Page 116 of Knotting the Cowboys

"My sisters." The words taste like ash and memory. "My twin sisters, Rose and Lily. They were six when they first saw the festival."

I see her processing the past tense, the way I said 'were' instead of 'are,' and something shifts in her expression. But she doesn't interrupt, just waits while I gather the courage to continue.

"We drove past it on the way home from somewhere—grocery store, maybe. I can't remember. But they pressed their faces against the car windows, watching all the lights and the rides, and they wouldn't stop talking about it for weeks. 'Austin, when can we go? Austin, will you take us on the Ferris wheel? Austin, do they have cotton candy?'"

My voice catches on their names, on the memory of those bright voices I'll never hear again. "I was seventeen, just started working part-time at the fire station, thought I was so grown up and important. Too busy for kid stuff, you know? Told them next year. Always next year."

Willa's hands tighten slightly on my shirt, and I realize she knows where this is going. Can see the shape of the tragedy before I spell it out. But I need to tell it. Need someone to know why this matters so much.

"The fire started from a faulty fuse in the basement. Just a spark, but in an old house with newspapers stacked by the furnace..." I swallow hard, seeing it again in my mind. The blackened skeleton of my childhood home. The silence where there should have been laughter. "Mom had run out to get milk. The twins were on this cereal kick, wouldn't eat anything else for breakfast, and we'd run out. Dad was at work. I was at the station, actually, my first overnight shift."

The irony of it still burns. Me, playing at being a firefighter while my sisters died in a fire nobody could put out in time.

"By the time anyone noticed the smoke, by the time Mom got back and called it in..." My voice breaks completely now, and I have to stop, breathe, try to hold back the tears that want to fall. "The fire department back then was a joke. Understaffed, undertrained, equipment from the sixties. They tried, but..."

"Austin," Willa breathes, and there's so much in that single word. Understanding. Sorrow. Not pity—thank God, not pity—but genuine shared pain for the boy who lost his sisters and the man who still carries that loss.

"That's why I became a real firefighter," I continue, needing to finish now that I've started. "Trained properly, learned everything I could about fire suppression and rescue operations. Made sure what happened to them would never happen to another family on my watch." I attempt a smile that probably looks as broken as I feel. "And every year since, I come to the rodeo. Ride the Ferris wheel they never got to ride. Eat cotton candy for three. Watch the fireworks and think about how much they would have loved it."

The tears escape then, just one or two tracking down my face before I can stop them. I'm about to wipe them away, embarrassed by the display, when Willa reaches up and does it for me. Her thumb is gentle against my cheek, and the tenderness of the gesture makes my chest seize.

"Everyone in town knows why I come," I manage, voice thick. "It's not a secret. Which is why the Mayor?—"

"The Mayor made that rule to hurt you specifically," she finishes, understanding dawning in her expression. "Because he couldn't get to Cole or River or Mavi, but he knew this would hit you where it matters."

"I'm kind of the soft one," I admit with a watery laugh. "The youngest, the optimist. Guess he figured I'd be the easiest to break."

Something fierce flashes in Willa's eyes then, a protective fury that makes her look like an avenging angel despite the sparkly dress. "He figured wrong," she says firmly. "We're going to show him exactly how wrong he was, aren't we?"

The 'we' makes my heart skip. Not 'you' but 'we,' like my fight is her fight now. Like we're a team.

"Yeah?" I whisper.

"Yeah." She stretches up on her tiptoes, even in the heels not quite tall enough to reach, and presses the softest kiss to my nose. The gesture is so sweet, so unexpected, that more tears threaten. "We're going to dance on that floor like we own it. We're going to make the Mayor look like the petty, small man he is. And we're going to honor Rose and Lily by having the kind of magical night they would have loved."

I crush her against me then, overwhelmed by the gift of her understanding. She doesn't try to fix it or minimize it or tell me it's been long enough that I should be over it. She just accepts my grief as part of me and offers to stand beside me anyway.

"Thank you," I whisper into her hair. "For listening. For being here. For..." For being you, I don't say, but I think she hears it anyway.

"Thank you for trusting me with this," she whispers back. "For sharing something so personal."

I pull back slightly, just enough to see her face. "I've never told anyone," I admit. "Not the full story. Not even Sarah when we thought she'd be our Omega."

Something flickers in her expression at Sarah's name, but it's gone before I can identify it. "Well," she says softly, "I'm honored to be the one you told."

We stand there for a moment, foreheads almost touching, breathing the same air. The festival continues around us—music and laughter and the business of living—but in our little bubble, it's just us and this moment of perfect understanding.

"Willa," I say, and her name feels like prayer on my lips. "Can I kiss you properly?"

The question hangs between us, heavy with meaning. This isn't about heat or biological urges or the pull between Alpha and Omega. This is about connection, about choosing each other in this moment of vulnerability and truth.

She blushes, that perfect pink spreading across her cheeks, and for a second I think I've overstepped. Then she smiles—soft and sure and absolutely beautiful—and nods.

I cup her face with both hands, thumbs stroking over those flushed cheeks, and lower my mouth to hers. The kiss is gentle, almost chaste, but it rocks through me like thunder. Her lips are soft under mine, tasting faintly of whatever gloss makes them that perfect red, and when she sighs into my mouth, I feel it in my bones.

It's not a claiming kiss or a passionate kiss or any of the kinds of kisses I've imagined late at night. It's a promise kiss. A "we'rein this together" kiss. A "your pain is my pain and your joy is my joy" kiss.

When we finally break apart, we're both breathing unsteadily. Her eyes flutter open, looking dazed and soft, and I have to resist the urge to dive back in immediately.

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