Page 1 of Outlawed

Chapter One

Iwatch as Hannah gently covers the roots of the fragile, broken flower with soil before looking up at me with worried eyes. “Will it be okay?”

“In time, it will heal,” I tell her softly, wishing it were true for all of us.

“Okay, good.” She sighs before leaning into me. I like the feel of her weight. It tethers me, even on days when all I want to do is float away. I’ve been physically hurt more times than most people ever experience in a lifetime. I’ve had to wait for bruises to fade and bones to knit back together. In a twisted way, it’s fascinating that it takes so much longer for the unseen injuries to heal. A broken heart, a shredded soul, your trust in tatters—these things take much longer to recover from. And some, you never recover from at all. The urge to give in—to give up—beats at me every day. But some part of me refuses to give Austin the satisfaction of knowing he’s won.

“Calliope?”

“Yes, Cookie?” I look down into her worried, wide eyes.

“When will you stop being sad?”

I swallow around the lump in my throat and force a semblance of a smile onto my lips. “Soon. I’m a little like this flower you found.”

“Someone stomped on you, too?” she asks, affronted on my behalf. This time, my smile is genuine, even if it is tinged with sadness.

“Yeah, I guess they did. But just like the flower, I’m healing.”

I’m not sure if that’s the truth, but it’s what Hannah needs to hear. That’s all that matters to me.

“Hey Hannah, it’s time for your lesson,” Belle, our new horse trainer, calls out.

As much as it felt like my world was ending, it refused to stay still for everyone else. While I wallowed in a pit of despair, Riggs took the reins, along with Dawn and Jen, and hired Belle and Sarah to help out around the place, easing the load I had been carrying.

“Yippee. Bye, Calliope.” She leaps up and runs over to Belle, who has walked out with Jazzy, one of our most placid horses. Belle has been teaching her to ride every day as an incentive to work hard with her tutor.

“Bye, Cookie.” I watch her skip over to Belle, who waves at me. I wave back. I don’t get up and go over, not having it in me to make small talk. Belle seems lovely. She’s young and has a real zest for life that energizes everyone around her. I can’t help but wonder if everyone hoped she’d rub off on me. But as of yet, it’s not been enough to snap me out of the protective shell I’ve built around myself.

I turn back to the flower we just planted before I lift my head and gaze over the fields of flowers as far as the eye can see. If I’d hoped to keep my gift hidden, I’d done a piss poor job. Though I hadn’t come out and told Dawn or Jen what I could do, let alone the others, people could tell something was different about the Corvis Wing Ranch and me. You can’t sit in an empty field, sobbing your heartbreak into the soil, only to find that barren space carpeted with color the next day, and not expect people to have questions.

I jolt when a large body sits down beside me, a second before Shepard’s smell envelops me. He doesn’t touch me, doesn’t speak at all. He just sits beside me, and somehow it’s exactly what I need.

It’s been a rough couple of months for all of us. Shepard questioned what kind of man he was, doing something that went against everything he believed in. Everything he thought he knew about himself was stripped away, leaving him conflicted about where to go from here. It didn’t matter whether his actions were out of character for him, because hearing what Austin did altered him in a way that none of us saw coming. The second it became clear what Austin had done, something in Shepard snapped. Though he’s found the last few months tough, he doesn’t regret his actions. And perhaps, that’s been the hardest thing of all for him to accept.

“So today’s the day, huh?” I break the silence and then lay my head on his arm, giving him the cue to lift it and wrap it around me.

“Yeah, feels weird.”

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know. Weird different. I’m not sure this is who I am anymore.”

“Being sheriff was never who you were, just what you did. And you are a good sheriff, Shepard. Trust me, I know the difference.”

“I know you do.” He blows out a deep sigh before kissing my temple. “I just don’t know if this fits me anymore.”

“Well, there is only one way to find out.”

We spent weeks waiting for IA to investigate what happened while Shepard was suspended. We expected him to lose his job and possibly face jail time. In a fucked-up twist of fate, Austin forced IA’s hand. He confessed he lost his mind for a moment and made a move to attack me, forcing Shepard to draw his weapon and fire.

As grateful as I was for Shepard’s name to be cleared, I hate Austin more for being the one to do it. My only comfort came in the knowledge of him waking up in the hospital room alone after major surgery to remove the bullet that had missed his heart by a millimeter. He had nobody to spend time with him while he recovered, or to help him when he was discharged and went home, though I’m sure he hired a team of minions to help him.

“I feel like a hypocrite,” Shepard admits.

“You protected me. Maybe it looked different than it usually does, but it’s not every day you find out that a man you trusted raped the woman you love.”

He flinches, making something curdle in my stomach. Not because I think it makes him see me differently, but because it makes him see the world differently and distrust his instincts.