Cody in late December had a way of feeling both lived-in and emptied out.

The garlands still hung, but the glitter had dulled—faded under wind and frost until it looked less like celebration and more like memory. Snow crusted along the sidewalks in uneven strips where boots had trampled it flat. The marquee outside the shuttered movie theater still read Merry Christmas, though the 'Y' had slipped, and the 'T' was hanging by a bulb. Merry Christ, it said now. Which, maybe, was closer to the truth.

People moved quieter now. Slower. Like the month had worn them thin and they weren't sure what came after. Half the shops along Sheridan had already stripped their windows of pine boughs and ribbon. The rest left theirs to sag behind glass, brittle and browning at the tips, as if the effort to tidy up felt heavier than the mess. And I didn't blame them. Some things deserved to be left where they fell.

I was tired in that deep, marrow-level way that doesn't make a scene. The kind that doesn't yawn or slump, it just settles, slow and stubborn, behind your ribs. Becomes part of your posture. Wears your face like it belongs there. I couldn't remember when it started. Only that I hadn't moved through a day without it in weeks.

Christmas had come and gone, but it hadn't let go of me. Not all the way. It stuck around in the corners, old tape marks on the windowsill, the ghost of pine still clinging to the living room rug. Someone'd left a half-burnt cinnamon candle on the counter, and now the whole place smelled like memory. Like something you didn't get to say.

I parked outside Dust & Hide, left the engine running just long enough for the heater to quit its whining, then killed it.

Outside, the sky hung low and dull, clouds so thick they looked bruised. Snow hadn't started yet, but you could feel it thinking about it. I pulled my jacket tighter, shoved my hands beneath my arms like they owed me warmth. My boots hit the gravel in that slow, stiff rhythm that only comes after too many cold mornings and too little sleep.
Dust & Hide smelled exactly how it always had, which was half the reason people still came. Like oiled tack and cedar shavings, yes, but also like time. Like hay dust from 2004 was still tucked somewhere in the rafters, refusing to budge no matter how many times they swept.

The bell above the door let out its little yelp as I stepped in, and the warmth hit me sideways.

Not the dry, over-filtered heat you get at the hardware store or the gas station. This heat had lungs. It came from the cast iron stove in the back corner, round-bellied, rust-kissed, and humming steady. Someone had set an enamel kettle beside it again. Blue speckled. Probably filled with water for steam, but I liked to imagine it held tea.

Or something stronger.

The store itself was the kind of contradiction that made sense if you'd grown up on dirt roads. Half boutique, half feed store. You could pick out a concho-studded belt or a lace-paneled pearl snap, then do a one-eighty and grab calf scours meds or a salt lick. They had goat soap in one basket and udder balm in the next, both of which I'd used on my own skin more than once and didn't feel like defending.

I didn't come here often. Just when I needed something real specific.

Today, it was gloves.

My gloves. The ones I'd gone through five brands to find. Weren't too slick, didn't bunch at the seams, and held their own when the reins burned hot in your palm. I kept one pair in the trailer and one in the tack room. Or I did, until Colt kept "borrowing" them and pretending he hadn't.

Always with that slow shrug of his. That half-grin that said what's yours is mine if I want it bad enough. I'd pretend to scold him, but I always let him keep the pair. Didn't say so, just... did.

It was easier that way, back then.

I blinked. Swallowed the memory. Kept walking like it hadn't followed me in. 'Passed the poncho rack, the one that always looked like somebody's abuela had tried to stitch the desert into a quilt and got distracted halfway through. Dusty turquoise, dry mustard, terracotta the color of sunburnt clay. My hand grazed the fringe, fingers trailing over it like it might recognize me. I used to think those ponchos were gaudy. Now I sort of liked how they didn't apologize for it. The aisles felt narrower than they used to. Or maybe I'd just grown wider in ways that didn't show, heavier with silence, swollen with everything I hadn't said. That's what happened when you spent too many mornings with nothing but your breath and the steam off a horse's back to keep you company. You got too used to space. Too used to your own head.

Inside, the air held itself quiet. Not heavy. Just... aware. The kind of quiet that knew how to listen.

Near the register, a couple was arguing in low tones over a pile of dog collars. Not angry, just the kind of arguing people do when they already love each other and plan to keep doing it. A kid stood off by the mineral blocks, hugging a salt lick to his chest like a teddy bear made of grit. He was maybe ten, maybe eleven, maybe already more sure of himself than I'd been at twice that. He didn't look up.

The cashier was new. Young. Mustache that looked like it arrived by accident. Hands too clean to know the weight of hay bales or busted gates. But he gave me a nod like he wasn't trying too hard. I nodded back without meaning to, not out of kindness. Just habit. Like muscle memory from a life I still wasn't sure I wanted to pick back up.

I made my way toward the wall of gloves, top shelf, third row down, always wedged beside the canvas ones that frayed if you so much as looked at 'em sideways. The kind you bought if you wanted to feel like you'd done a hard day's work without actually doing one. Mine were black, double-stitched, softened just enough by use to feel like a second skin once the warmth of you got into them. The kind that didn't slip when things bucked.

My list was short. Saddle soap. A mineral block for Spice, who licked straight through the last one like it owed her something. A bag of powdered coat vitamins that smelled like old oats and vaguely of peppermint, the kind Hush pretended to hate but never spit out. I didn't need much, but I needed something. Something to keep my hands busy while my head kept circling things I couldn't fix.

Even here, away from the ranch, my thoughts kept circling back to the barn like a border collie with no gate to guard. The east stall door was sticking again, you had to throw your hip into it just so, catch the hinge at the exact angle between "stubborn" and "just plain stuck." I'd meant to fix it, I just hadn't yet.

That seemed to be the theme lately.

The ranch had felt different since Stella left. Not wrong, just quieter in ways you didn't notice until they started stacking.

Her handwriting was still clinging to the fridge, looped and rushed and fading at the edges where steam from the kettle had curled the corners of the paper. Feed reminders. Salt orders. A half-crossed list that still had fence bolts circled like it might solve something. And under it all, a note that just said, Don't forget the good hay goes first. I kept meaning to take them down. To clear the space. But the truth was, I liked pretending she was just out on an errand. Like she might come through the back door any second, boots muddy and hands full, talking faster than I could listen.

The house missed her like a shoulder misses the weight it got used to carrying. You don't feel the ache until it's gone, and then it's all you can feel.

And me, I'd learned to live inside my own quiet. Learned to read the ranch like it was still speaking, even when it wasn't. The slow groan of the barn roof in the wind. The way the floor creaked just before sunrise, when the frost still clung to the window seams and the light hadn't yet made up its mind. Even the water heater had a rhythm now. Familiar as the creek behind the cattle pens.

But Christmas had hung on like a fever. One of those long, slow ones that doesn't break so much as bleed out. Left me feeling thin in the skin. Bruise-colored under the eyes. There wasn't one big thing wrong, just too many names that belonged to people who hadn't come back. Too many ghosts still pulling up chairs at the table.

I stood there a little too long, hand resting on the edge of the glove rack, trying to remember if I'd turned the porch light off before I left. Trying not to think about the way it used to stay on just long enough for someone else's truck to coast up the drive—headlights off, door eased shut, boots hitting the ground soft like they knew they weren't supposed to be there. Not a sound you braced against. The kind you waited for. The kind you pretended not to.

I stood there a little too long, hand resting on the edge of the glove rack, trying to remember if I'd turned the porch light off before I left. Not because it mattered, but because it used to.

It used to stay on just long enough for headlights to crest the hill. Just long enough for boots to land soft in the gravel, door eased shut like a promise not to wake the house. The kind of sound that wasn't loud enough to brace against. The kind you hoped for and pretended you didn't.

I reached for the gloves. And that's when I heard it.

Laughter.

Soft, offbeat. Not from the belly but from somewhere looser, like it didn't mean to escape and did anyway. The kind that makes your spine go still before your mind catches up.

For a second, I told myself it could've been anyone. Some ranch wife from out past Greybull, killing time between feed deliveries. A college kid home on break, trying on boots they'd only ever wear once. But the part of me that's learned how to hear ghosts before they speak, the part that never really unlearned, already knew better.

For a second, I told myself it could be anyone. Some ranch wife from out by Greybull. Some college kid home for the holidays, killing time before they had to head back to the city. But my gut didn't buy it, and neither did the part of me that had grown used to recognizing ghosts before they introduced themselves.

I turned slow. Like if I moved too fast, I'd scare the moment off. Or worse, confirm it.

And there she was.

Jasmine Morrison.

Not in rhinestones. Not in feathers or fringe. Just jeans worn honest, a thermal shirt that still knew how to cling in all the right places, and that same silver flask I once saw her pull from her boot before a final round run. She was leaning lazy against the endcap of snakebite boots, like the display had been waiting for her. Like the place belonged to her and just hadn't realized it yet.

She held the boots like they meant something. Not to her. To the story she was telling. One hand spinning them just enough to catch the light while the clerk, a boy who looked like he said "ma'am" out of habit, tried not to fall in love.

Her hair was tighter than I remembered. Pulled back like she was bracing for something, like if even a strand escaped, the whole thing might unravel. But her eyes, those hadn't changed much. Still the same burnished gold, still watching everything, even when they pretended not to. But they were tired now. Not worn-out tired. The kind of tired that settles behind your ribs when you've had to rebuild too many times without saying so.

She didn't see me.

And I could've walked out. Left the gloves, left the list, left whatever this was about to become. Could've gone back to the truck, driven home, finished the day with nothing more than the ache in my shoulders and the silence in the barn.

But then she turned. And her eyes found mine.

"Odell."

My name slid off her tongue like something she'd been saving—not sharp, not sweet. Just worn. Familiar in the way an old belt fits, even if it doesn't buckle like it used to. Her voice had the same edge it always had—smooth as denim left out in the sun too long. But there was something else beneath it now. Less fire. More ash.

"Didn't expect to see you somewhere with fluorescent lighting," she added, tipping her chin toward the ceiling like even the light itself was beneath her.

I let the corner of my mouth pull, just barely. "Didn't expect to see you somewhere with a return policy."

Her smile ghosted into place. Not defensive. Not forced. Just... practiced. Like muscle memory from a fight neither of us were still in.

"Touché," she said, lifting the ostrich-skin boots in her hand like they were proof of surrender. "Clearance rack's humbling. I'm trying to make peace with it."

My eyes flicked to the boots, then the flask still dangling loose in her other hand. "You buying those or hoping they'll propose?"

"I'm waiting to see if they make the first move."

"They look like the kind that'd ghost you."

That cracked something. Just slightly. A laugh that hadn't seen daylight in a while shook loose from her chest, low and honest.

The clerk had drifted somewhere toward the back, maybe caught in the hush we left behind—maybe just smart enough to recognize the kind of room that had its own gravity. The kind born from people who'd stood on opposite sides of something once sharp and let it dull down over time, not from lack of edge, but from understanding what it cost to keep it honed.

Jasmine didn't move. Just looked at me with that steady, guarded gaze—the one I'd seen across arenas and behind bleachers and once, in a motel parking lot with rain in her hair and fire in her eyes. Her expression didn't shift, but I could feel the flicker behind it. Recognition. Not of who I was now—but of who she hadn't seen me become.

"You look good," she said at last.

It wasn't flattery. It wasn't bait. It was said the way people say the weather looks different than they remembered—like it surprised them, but not in a bad way.

"You look like you haven't slept in two weeks," I replied, voice softer than I meant it to be.

She gave a soft snort—more breath than sound. "Try a month."

I didn't ask. She didn't explain. But it sat between us anyway, quiet as dust.

Her chin tipped toward the gloves in my hand. "Still pretending those are better than mine?"

"They do beat yours," I said. "They just don't need rhinestones to prove it."

That earned a real laugh—low and full-bodied, like it came from a place deeper than she meant to let me see. Her head tipped back slightly, one boot swinging against the other as she leaned into the moment like she hadn't leaned into anything in a while.

"You've changed," she said.

"No," I answered, careful. "I've just got less to prove."

Jasmine turned the boots over in her hands like she was checking for damage, but I knew she wasn't really looking at them. Her gaze dipped to the floor, lingered there a beat too long, then lifted—not quite to meet mine. Just close enough to feel the weight of it.

"I heard about Nationals," she said.

I didn't respond. Just let the words pass through me the way cold moves through wood. I knew she didn't mean anything by it, not out loud anyway—but it still scraped something raw.

She added, quieter, "Didn't mean anything by it. Just... heard."

I nodded once. "Yeah. I know."