We stepped out into the morning, the cold tugging at the edges of our coats, the light stretched thin but golden—smeared across the sky like honey left too long in the jar. The porch creaked behind us as the wind brushed through the cedars. My boots pressed down on frost-silvered grass that crackled underfoot, but his steps were quieter, steadier.

I waited for him to speak, but he didn't. So I did.

"So where are we going?"

"There's a spot I found a while back," he said, eyes scanning the horizon like it held the memory in its shape. "Figured you might like it."

I didn't ask where. Just nodded, adjusting the edge of my coat as we moved past the porch steps and into the slow breath of morning. Colt carried the basket over one shoulder, careful not to jostle it too much, and I walked beside him, matching his pace though I wasn't sure where we were headed. Maybe that was the point.

The land stretched out before us like something still half-asleep. Grass gone pale and brittle with the season, scattered patches of snow tucked in the folds of the earth. The Absarokas stood off in the distance, sharp-edged and dusted in early white, their ridgelines biting into the pale sky like a promise you couldn't outrun. And closer—the rolling foothills, rising and falling like the back of some great sleeping animal, ribs heaving slow beneath dried sage and bare-limbed aspen.

The ground beneath us was frozen shallow, thawed just enough at the surface to be slick in spots, soft in others. My boots found the steady parts by instinct, stepping where his did. The scent of cedar followed us from the grove behind the barn, and somewhere far off, a hawk cried once, its wings slicing through the blue like it didn't notice the cold at all.

We didn't talk much.

Sometimes with Colt, that's how I knew something mattered—when the silence felt deliberate, not empty.

I glanced at him once, watching the way he moved—shoulders squared beneath that worn jacket, hair still damp at the collar, jaw set not in tension, but in thought. The basket strap cut diagonally across his chest, leather worn smooth by time and use.

We passed a tangle of old cattle fence, half-collapsed under the weight of seasons. Beyond it, dry willow branches clicked together in the breeze, brittle and ghost-colored. A mule deer bounded through the trees just up ahead—startled by our approach, but not frightened enough to bolt completely. She paused at the crest of a hill, her breath visible in short, warm bursts, before vanishing into the brush with the kind of grace I'd only ever seen in wild things that had never once asked permission to exist.

It had been about twenty-five minutes since we'd left the house, though time didn't hold shape out here. It moved different in the hills—longer, looser, like it had to stretch to fit the silence between each step.

The incline caught me off guard—nothing steep, just constant. Enough to draw heat into my legs and breath into my chest, sharper than before. I didn't mention it. Just pulled my coat tighter and pressed into the rhythm of Colt's stride, letting the sound of our boots against frozen soil anchor me. His steps were steady. Mine followed.

Above us, the sky opened wider. The pines thinned into scrub, and the breeze picked up, pulling ribbons of cold air down from the high ridgelines. Somewhere behind us, the cedar grove disappeared from view. Ahead—nothing but sagebrush, junipers, and the faint shimmer of the Absaroka range, jagged and snow-laced like a scar against the horizon.

Still, the silence stretched long.

I broke it carefully.

"You sure you know where we're going?"

He didn't stop. Didn't even glance back—just let out a breath through his nose, low and dry, the kind that said more than words ever could. 

"I know the way," he said, voice rough but certain. "Just ain't marked."

I arched a brow, watching the shift of his shoulders beneath that old canvas jacket, the way the light caught at the collar where it had frayed with use. "Sounds like cowboy code for 'we're lost,'" I murmured, not quite teasing, not quite concerned.

That earned me the smallest turn of his head—a glance over his shoulder, brief and unreadable, but the corner of his mouth ticked up like he couldn't help himself.

"If we were lost," he said, "I wouldn't tell you 'til we made it back."

There was no pride in it. Just fact. Like if we wandered into the hills and didn't find our way out again, he'd make sure I didn't feel it until the end.

"Charming," I muttered, but the word curled in my mouth like something warmer. 

He shifted the basket higher on his shoulder, careful like he always was with things that weren't his. The leather strap creaked faintly, worn smooth where his hand held it. "We're close. Few more ridges. Maybe less."

I didn't question him. Colt Langmore wasn't the type to speak unless he meant to follow through.

The wind was stronger now, catching the edges of my braid and tugging it loose. We crested another rise, and the world opened—bare and high and gold. The November sun stretched long across the grasslands, thin as lace, slipping between the dry sage and brittle stalks of wheatgrass like it didn't want to be noticed. A crow sliced through the sky overhead, its cry sharp and clean, vanishing behind the ridgeline like it knew something we didn't.

It felt like the kind of moment that didn't repeat itself.

And maybe that's why I asked.

"What was it like?" I said, voice quiet. "Before all this."

He kept walking. Just a few more paces, boots steady against frozen dirt. Then he slowed, like the question had weight and he didn't want to rush it.

"You mean before the bulls?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. Before Windwalker. Before the circuit."

He didn't look at me. Just kept his eyes on the horizon.

"My old man left when I was seven," he said, not bitter—just even, like he'd said it aloud enough times that it no longer splintered. "Didn't say much. Didn't say anything, actually. One day he was there. The next, just... wasn't."

The wind pulled at my coat. I let it.

"After that, it was just me and my mama. We were still up in Montana then. Winters hit harder than they should've. Furnace barely worked. Truck didn't always start. Most nights, she'd keep the oven open just to warm the kitchen while I did homework at the table."

He stopped talking for a second. Like he was sorting through it in his head.

"We sold the house when things got too lean. Packed what we could fit in the bed of the Chevy and drove south. Ended up in a town outside Beaumont. Cheap rent. Lots of sweat. Mama picked up whatever jobs she could—diners, laundromats. I did the same. Roofing in the summers. Barn mucking in the winters. Anything that meant we could keep the lights on."

His voice didn't shake. But I felt something shift in him—tighten.

"I stopped being a kid around then. Didn't have time for it."

I swallowed, throat dry with wind and silence.

"You ever miss it?" I asked.

He blinked. Slow. Like the question came from farther away than it should have.

"Can't miss what you didn't have," he said simply. "But I guess sometimes I wonder what it would've looked like. Bein' a boy without needing to act like a man."

I didn't speak. I didn't need to.

"The first time I got on a bull, it wasn't for the show. Wasn't for glory or some dream about bein' the best. It was just twenty bucks and a gas card. And we needed both."

The corner of his mouth twitched—not quite a smile, not quite regret. "Didn't stay on more than four seconds. Got thrown straight into the panels. Broke a rib. Still showed up the next weekend."

He didn't look back at me. Didn't say my name or search my face for understanding. Just kept moving forward, the weight of his story tucked into the way his shoulders squared against the wind.

I stayed close, boots trailing just behind his, the cold curling around us in quiet tendrils, trying to listen without asking too much. I think I knew, even before he said it, that this part of him didn't get offered up often.

He exhaled slowly, the sound curling into the air between us. "First time I stayed on a bull," he said, "it wasn't pretty. No camera flash. No rodeo queen handing out buckles. It was a backlot arena just off a county road, fence half-rotted, bleachers leaning like tired men. Old timers with lawn chairs. Kids sticky with kettle corn."

"That sounds like the kind of place where things matter more," I said quietly, falling into step beside him again. "No lights to hide behind."

He glanced over, just for a second, like the thought had surprised him. Then nodded.

"There was a guy there—Rhett Weston." He said the name like it left a taste. "Didn't know who he was then. Just tall, sharp, cocky as hel."

And my heart—it didn't just drop. It clenched.

I turned toward him slightly, watching how the wind tugged a strand of hair across his cheek, how the light caught on his jaw and made the pain in his voice seem older than he was. "And he noticed you?"

He gave the faintest shake of his head, like the memory didn't fit clean in his hands anymore. "Saw me get bucked off twice in the same hour. Still came over after. Handed me a water bottle, looked me dead in the eye, and said, 'You've got more fight in you than sense. That's a start.'"

"That sounds like him," I said before I could catch the words.

Colt's gaze flicked sideways—just a flicker—but it held. Not sharp. Not cold. Just... still. Like he understood. Like he'd already done the math and wasn't surprised by the sum.

 I hated how that made me feel.

"I didn't know then," he said slowly, "that he collected people like some men collect knives. Wanted the ones with an edge to 'em. Ones that'd already been half-ruined so he could feel like the one who sharpened 'em."

I felt that line settle in my ribs—low and deep. The kind of truth that didn't echo, just sank.

He kept walking, slower now, the trail narrowing as the ridge climbed, scattered stones catching beneath our boots.

"He brought me in," Colt said. "Said I had grit, and grit was enough. Told me I could be something if I stuck close. That all it'd take was one good season and the right name to back me."

"Did you believe him?" I asked, soft enough it could've gotten lost in the wind.

He didn't speak right away. Just stared down at the frost-laced path, like it might give him a cleaner version of the past than the one he carried.

"I was seventeen," he said finally, voice rougher. "Didn't know any better than to call admiration love. So yeah... I believed him."

The ache in those words was so quiet, I might've missed it if I hadn't known what it felt like to hand someone your belief and watch them twist it into something you didn't recognize.

We kept walking, no rush. The air between us was full, but not crowded.

"He introduced me to the others. Sean. Wyatt. Caleb came later. We'd all pile into the same rusted-out truck, bodies stacked like feed bags in the back, living off caffeine and gas station beef jerky. Taped our wrists with whatever we had—duct tape, old rags, prayer."

He smiled then, but it wasn't fond. It was the kind of smile that had come too late to save anything.

"Back then it felt like freedom. Like we were chasing something nobody else could see."

He didn't look at me when he said it. Just stared out toward the ridgeline where the sky faded to bone and blue glass, his jaw clenched like memory had wrapped a rope around it and pulled tight. The sun, low and half-hidden, lit the edge of his face in pale gold, catching the faint glint of stubble and the curve of an old scar beneath his ear.

"How'd it end?" I asked, voice just above the hush of the wind. "You and Rhett."

His eyes narrowed, not in anger but memory. The line between his brows deepened like something behind it still didn't sit right. "Same way most good things go when you don't know how to hold 'em. Slow. Then all at once."

That ache again. The kind that lived beneath the ribs. Not raw anymore, but not gone either. Just settled deep enough to hum.

"We were boys with too much fire and no map for where to burn it. Rhett... he liked the feeling of owning people. And I was too young to know that being seen like that wasn't the same as being loved."

I didn't answer. But my breath caught in my throat, and I knew he could feel it.

Because I'd seen the way Rhett looked at him at the bonfire—sharp and territorial, like he still thought something unfinished lived between them. And maybe I'd been too caught in my own unraveling that night to understand it. The way Colt had clenched his fists. The way he hadn't flinched at the kiss, just gone quiet like someone watching a bruise bloom.

It hadn't been about the kiss. Not really. It had been about history. About old blood and borrowed trust and something that had once mattered more than they knew what to do with.

"And you?" I asked, slower now. "Back then. What did you want?"

He blinked once. Slow. Like the question pulled from a place he didn't dust off often.

"I wanted to matter," he said. "To someone."

The words landed between us like a stone dropped into deep water. No splash. Just weight.

Around us, the wind shifted, threading through bare branches like fingers brushing secrets off bark. The stream below murmured low, like it, too, had grown tired of carrying things it couldn't name.

"Guess we all want that," I murmured. But my voice felt different in my mouth. Like I'd borrowed someone else's honesty to say it.

His gaze found mine. Steady. Not pressing, not soft—just holding me there, like the moment itself was waiting for an answer I hadn't meant to give.

"You ever get it?" he asked. "What you wanted?"

I opened my mouth. Then closed it. The truth sat heavy behind my ribs, somewhere just out of reach.

"I don't know," I said. "Sometimes I think I did. And then... it slips."

He nodded, like he'd known before I spoke. Like he'd lived it, too.