Page 7 of Promised Cowboy

He watches me for a moment before answering, his voice equally low. “So do you.”

The heat behind those simple words isn’t lost on me. I feel it settle in my chest, radiating outward.

God, why does this feel so loaded?

I force a little smile and glance down at my tea, my fingers finding the rim of the glass again like some nervous reflex. “I’ve missed this place,” I offer, needing to say something, anything, to fill the space between us.

“You’ve missed Silver Creek?” he asks.

“Shadowbrook. Here. All of it.” I pause, my voice dropping without meaning to. “Missed you too.”

The words slip out before I can fully weigh them, but I don’t regret them. I mean every syllable.

His eyes soften, and for a moment, I see something flash across his face—relief, maybe. Hope. Or something even deeper that knots my stomach.

“I’ve missed you too, Lace,” he says.

My old nickname on his lips. Like he never stopped using it. Like no time passed at all.

The air between us thickens. Neither of us moves. Neither of us speaks.

The old promise whispers in the back of my mind, uninvited but impossible to ignore.

If we’re still single at thirty, we’ll marry each other.

It had been a joke.

At least, I’d always told myself it was.

We were kids. Sitting on the bed of his truck under a blanket of stars, the summer before I left for college. I’d been nervous, excited, convinced the city held everything I was looking for.

And Colton… Colton had already been here. Grounded. Rooted. Sure of the life he wanted.

I’d laughed when he made the pact, tossing it off like some silly safety net neither of us would ever really cash in.

But as the years passed, every birthday that ticked by seemed to make the promise feel a little less funny.

And now I’m back.

I blink, pulling myself out of the spiral.

“It’s been a while,” I say, my voice thinner now.

“Too long,” he agrees, his voice thick with something heavier than nostalgia.

I glance up at him again, this time really looking at the man he’s become, at the quiet strength that’s always been there but now radiates from every part of him. The easy confidence in theway he stands, the way he watches me like I’m the only thing that matters.

And beneath it all, that steady patience I’ve always known.

Waiting.

Has he been waiting?

My stomach flips again, but not from nerves this time. From something deeper. Older.

“You never left here, did you?” I ask softly.

His lips pull into a faint smile. “Nope. Silver Creek’s home. Always has been.”