▍ AN ORIGINAL ╱ western romance
There's a kind of wild you can't outrun.
Lemon Odell knows this better than anyone-the kind that lives under your skin, that shapes the way you move, the way you fight, the way you break. Born into a bloodline stitch...
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"Colt," I said again, low and steady, soft as the wind outside but laced with the same quiet warning I'd used three times already. "You need to sit down. Prop your damn foot up. Take the meds. Sleep."
He didn't answer me—just kept dragging that boot through the gravel like it weighed a hundred pounds, like giving in would be some kind of surrender he couldn't stomach. The limp was worse tonight. Shoulder stiff in the sling, cast catching the last of the dusk light and glowing ridiculous and pink like a dare someone lost. He hated it. I could tell by the way he wouldn't look at it.
Watching him now, there was a tightness in my chest I didn't know what to do with. I'd seen him bruised before. Bloodied. But this—this kind of broken—it lived in the quiet, in the slowness, in the way he winced when he thought I wasn't watching. He'd stop every few steps and pretend he was just adjusting something. But I knew. I always knew.
I hated how familiar it all felt.
My mother's voice drifted back to me—uninvited, unwelcome. The way she'd hovered around Daddy after a rough ride. Her tone, part steel and part ache, as she coaxed him out of stubbornness and into a chair. I used to stand in the hallway and promise myself I'd never become her. Never fall into that rhythm of tending to a man who wouldn't quit, no matter what it cost him.
But here I was.
Same cadence. Same helpless pull
And it didn't matter how hard I fought it—life always had a way of turning us into the people we swore we'd never be.
"One damn hour, Lemon," Colt muttered, his voice rough and tired, the words sliding slow off his tongue like they didn't have the strength to land. "Just let me get up there. I'll take the meds later."
I didn't answer. Just reached for his hand without thinking, fingers curling around his the way they had in the ambulance. The way they always did when words failed. His grip was weak. Shaky. But still there. Still Colt, even if less of him showed now than used to.
The barn cats darted ahead as we stepped inside, their eyes gleaming judgment from the rafters. Normally, I would've made some comment, nudged him into laughing at their indifference. But not tonight. Tonight all I could feel was the heat of his body leaning into mine—not too much, just enough to make me ache for what he was trying not to ask for.
Every step up the loft stairs felt like a risk. Not just for him. For me too.
Because I could feel it—how close he was to unraveling. And how close I was to following.
"That's all I need," Colt muttered, half under his breath like maybe if he said it quiet enough, it'd start to feel true. "Few more days, I'll be back to normal."
But we both knew better.
He didn't look at me when he said it, and I didn't press. Some lies ain't meant to be argued with—they're just scaffolding, shaky and temporary, holding up what little hope a man's got left. So I didn't say a damn word. Just helped him through the last steps inside like I believed him.
