Page 16 of Saddle and Scent (Saddlebrush Ridge #1)

No goodbye, no forwarding address, just an empty room at her aunt's place and the lingering scent of heartbreak.

"Callum!" Wes's voice cuts through the rain and memory alike. "You planning on sitting in that truck all day, or you gonna help us figure out what to do about this shitstorm?"

I blink, realizing I've already made it to the sanctuary's gates. The truck idles in park, and through the rain-streaked window, I can see Wes and Beckett approaching on horseback.

They look like drowned rats, but Wes is grinning despite it all, because that's Wes—finding joy in the chaos like it's his personal mission.

I kill the engine and step out, rain immediately plastering my hair to my skull.

The cold is a relief after the suffocating heat of my thoughts.

"Mustangs are back where they belong," Beckett says, voice steady despite the water running down his face. "Neighbor's grateful, though he's reinforcing that fence line tomorrow. That storm came out of nowhere."

"Fucking insane is what it was," Wes adds, shaking his head like a dog. Water flies everywhere. "One minute clear skies, next minute we're herding spooked horses through a goddamn monsoon. You get the truck sorted?"

I nod, but my attention drifts to the house. One window glows with lamplight, a beacon in the grey afternoon.

She's in there, probably peeling off my soaked flannel, and the image that conjures has me clenching my jaw hard enough to crack teeth.

"She inside?" Beckett asks, following my gaze.

Another nod.

The rain picks up, if that's even possible, turning the world into a watercolor painting left in the rain.

"We should check on her," Beckett continues, ever the caretaker. "Make sure she's okay before we head out. Weather like this, she could catch her death if she's not careful."

Wes snorts.

"When has Juniper Bell ever been careful about anything?"

But he's already turning his horse toward the house, because for all his joking, Wes worries just as much as the rest of us.

Maybe more, because he hides it behind smiles and smart-ass comments.

We tie the horses under the barn's overhang— what's left of it, anyway —and trudge toward the house.

The porch groans under our combined weight, a warning that this place needs more work than any of us want to admit.

Through the window, I catch a glimpse of her.

She's changed into dry clothes—an oversized sweatshirt that might've been her aunt's, pajama pants with cartoon cats on them.

Her hair is toweled dry but still damp, falling in waves around her shoulders.

She looks soft. Touchable. Like the girl we used to know before the world taught her to armor up.

Beckett knocks, three solid raps that echo in the rain-soaked quiet. There's shuffling inside, then the door cracks open.

Juniper peers out, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"What now?" she asks, and there's exhaustion in her voice that makes my chest tight.

"Just checking you made it inside okay," Beckett says, gentle as always. "Storm's getting worse."

She opens the door wider, revealing the disaster zone that is the Bell house.

Boxes are stacked haphazardly from the entryway to the far wall like a barricade against forward progress.

A thin layer of grime dulls the windows, giving the afternoon light a jaundiced, underwater quality.

The furniture—what there is of it—sits beneath ancient drop cloths, their shapes rendered unfamiliar and ghostly, as if the house is actively resisting being lived in again.

On the scratched hardwood floor, warped by years of condensation and neglect, a few brave tufts of dog hair still wander like tumbleweeds, remnants of whatever animal last called the Bell house home.

A single battered bookshelf, half-collapsed, groans under the weight of old paperbacks and Aunt Birdie's collection of ceramic horses, all painted with the obsessive detail of a woman who only trusted her own two hands.

The kitchen is visible in the background, a galley-style corridor of yellowed linoleum and appliances at least as old as me.

The fridge hums a nervous, overcompensating tune.

The oven door is missing its handle, replaced with a piece of baling twine tied in a sad little knot.

Empty beer cans and half-dismantled moving crates crowd the kitchen table, a graveyard of projects started and abandoned midstride.

The whole place smells like must and memory, undercut with a sharp tang of lemon cleaner where Juniper’s tried to wrestle the scent of emptiness into submission.

She stands guard at the threshold in her oversized sweatshirt and pajama pants, arms folded like a bouncer at the world’s most exclusive pity party.

Her feet are bare, toes curled against the cold, and she’s got that look—the one that says she’s going to let us inside only because it’s raining so hard we might die otherwise, and she doesn’t want the paperwork.

"I'm fine," she says, but she's shivering despite the dry clothes. "Truck's here, I'm here, crisis averted. You can all go home now."

Wes pushes past her before she can protest, dripping water all over the ancient hardwood. He can pick out a lie faster than the three of us, and he certainly doesn’t stop himself from acting out.

"Jesus, Junebug, it's freezing in here." Wes's voice ricochets through the entryway, louder than necessary, like he’s trying to shake the cold from the air by sheer force of personality.

He flings his arms out, performing a full-body shiver for the audience, and stomps theatrically on the mat.

Water splotches the floor in a growing Rorschach pattern.

He gives Juniper a look of mock betrayal, accusing like she's personally responsible for global climate patterns.

"What, you planning to turn us into popsicles for dinner, or do you have heat in this crypt? "

Juniper's lips twitch around a smile she tries to swallow, but the tiny betrayal of amusement is there.

She crosses her arms tighter, chin up, and narrows her eyes at Wes as though daring him to complain again.

Beckett ducks his head, hiding a soft grin as he wipes rain from his brow with the back of his hand, and I pick my way around the mud-trail Wes has left like a crime scene behind him.

Wes keeps up his running commentary while dropping his wet jacket unceremoniously over the nearest chair—something Juniper's glare says she notices and will remember for later.

"You know, some people," he announces to the room, "believe in insulation.

Or central heating. Maybe even a little hospitality—hot cider or whiskey, if you want to get fancy.

" He rubs his hands together for effect, breath fogging in the chill.

"Not all of us have a high tolerance for suffering, Junebug," he says, and for a second his voice gentles, less teasing and more the plea of someone who aches for comfort and doesn’t know how to ask for it straight.

Juniper’s eyes flick from Wes to Beckett and then, cautiously, to me.

Her posture softens just a fraction, and I see her weighing whether to keep up the armor or let us inside a little further.

The decision is visible in the way her shoulders slacken, the half-step back that invites us out of the storm and into the chaos of her world.

"The furnace is..." She waves vaguely toward the basement. "Complicated."

I follow Wes inside, Beckett close behind. The house smells like mildew and memories, with an undertone of Juniper's scent that makes it hard to think straight.

She backs up as we crowd into the living room, arms crossed defensively over her chest. I’m trying not to admire her, but it’s hard with that defiant glow in her eyes that are narrowing our way.

I keep telling myself to look away, keep my hands and my eyes to myself, but it’s like trying to ignore an electrical storm when it’s crawling under your skin.

She catches each of us sizing her up with the kind of glare you’d use to freeze a rattlesnake mid-strike, but the effect only makes her impossible not to notice.

Most people, when they’re cornered, get smaller, shrink into themselves and hope to weather it out.

Juniper does the opposite.

She expands to fill the room with her wrath and glory, chin high, arms barring her ribs as if daring us to try and get closer.

There’s something about the way she stands there—barefoot, hair dripping onto her collar, pajama pants pooled around her ankles like she’s forty percent housecat and sixty percent outlaw—that makes my jaw ache with want.

I can’t help it. Even when she’s glaring daggers at me, my body straightens up, my senses tuning to every flicker of movement in case she suddenly flings something at my face.

Half the time I’m not sure whether I want to throttle her or pin her to the wall and kiss her until the fight escapes her lungs.

She knows it, too.

I can tell because the more I try to avert my gaze, the more fiercely she plants her feet, as if to say, Go ahead, look.

I’m stuck—admiring her, defiance and all, and wondering how we ever thought we could handle her leaving. She’s the only person I’ve ever met who could make a room feel too small and too empty at the same time.

"I didn't invite you in," she points out.

"You didn't tell us to leave, either," Wes counters, already poking at the ancient radiator like he knows what he's doing.

Spoiler: he doesn't.

"I'll look at the furnace," I say, because standing here drowning in her scent while she glares at us is not sustainable. "Beckett, check the windows. Wes, stop breaking things."

"I'm helping!" Wes protests, but he steps away from the radiator, hands raised in surrender.

Juniper looks like she wants to argue, but another shiver runs through her, and she just nods. "Basement door's through the kitchen. Try not to die down there—I haven't checked for structural damage yet."