▍ 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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————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.
