Page 18 of The One Who Saw Her: Boone

"No," she said firmly, leaning in slightly,. "It was his way of putting a huge burden on an impressionable kid. Running this place…was it your dream?"

The sudden lump in his throat was very real. He wanted to say yes; to nod and pretend it had always been his choice, but he couldn't.

"Or was it the rodeo?" she asked quietly.

He looked into the flames and saw the rodeo arena instead—the roar of the crowd, the smell of hay and sweat, the rush of the adrenaline and being completely, entirely free. That had been his dream. Not the ranch or the legacy.

The rodeo had been his.

But the ranch had survived—had even thrived—because he'd given up the rodeo and stayed. He just hadn't let himself think about that too hard in a while.

"How did you know I rode?"

She looked pointedly at the wall of belt buckles and trophies. He let out a short chuckle. "Right."

"You miss it?"

He looked at her instead of the trophies and his chest tightened in a unfamiliar way. She wasn't just asking, she was seeing—past the walls and the stubbornness and the quiet suffocation of responsibility he'd been carrying so long he'd stopped noticing the impact. And somehow that understanding knocked him completely off balance.

"Yeah," he said quietly to himself. "I miss it. The rodeo was the endgame."

A small, knowing smile pulled at her lips. "That's what I thought. You gave up the thing you loved because you thought it was expected. Because of your parents and the guilt. And because of love and admiration."

Her words cut straight through armor he polished on the regular. He felt exposed—the vulnerability prickling along his skin—but instead of retreating, he stayed. Because someone wasn't flinching at the weight of him, wasn’t judging it or pitying it. She just got it.

"How do you understand that?" His voice came out soft, almost disbelieving. "I don't think I fully understood it myself."

Vivi shrugged—the motion almost casual compared to the intensity in her eyes.

"I've been there my whole life," she explained. "Giving up what I wanted most in the world to please everyone else. My parents, my friends, my boyfriends, especially Lewis." She paused for a beat. "I'm only just now learning to be the Beyoncé of my own life," she admitted with a wistful smile.

Boone let out a laugh—this unexpected and unguarded kind that he hadn't heard from himself in a long time. It was so forceful he could practically hear a crack in his tightly wound world. "I don't even know what that means."

She gave him a smile that lit him from the inside out.

"It means taking the lead in your own story instead of waiting for someone else to write it. It might be full of heartbreak and mistakes and a few dramatic plot twists—but I get to choose how it ends."

Boone shook his head, still chuckling quietly. He looked at her in the firelight—warm and bright and completely unaware of what she was doing to him—and for just a moment let himself imagine writing his own ending, choosing differently.

That thought scared the hell out of him.

CHAPTER 9

Vivi stepped out of the powder blue vintage Cadillac Coupe DeVille. It purred instead of hummed, and it had tail fins sharp enough to slice an ego.

She squinted against the afternoon sun, blinking at Main Street like she'd wandered into a postcard. Bridlewood was smaller than it had looked that first day—all small-town charm and absolutely nowhere to hide. She heard the clop of hooves somewhere nearby and smelled fresh coffee drifting from Espresso Yourself.

Today's mission was straightforward: find boots that wouldn't give her blisters or fall apart mid-muck, and clothes sturdy enough to survive a day in the barn without shredding every thread.

Oh, and according to today's Glow Up exercise: Practice Saying No.

It could be something small or big. But just say no to something that she'd usually say yes.

"Thanks for the ride," she said to Rea, who was sitting regally behind the steering wheel wearing giant yellow glasses and a gemstone-pink silk scarf wrapped around her head like a starlet from the golden era of Hollywood.

"Anytime, darling. Now be sure to remember, when it comes to good denim buy the kind that fits your posterior like a promise and doesn't quit after a little hard work. Men may fade, but quality stitching won't."

Vivi couldn't help but laugh. "Anything else?"