Page 5 of Broken Reins (Whittier Falls #4)

Four

Ford

I t took me three tries to wedge the couch through the living room door, and even after I’d finally muscled it into place, it looked all wrong.

Too new, too big, too gray for a ranch house that still reeked of linseed oil and stale winter dust. The couch was the only piece of furniture that was mine.

Everything else I had here came with the house, according to the ancient, half-blind real estate agent who’d grinned with a mouthful of antique fillings as he handed me the keys and told me I was “getting a hell of a deal, son.” I’d only bought the place last month, sight unseen, but it looked like nobody’d lived here since before I left Whittier Falls.

I dropped down onto the cushions, letting the moving box in my arms thunk to the floor.

The sun was low, shooting blinding streaks through the crusty front windows and making the air inside look thick as syrup.

I took a slow breath, then forced myself up again.

Still too much to do to be sitting around, and the longer I waited, the more the old house creaked and moaned as if to remind me I was, in fact, still alone.

Most of my stuff was already here. A dozen boxes, three suitcases, my computer set-up, and exactly zero sentimental keepsakes, unless you counted a glass jar full of guitar picks and a set of black-inked sketchbooks.

I liked to travel light, and I liked to keep my past where it belonged—in the past.

But now, staring at the battered cardboard box labeled “OFFICE,” I hesitated.

I knew what was inside before I even pulled the tape.

My hands didn’t shake, but I felt the little hitch in my pulse as I peeled the box open and thumbed through the contents.

Laptop. Old stack of programming books. A photo frame, facedown at the bottom.

I picked it up, traced the pitted glass with my thumb, and felt the first warning shot of a headache behind my right eye.

It was a picture of the Red Downs Ranch crew from high school—me, Gray, Walker, Damon, and Mason, all in Wranglers and boots, all grinning like idiots, each of us caked in the same layer of sweat and dust. In the background: a pickup truck, faded blue, paint peeling off the hood.

I remembered the day, the stupid jokes we’d made, the feeling of belonging that was as rare and intoxicating as good whiskey.

I carried the frame, figuring I’d set it on the shelf by the window. That’s when the memory hit—harder than the fist that caught my jaw yesterday.

The smell of gasoline thick in the summer air, so strong it made my tongue go numb.

My father, standing by water, cigarette burning between two fingers, hand raised—not to wave, but to strike.

I saw the moment freeze: his face a mask of rage and grief, the lines carved so deep they looked like scars.

The world behind him was fire, the sound like wet logs in a bonfire, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe.

The back of my throat tasted metallic. My grip slipped on the photo frame and it clattered onto the wooden floor. A crack spidered across the glass.

“Shit,” I muttered, pressing my hands flat against the shelf to steady myself. “Get it together.”

I closed my eyes, waited for the nausea to pass, and then, slowly, the old house faded in around me again. The past was just that: past.

I went back to unpacking, one book at a time, lining them up on the bookshelf with machine precision. The sun crept higher up the wall, painting long, sharp-edged rectangles across the scuffed wood floor. The quiet was so thick I could hear the blood move in my ears.

Then the doorbell rang and nearly sent me through the ceiling.

I straightened, wiping my palms on my jeans, and walked to the entryway, careful to keep my footsteps even.

The bell rang again, twice this time, impatient.

I half expected to see Gray or Damon on the other side, ready to finish what they started.

Or maybe just Sutton, delivering a bag of cinnamon rolls with a side of annoyed sympathy.

But when I opened the door, it was Mason Bridges standing on my porch, shifting from one mud-crusted boot to the other, shoulders squared like he was bracing for a gunfight.

He of course looked older than the last time I’d seen him—hard lines around his eyes, sunburn along the cheekbones, a little more thickness through the neck and arms—but his hair was still dark as fresh asphalt, and his stare still had the weight of a man who knew horses better than he knew people.

He wore a snap-front shirt, sleeves rolled past the elbow, and his jeans were stained with the sort of grime that only comes from real work.

“Mason,” I said, voice flat but not unfriendly.

He didn’t answer right away, just reached up to adjust his hat. It wasn’t the “aw shucks” move some people did. More like he needed both hands to hold back what he really wanted to say.

“Ford.” He said my name like he was tasting it for poison.

We stood there for a second, neither of us blinking.

“I, uh,” Mason started, then stopped. He hooked a thumb in his pocket. “Just heard you were back. Thought I’d say hi before the rumor mill had you running a dog-fighting ring or selling organs on the internet.”

I almost smiled. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Still in the planning stages.”

He laughed, a single sharp breath. “Good. That’s more your style anyway.”

We both seemed to notice at the same time how awkward it was, two grown men hovering in the threshold with their hands in their pockets, like kids about to get hauled in front of the principal.

I stepped aside and gestured him in. “You want a drink?”

He hesitated, just a second, then nodded. “Sure.”

The inside of the house didn’t improve much with company.

Mason took it all in, eyes flicking from the half-assembled couch to the bare floors to the stack of books still waiting to be put up.

He didn’t comment. He just headed for the couch and perched on the edge, boots planted square and knees spread wide.

I went to the fridge and found two beers wedged behind a sack of takeout and a carton of eggs. I tossed him one, kept the other, and sat across from him on the arm of the loveseat. For a few seconds, the only sound was the pop and hiss of bottle caps.

“So,” I said, trying not to sound like I was bracing for a blow, “what’s new at Red Downs?”

Mason tipped the bottle to his lips, swallowed, and then shrugged. “Not much,” he started, and then realizing that couldn’t possibly be true, smirked. “Well, yeah I guess a lot. Gray’s running the place since his daddy passed. Moved to the big house and married a celebrity.”

“Heard about that.” I didn’t think there was anyone in the whole country who hadn’t heard about heiress and influencer Eryn Blake moving to Montana and settling down with a horse rancher. I just never could have imagined the horse rancher in question would have been one of my former best friends.

“Walker's still trying to set world records for how fast he can go through ranch hands,” he continued. “Ain’t been the same without you.”

I snorted. “You survived two decades without me. I doubt you need me now.”

“Nah, maybe not need you. But we had a good crew there for a while. Things were good.”

“Yeah. They were, I guess.”

He looked down at his beer. “Yeah, well. People are saying things. About you. About why you left.”

I let the words sit there. Mason wasn’t the gossiping type, and if he was bringing this up, it meant things were about to get real uncomfortable.

“People always say things,” I replied.

“Yeah,” he said, voice flat. “But you know how it is around here. Folks got long memories.”

For a second, the image of the fire threatened to crowd everything else out, but I locked it away, deep as it would go.

“I’m not here to stir up trouble,” I said. “My mom’s sick.”

He bowed his head and set the bottle down on the dusty end table. “I heard. Awful sorry ‘bout it.”

“Thanks . . . Look, I know I’ve been away from home for too long. Needed to come back, take care of things, maybe even find a place to clear my head.”

Then something occurred to me. “How’d you find me?”

He laughed. “News gets around, Ford. Even if you pay cash and use some California lawyer to sign the deed with a company name. You should remember what small town life is like.”

Mason was right. I should have figured. Maybe I had been in California for too long.

“Chickadee’s a fixer-upper, but hell, I always thought it had good bones.”

“Didn’t plan on buying anything. It just felt right.”

I looked around at the cracked baseboards, the peeling paint, the ancient fireplace that probably hadn’t worked in years.

The house obviously needed some TLC. But the ranch itself was beautiful land.

Land I could work, build into something.

Not as big as Red Downs, or Damon’s ranch, Wild Creek, but it would be mine.

Would give me something tangible to do. It might seem crazy to some, but I was born here. I needed to come back.

Mason’s mouth curved into a smile—not a happy one, but one of those small, private jokes people tell themselves.

“You always were one for surprises.” His gaze went cold for a moment, then softened.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay. After what happened with Damon yesterday. He’s got a temper, but he doesn’t mean most of what he says. ”

“He meant that punch,” I said, rubbing my jaw.

Mason barked a laugh. “Yeah, that part’s probably true.

But he’ll get over it. We all will.” He looked around, taking it all in again, like he was memorizing every angle.

“Never thought I’d see this place sold,” he said.

“Chickadee Ranch was one of those properties nobody ever touched. Old man Beaudry let it rot for twenty years.” He paused, studying me with a kind of cautious curiosity. “You planning to stay a while?”

I shrugged. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether people let me,” I said, meaning it more than I wanted to admit.

“Buying property sure seems like you made your mind up already.”

“I bought it cheap,” I said, half a joke.

Mason nodded, then ran a hand through his hair, leaving a pale streak across his temple. “I guess I don’t get why you’d want it. I figured if you ever came back, it’d be to just pass through. Not settle in.”

I shrugged. “I needed a place to think.”

“About what?”

I hesitated, then decided honesty couldn’t make things much worse. “About why I left. Why I stayed gone so long. Whether there’s anything left for me here.” I looked him dead in the eye. “Whether it’s worth trying to fix things.”

He was quiet a long time. The only sound was the ticking of the wall clock and the crows outside, squabbling over a scrap of something dead.

“You hurt a lot of people when you left,” Mason said. His voice wasn’t angry, just worn down, like he’d rehearsed this speech for years and never quite got it right. “Gray, Damon, me, Walker. But especially my mom and dad. They always thought of you as one of their own.”

I nodded, because I knew it was true.

“Wasn’t easy for us, you know,” he said, and his eyes softened a notch. “Even after all this time.”

I stared at the floor, at a knot in the wood that looked like a bullet hole. “Wasn’t easy for me, either.”

He let that hang, then exhaled. “I came here today because I wanted to say thank you. For what you did for Chloe.”

I looked up, surprised. “Wasn’t anything, really.

” And it wasn’t. I’d just been able to track some locations when Mason’s girlfriend had been taken and her life was at risk.

What came easy to me ended up being what allowed them to save her.

I was happy to help of course, but it didn’t feel like two minutes at my keyboard made me some kind of hero.

“It was everything,” he said, and now the gratitude was raw, unfiltered. “You’re the only one who figured out where she was. Cops didn’t do shit, I didn’t know what to do—” he shook his head, angry at himself. “But you did. You got her home to me.”

I didn’t know what to do with praise, so I just shrugged again, hoping he’d move on.

He didn’t. He just let his hands drop to his sides, fingers curling in and out.

“I don’t know what happened with you and Ty Higgins.

I don’t know if you ever want to talk about it.

But I do know this: you did a good thing for me and my family, Ford.

Maybe the best thing anyone’s done around here in a long damn time. ”

My throat went tight. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to laugh or break down.

We stood there, staring at each other, until the clock ticked over to the next minute.

“To lost causes,” I said, raising my beer bottle.

He picked his back up and clinked it against mine, the sound sharp and sweet. “To second chances.”

We drank in silence. When I set my bottle down, Mason was watching me with a look that was equal parts hope and warning.

“We ain’t ever going to be what we were,” he said, not unkindly. “But we could maybe be something new.”

I nodded. “I’d like that.”

He nodded back, and for the first time since I got back to Whittier Falls, I believed it might be possible.

After he left, I went to the window and watched him drive off. The dust from his truck hung in the sunlight for a long time, slow to settle.

I thought about what he’d said. About Chloe, and about Ty, and about the things I’d run from. The ache in my chest wasn’t gone, but for once, it didn’t feel like punishment.

Maybe, I thought, there’s still a way forward.

Maybe, I thought, I could stay.