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There’s something about being on the back of Legend’s Harley that shouldn’t make sense.

Not with my world. Not with this life. But God help me, it does.

It’s the thunder between my thighs, the vibration of the engine, the way he rides like the road owes him something.

And when I wrap my arms around him, when I feel his body move beneath mine, I don’t feel like an heiress or a broken daughter or a woman on the edge of losing everything.

I just feel alive.

We roll past the dry stone fences of Paradise Falls, the tires humming over the polished drive, the house rising in the distance like it always has, grand, intimidating, old money carved into every brick.

My heels click against the flagstone when I dismount, and I swear the house looks down at me, waiting for me to crumble.

But I don’t. Not yet.

Legend parks, dismounts with that quiet authority he carries like a second skin. He doesn’t speak. Just jerks his chin toward the house before heading off to talk to Oaks and the others.

The Kings spread out like a wolf pack claiming new territory. Leather and smoke, scars and loyalty. They look so out of place here, against the manicured lawns and bourbon-stained perfection. But somehow, they belong more than I do.

Inside, the air is too cold. Too still.

The polished floors gleam beneath my heels as I make my way up the grand staircase, past portraits of racehorses and ancestors who never smiled. At the end of the hall, Nurse Jolene sits in her cream cardigan, book in hand, face drawn.

“He’s still hanging on,” she says softly, standing as I approach. “But it won’t be long now. I’ve seen the signs before. Maybe hours. I thought you should know.”

I nod. I can’t trust my voice.

She squeezes my hand, then disappears down the hallway, leaving me alone outside my father’s suite.

I open the door.

It’s dark inside, save for the low glow of the antique lamp beside his bed.

My father, the man who once towered over this farm like a god, is shrinking beneath the blankets.

His chest rises in slow, uneven breaths.

Skin pale, lips thin. This isn’t the man who survived cancer three times or climbed up onto the roof to fix the weather vane after a storm.

This isn’t the man who used to tell me no boy would ever be good enough.

But maybe that man never really saw me.

“Hey, Daddy,” I whisper, crossing the Persian rug to sit beside him. “I hired the bikers next door.”

It’s a confession, half-joke, half plea.

“The Kings of Anarchy MC. You remember, you hate them. Tattoos and leather and guns in their boots. They’re ruining the pastures with their Harleys. And I know you wouldn’t approve… but I think you’d understand why.”

I trace a wrinkle on the back of his hand.

“Legend’s the only man who’s ever looked at me like I’m not property.

Which is funny, considering all his women literally wear patches that say Property of .

But there’s not a man who sees with dollar signs in their eyes.

There’s something about him, Daddy. Little, Hudson.

You remember when he used to stay with us when his mama vanished.

He makes me feel wanted. Not just protected. Not just possessed. Just… wanted.”

He doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t.

“But that’s not the real reason I hired them. I think I wanted to shake something loose in you. Thought if I stirred enough shit, you’d snap out of this. Sit up. Start yelling. Tell me I’m crazy and irresponsible and still your little girl. But you’re not saying anything.”

Tears burn hot behind my eyes.

“And I don’t know how to do this. The Derby. The farm. James breathing down my neck. Everyone wants a piece of Paradise Falls and I’m trying to hold it together with duct tape and hope. I’m not you. I’m not strong like you.”

I kiss his temple, whispering a goodbye I can’t bring myself to say aloud. Then I stand, legs heavy, and walk back to my room.

I don’t turn on the lights.

I just collapse on the edge of my bed, dress still clinging to my skin, heels abandoned on the floor. I cry, not in sobs but in slow, silent drips, like something inside me is leaking.

Eventually, I drift off.

When I wake, the moon’s high above the horizon, silver spilling through the gauzy curtains. I wipe my eyes and cross to the window.

And there he is.

Legend.

Sitting on the back porch, elbows on his knees, cigarette burning between his fingers, the red ember glowing in the dark like a warning, or a promise.

He’s not looking at the house.

But somehow, I know he feels me watching.

And maybe that’s the closest either of us knows how to get.

I remember the first time I spent time any real time with him. We watched The Princess Bride .

I was nine. He was ten. His mama had just disappeared, ran off in the middle of the night without so much as a note, and his daddy, one of the hired hands at Paradise Falls, wasn’t exactly the nurturing type.

My mama insisted he stay with us for a while.

Said no child should feel that kind of empty all alone.

I didn’t like it at first. I thought he was loud, rude, and he always smelled like the barn.

But that night, we curled up on the old velvet couch in the parlor, bowl of popcorn between us, the TV’s glow painting shadows across the wallpaper.

I was in my flannel horse pajamas. He wore one of James’s old hand-me-down shirts from my dad that hung off him like a scarecrow.

And when the farm boy on screen said, “As you wish,” his little mouth twisted into the saddest damn smile I’d ever seen.

“Why do you like this movie?” I asked him.

“Because Wesley never leaves,” he said. “He comes back for her. Always.”

That stuck with me.

Later, when we were teens and hormones ruined everything, I started calling him Stable Boy to get his attention.

To tease him because I wanted his attention more than anything.

It worked, too. He’d scowl and snap back with, Horse Princess , and add something rude about how I had teeth like a thoroughbred.

We’d pretend to hate it, but we never stopped. Never corrected each other.

Even now, all these years later, when I hear him mutter Horse Princess under his breath, like a prayer or a curse, I feel nine again. Like I’m sitting on that couch, watching a farm boy fight giants and fire swamps just to make it back to the girl he loved.

And God help me, I wonder if my Stable Boy ever will.