from now.
Hadley’s hand slips from mine before I realize what she’s doing.
It’s not sudden or wild, just a quiet, natural movement, like she’s following something she’s already decided makes sense. My breath catches as she takes a small step forward, then another, her focus locked completely on him.
“Hadley,” I say softly, instinct kicking in, but I don’t reach for her right away.
She doesn’t look uncertain.
She doesn’t look scared.
She looks… sure.
Like she’s been waiting for this moment in a way I didn’t understand until now.
Jace doesn’t move at first either.
He just watches her the same way he has been, like he’s afraid if he does anything too fast, too sudden, it’ll break whatever this is before it has a chance to settle.
The distance between them isn’t far, just a few steps across packed dirt and dust, but it feels like something bigger, something that shouldn’t be this easy and somehow is.
Hadley stops a few feet in front of him, tipping her head back so she can look up at him properly. Her small hands resting at her sides like she’s trying to figure out what comes next.
I can feel every muscle in my body tighten, every instinct telling me to step in, to guide this, to control it before it turns into something I can’t fix if it goes wrong.
But I don’t move.
Because this part isn’t mine.
This part belongs to them.
Jace finally shifts, just enough to lower himself a little, not all the way down. Just enough that he’s not towering over her, his movements careful in a way I wouldn’t have expected from him.
“Hey,” he says, his voice quieter than it’s been since we got here, rough but steady.
Hadley studies him for a second, her gaze moving over his face like she’s memorizing it, like she’s comparing it to something she’s carried in her head without realizing it.
Then she smiles.
It’s small, a little unsure, but it’s there.
And it hits harder than anything else that’s happened so far.
I see it land on him too, the way his expression shifts, something opening up in a way that doesn’t match the man I thought I knew.
“You're a cowboy?” She says, like it’s the most important detail she’s picked up so far.
A faint breath leaves him, almost like a quiet laugh he didn’t expect. “Yeah. I am.”
She nods, like that confirms something for her, like it makes sense.
For a second, nobody else moves.
