Page 31 of Broken Cedar

I finish tidying the kitchen as Mom comes in and tells me she’s going to head up to bed. It’s still early, and I don’t know what else to do, so I head outside.

The porch is my favorite place at this hour. Always has been. The sky doing that thing that skies do at dusk, where the blue deepens to purple and the clouds catch fire along their undersides.

Colt finds me here. He hands me a beer without asking if I want it. I take it without thanking him. We sit on the top step. Shoulders not quite touching. Close enough that I can feel the heat of him through my shirt, the occasional brush when one of us shifts.

We drink. The sky darkens by degrees. The first star appears—bright, solitary, hanging over the eastern ridge. Colt points at it with his bottle. Doesn’t say anything. But I know what he means.

First star, make a wish.

I don’t make a wish. I’m too afraid of what I might ask for.

I replay the day in my head. Not just the sex—though God, the sex. It’s everything else. The breakfast he made without being asked. The way he knew exactly where to find me at the creek. The horse he kept alive for eight years because it was mine once. The stories he remembers—the small ones, the throwaway details, the moments I assumed had been lost to time.

The laughter. That’s the thing I can’t reconcile. How much I’ve laughed since I got here. How easily it comes. How natural it feels to trade barbs with him, to throw dish towels, to bicker about fence posts and YouTube cooking tutorials. I haven’t laughed like this in the city. Not once. Not with anyone.

I expected wanting him. I didn’t expect how ordinary it would feel to be with him. As though we’d simply picked up a conversation we’d paused eight years ago.

The sky is full dark now. Stars everywhere. Colt finishes his beer and sets the bottle on the step between his boots. Doesn’t move to go inside. Doesn’t suggest we call it a night. He’s content to sit here, in the cooling air, watching the same stars, existing in the same quiet.

One week. That’s what we agreed to. But sitting here now, with the weight of his silence beside me, a week feels impossibly short. And impossibly long.

Colt shifts and his shoulder brushes mine.

“I should head in,” I say. Not because I want to. Because if I stay out here any longer, I’m going to say something I can’t take back.

He nods. “I’ll be along.”

I stand, my legs stiff from sitting. At the screen door, I pause and look back. Colt is still on the step, his eyes on the horizon. He hasn’t moved.

One week. I can do one week. I can take this for what it is, enjoy it while it lasts, then walk away when the time comes. I’ve done harder things. But standing here in the doorway, watching him sit alone under a sky full of stars, I’m not convinced anymore. And that’s the most terrifying part of all.

Chapter Eight

Iwake to the smell of coffee. I stretch, pleasantly sore, my skin still carrying the memory of Colt’s hands, his mouth. I don’t reach for my phone. Don’t check the time. Don’t do any of the things I normally do.

Instead I climb out of bed and get dressed, then pad downstairs. The kitchen is empty when I arrive but the coffee pot is still warm. I reach for a mug—the blue one with the chip on the handle that I’ve been using since I got here, and make myself a cup. Then I make myself some toast.

“Morning,” Colt says as he enters the kitchen without looking up, the screen door swinging shut behind him.

“Morning,” I say, reaching for two more slices. “You’re up early.”

“Always am.”

“Not always,” I say, spreading the blackberry preserves on thick. “I remember a teenage Colt who could sleep till noon.”

“That was before I had responsibilities.”

Before he had to take over the ranch, he means. “Point taken.”

I slide a plate of toast toward him, and he nods his thanks as he grabs the plate and goes to sit at the table. He takes a long pull of coffee.

“I need to check the north pasture today,” he says. “Fence line’s been giving me trouble. He pauses. Looks at his mug, then looks at me. “Could take a ride up to the lookout first. If you wanted to come.”

The lookout. Two syllables that contain an entire history. The night we sat on the tailgate of his truck and watched a storm roll in, and he told me about giving up his dream to become a marshal to take over the ranch, and I told him about wanting to see the world, and neither of us knew then that those things would pull us in opposite directions.

“Sure,” I say. The word is out before my brain has processed it. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

We finish breakfast, then head outside to the barn. Colt saddles his gelding, a big bay with a calm eye. I find Copper’s stall. The old horse lifts his head when he sees me.