————one month later, November————

Colt pulled his hat lower against the fading light, the brim cutting a hard shadow across his face and swallowing everything soft. The sun was bleeding out over the rim of the earth, sky gone bruised-purple and burned gold, like something holy and dying all at once. The last of the heat clung to the air, thick with dust, stretching long into the evening like it hadn't gotten the memo that summer was over.

Dust curled around Red's legs with every step, soft and lazy, stirred up by hooves that moved with more grace than the man riding him. Colt's right hand gripped the reins, fingers stiff around leather, knuckles marked by time and healing. The rope hung heavy across his lap, draped in a way that told me his grip still wasn't what it used to be. His left hand worked the loop, slow, careful. Too careful.

He swung the rope overhead. I heard the whisper of it—a sound that used to come so easy to him. Now, it stuttered, clipped mid-motion, the rhythm off. The rope fell short, hit the ground like it was meant to miss. Useless.

"Damn it," he muttered, low and tight, jerking the rope back with a snap of frustration that said more than words ever could. His jaw locked, his shoulders squared up against the weight of failure like it was something he'd been trained to carry. Which, in a way, he had.

I didn't say a thing.

Didn't shift in the saddle or offer some hollow comfort that wouldn't land. I just sat quiet on Honey, letting the reins rest slack in my fingers, giving him the space he needed to fall apart without an audience.

It wasn't pity. He would've hated that.

The steer wandered a few feet off, flicking its tail, no urgency in its bones. I watched it a moment before I let my rope spin out easy—clean, practiced, unthinking. The loop slipped around the horns like second nature, like muscle memory hadn't failed me yet. I didn't even look at Colt when I let it fall free.

But I felt the space tighten.

My body remembered. His didn't.

And neither of us could pretend otherwise.

"How's the hand?" I asked, voice low, eyes still on the steer as it meandered away, loop dragging loose in the dirt.

Colt didn't say anything right away. He just stretched his right hand out in front of him, studying it like he was trying to recognize something he'd lost. The skin was still pale where the pink cast had come off—just days ago—but the stiffness was worse now that it wasn't hidden beneath fiberglass. Like the cast had been holding more than bones together. Like it had kept the truth at bay.

He flexed his fingers once, slow, then again, and winced when they didn't obey the way they used to. His jaw worked tight, that tendon near his ear twitching like it always did when he was holding something in.

"Doesn't feel like mine," he muttered finally. "Not really."

My gaze followed his. He looked at me, then down to my leg, the brace peeking out just above my boot. We were a mismatched pair of busted parts and stitched-up pride, dragging ourselves forward like something was still waiting for us out there, even if we didn't know what.

He worked the rope again—slower now, like he was trying to remind his fingers how they used to move. I could see the fight in him. Could see how hard he was trying to pretend it didn't hurt. But when the loop slipped again, limp and lifeless in the dirt, I saw it. That flicker. That flash of something raw and bitter—helplessness, maybe. The kind a man like him doesn't know what to do with.

"Doc said it just needs more time," I offered, quiet. Like saying it any louder might make it sound like the lie we were both starting to suspect it was.

Colt coiled the rope slow, tight, each loop wound with more tension than twine. Like he was trying to spool himself back into something solid. His shoulders were drawn high, stiff as rebar, his jaw locked so tight I could see the muscle twitch just beneath the skin.

"Doc's not the one out here," he muttered. It wasn't said with heat—just that low, worn-down rasp of a man stating what he knew too well. Truth, plain and bitter.

He swapped the rope to his left, jaw twitching again. Swung the loop once. Twice. Let it fly.

It landed wide, limp.

He didn't say anything. Didn't need to.

I felt it in my chest, the way you feel a storm coming. That helpless fury when your body won't do what your mind remembers so clear.

"I do everything left-handed," I said, light as I could manage. Like it might offer him something—relief, maybe. But I knew better.

Colt's grip tightened. His next throw was worse. Slipped straight through his fingers, useless as wind.

"Yeah, well, yours ain't useless," he bit, voice rough. Then, quieter, "Sorry."

His gaze flicked to mine, some flicker of guilt in it—but it passed too fast to catch.

"You've been doin' it that way since forever. Me?" He held up his hand, stared at it like it was a stranger. "This feels like tryin' to write with my damn foot."

I edged Honey a little closer. Not too close. Not yet.

"Doesn't mean it's useless," I said. "Just means it's got learnin' to do."

He let out a breath—sharp, tired—and looked back down at the rope like it was a riddle he'd never solve. "Practice ain't the problem," he said. Slower now. Like the words had to push through something heavy. "It's like... like this ain't my body no more. Like I'm sittin' behind the wheel but someone else is driving, and they ain't got a clue how to steer."

His eyes stayed fixed on the far fence line. Not watching anything. Just looking for something he couldn't name.

"And it doesn't feel like I'll ever get it back."

I watched the way he sat—hands loose now, shoulders sagged, the fight slipping out of him like air through a busted tire. I'd seen him bruised, broken, bloodied. But this was worse. This was him unraveling slow.

I lifted my hands slow, palms out. The light caught on the faint white lines crisscrossing my knuckles—scars that had been there so long, I didn't remember how half of them got there. "Let me tell you a story," I said, my voice steady but low, like I wasn't trying to fill the silence—just meet it.

He didn't look at me. Just stared out at the steer like it might give him a reason not to listen. His jaw clenched like he was grinding something down—anger, maybe. Or shame. I couldn't tell which.

"Now?" he muttered. There was tension in it, but not for me. It was frustration turned inward, the kind that builds slow and bites hard when it lands.

He shifted the rope in his hands again, tried to feel something solid in it. But the shape wasn't there. The rhythm was gone. Whatever it used to give him—control, confidence, certainty—it didn't live in his fingers anymore.

I didn't wait for him to come around. I just swung my leg over Honey, boots meeting the dirt with a quiet thud. The sun had dipped halfway behind the ridge, painting the edges of the sky in fire. We were losing light, sure. But we'd been losing things long before the sun started setting.

"It's short," I said, my voice low, even. "And you can hear it while your hands are busy or over dinner. Either way, I'm tellin' it."

I moved beside him, leaned a shoulder into the fence post, gave him my profile instead of my full face. Gave him the kind of space he never had to ask for. I wasn't there to pull him out of whatever place he was sinking into. Just to sit close enough he'd know he didn't have to drown alone.

He didn't say yes. Didn't nod. But after a long second, I watched his fingers loosen on the rope. He slung it back over the saddle horn and rubbed his good hand across his jaw like he was trying to wipe off whatever pride had cracked. That was as close as I was going to get to agreement.

We moved through the end-of-day chores without a word. The kind of work that usually made room for easy conversation—but not tonight. Tonight, the silence was doing all the talking. And Colt didn't try to fill it with those dry, sideways remarks he usually leaned on. He just worked. Slower than usual. Quieter.

I passed him the last of the crabapples from the bucket, let the horses crunch them down while the sun dipped lower and turned the dust gold. The rhythm of it, the steadiness, should've been grounding. But that space between us still felt... off. Not wrong. Just heavier than it used to be.

Colt hung the halter slower than usual, his hands pausing longer between steps, like even the smallest motions took something from him now. The way he stood—shoulders curled slightly forward, hat pulled low—I knew that shape. I'd worn it before. That quiet posture of someone trying to keep their pieces from spilling out.

At the barn door, I stopped.

Looked back at him.

He was standing there alone in the half-light, dirt soft under his boots, staring at the spot his rope had landed earlier. He hadn't moved since.

"Well?" I called gently, not moving from the door. "You coming to dinner, or you planning on staring that dirt into submission?"

Colt blinked, like he hadn't heard me at first. Then his head tilted just slightly, eyes cutting toward mine under the shadow of his hat. "Might've been considerin' it," he muttered, voice low. "Figure I got a better chance at ropin' that than whatever I'm doin' out here."

There was no real bite in it. Just tired self-mockery. That kind of dry edge he used to cover what he didn't want to say plain.

I didn't smile, didn't joke back. Just held his gaze across the last stretch of barn shadow. "Then come on. Food's not gonna serve itself."

We didn't say much on the walk back to the house. Just the sound of the wind picking up through the cottonwoods and our steps trailing dust up the old worn path. The kind of path your feet know by feel, even when your thoughts are somewhere else.

As we passed through the gate, I reached behind me and latched it closed with a soft click, the sound sharp against the hush of twilight. The porch light kicked on as we neared the house, casting a pool of warm yellow onto the steps, catching the dust in the air like flecks of ash. I glanced sideways, catching the way Colt's shadow stretched long beside mine.

When we reached the porch, he let me go ahead, hand brushing lightly against the small of my back—not pushing, just a soft touch, almost absent-minded. I held the screen door for him without thinking, and he stepped through it like he belonged there, like this was always part of his day.

The house took us in easy, like it had been waiting with open arms. That familiar warmth wrapped around my shoulders the second we stepped inside—chili on the stove, fire in the hearth, the soft creak of old wood beneath our boots. It smelled like something steady, like safety. Like a night that wasn't asking too much from either of us.

Colt walked toward the stove without a word, moving slower than he used to, but still with that quiet purpose he carried when the weight of the day hadn't wrung him out completely. He stirred the pot, the motion calm, like it gave his hands somewhere to land. Like it helped him forget how they'd failed him earlier.

I stepped over to the counter and unwrapped the butcher paper from the bread and sausages I'd picked up in town earlier. Our rhythm was wordless, same as always. I brought the supplies. He did the cooking. We never really talked about it—it just happened that way. Like most things between us.

"You ever think about takin' over kitchen duty full time?" I asked, half teasing, pulling out the knife and slicing into the bread with easy strokes. "You're already halfway to domestic bliss with that apron I keep pretendin' not to notice."

He let out something that might've been a laugh—rough, worn-down, but still there. "That apron's yours, and you know it," he muttered, scraping the ladle around the pot like it owed him something. "But I'll admit, I don't hate the way chili makes the place smell."

I gave him a sidelong glance. "You sayin' I'm off the hook?"

"Hell no. You're better with biscuits than I'll ever be," he said, lifting the lid off the pot and nodding at the steam curling upward. "But I might throw in a peach cobbler next time. Just to keep you humble."

I rolled my eyes, setting the sliced bread in a basket. "That'd be the day. Bet you'd overmix it, come out tough as boot leather."

He turned toward me with that half-smile that never quite reached his eyes but still managed to soften something in me. "That a challenge?"

"Only if you're brave enough to take it."