Page 100 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

“Don’t.”

I nod once. “Okay.”

And I mean it.

That’s the thing people get wrong about comfort, I think. They assume it’s questions. Interrogation with a gentler tone. Helpfully cornering somebody until they either confess or cry harder.

Sometimes, maybe.

Not tonight.

Tonight she’s got that brittle look again. She’s one wrong word away from either bolting or shattering and would resent me deeply for either one.

So instead of pushing, I step inside, grab a second overturned bucket from against the wall, and set it down beside her.

Then I sit.

She blinks at me.

“That’s it?” she asks after a second.

“That’s what I’ve got so far.”

“You’re not going to ask?”

“I can, if you want.”

“I don’t.”

“Then no.”

The tack room smells of leather, cedar shavings, and that deep horsey warmth that gets into wood and fabric and skin.

Somewhere outside, a horse stamps in a stall. The barn settles around us, old beams giving little creaks that feel almost conversational in the dark.

Annie stares at the floor.

I stare at the saddle soap tin on the shelf across from us because if I stare at her too hard right now, I’m going to start saying things I probably shouldn’t.

“Who made you cry? I’m gonna need a name.” Or “whatever it is, you don’t carry it alone tonight.”

All true.

All a bit much if she hasn’t invited me in yet.

So I wait, and after a minute or two, her breathing starts to even out a little. It’s a little less jagged around the edges.

“Duke, you have no idea what that thing you do does to me.”

I glance over. “Which thing? I’m extremely charming in a variety of ways.”

“The sitting there thing.”

“Oh.” I nod. “Yeah. Big skill set.”

Her mouth twitches a fraction.

Good.