Page 142 of 11 Cowboys

“I like rough,” I say, arching a brow and flipping to the first page. “Grit is where the heart is.”

She snorts. “God, you’re such a cowboy.”

“Yes, ma’am, I am.”

I start to read, and the world narrows to the black ink on white paper and her words, her rhythm, and her voice. The land she’s describing might as well be ours: hot skies, red dirt, horses with more personality than half the town, and a man who keeps too much inside because he doesn’t know what to do with the soft parts of his heart. The female main character is sharp but hopeful and so deeply unsure of herself that I want to step onto the page and tell her she’s already enough.

I’m halfway through chapter two when I come across a line that floors me.

He didn’t know how to speak her language, but he wanted to. He wanted to tell her all the secrets of his heart and discover the sweet and sacred murmurings of hers, and maybe it’d be enough to make her realize she’d be better off with him than alone.

I blink once. Twice. Then I read it again, this time aloud.

Grace is quiet across from me. When I look up, her eyesare shining, glassy, and wide.

“Damn, Grace,” I say, my voice rough with something I wasn’t expecting. “That’s… that’s real.”

She swipes under her eye, catching a tear before it can fall. “You think so?”

“I know so.”

She laughs wetly, then presses her palms against her cheeks like she’s trying to hide from the emotion flooding her face. “God, I never would’ve written any of this if I hadn’t come back. If I hadn’t had you—all of you—reminding me I wasn’t crazy for wanting more.”

“You’re not crazy, Grace. You’re honest. You’ve got a voice, and hell, you’ve got something to say.”

She exhales a shaky breath. “That glass office never made me feel like I was worth listening to. You all... You made me believe my voice was more than cheap headlines and background noise.”

I reach across the desk and take her hand. “What you’ve written here? It’s the start of a story that will reach off the page and into people’s chests.”

She squeezes my fingers, and for a moment, the world goes still around the two of us, tethered together by love and hope and all her dreams. This woman in front of me is an expansion from who she was when she arrived all those months ago.

Then comes a knock at the door.

“Y’all reading smut in there without me?” Levi’s voice, too loud and too gleeful, cuts through the air like a splash of cold water.

Grace bursts out laughing, a tear escaping down her cheek even as she snorts. “Get in line, cowboy.”

“You’re gonna have to read it out loud if you want feedback,” he says through the door. “I got a whole section in my brain for emotionally repressed saddle bros and their independent but secretly vulnerable love interests.”

I look back at Grace, who’s trying and failing to pull herself together. She wipes her face and laughs again, a full,belly-deep sound this time. And I swear, there’s no better music than that.

Levi’s footsteps fade, and the silence settles again like dust in a sunbeam. Grace exhales slowly, her shoulders easing, fingers returning to the keyboard with a kind of quiet certainty. I sit with her, watching the way her brow furrows in concentration, the way she bites her lip before she types a sentence she must love.

She’s on fire.

I step behind her and wrap my arms gently around her waist, careful not to disturb her rhythm. My mouth finds the soft skin of her temple, and I press a kiss there, lingering a moment longer than necessary.

“You’re building something in here, Grace,” I murmur. “Don’t stop. You were made for this.”

Her hands still for a beat, and then she leans back into me.

“Thanks, Harrison,” she whispers. “For seeing it. For seeing me. For your encouragement and support.”

“People think I don’t feel because I don’t talk about my emotions or demonstrate with affection like some men in my family. Truth is, I’ve been cataloging every way I could love you from the moment we met, and if I can help you become who you want to be, then that’s a gift.”

She smiles, but with tears in her eyes.

“And when you’re ready, I can proofread your book so you can get it out into the world.”