Page 16 of Knotting the Cowboys

I'm in Sweetwater Falls with a broken car I can't fix.

I have a safe place to sleep tonight thanks to Wendolyn's generosity.

Tomorrow I'll need to figure out how to get to the ranch, assuming it even exists and isn't just another disappointment waiting to happen.

None of this is ideal, but it's survivable.

I've survived worse.

The thought brings a bitter smile. Yes, I've survived Blake’s escalating control, the fire that followed when I finally said no, the months of recovery both physical and emotional. I'vesurvived my parents' disappointment, society's judgment, my own designation working against me at every turn.

What's one more impossible situation?

Maybe that's what Wendolyn recognized—one survivor seeing another.Maybe that's why she offered help without making it feel like charity. She knows what it's like to lose everything and have to rebuild from scratch, to walk into a town where you know nobody and make it home through sheer determination.

I change into sleep clothes, movements automatic.

The room is warmer than anywhere I've slept lately, and the quilt smells like lavender and something indefinable that might just be safety. Through the window, Main Street glows softly under its antique streetlamps.

Somewhere in this town, my grandfather's ranch waits—another unknown, another risk, another chance for disappointment.

But also, potentially a chance for a new beginning in the heart of this small little town.

I'm so tired of running, of starting over, of being strong. What if I stopped? What if I let Sweetwater Falls be where the running ends, not because I've found home but because I've run out of road?

The bed creaks as I crawl under the covers, and I half-expect Fitzgerald to materialize as promised. But I'm alone with my thoughts and the fairy lights and the strange feeling that maybe being stranded isn't the worst thing that could've happened.

I could be the universe's way of saying "stop."

Tomorrow I'll deal with the car, the ranch, the reality of being stuck in a town where I know exactly one person.

Tonight, I'm going to sleep in a real bed in a room above a bookstore, gifted by a rebel Omega who collects vintage dresses and hairball stories.

It's not the life I planned, but maybe that's okay. My plans haven't exactly worked out anyway.

Time to see what happens when I stop planning and just survive, one day at a time, starting here in Sweetwater Falls where every heart supposedly finds home.

Even inappropriate hearts like mine.

Sleep won't come.

Despite the comfortable bed and warm quilt, despite exhaustion that goes bone-deep, my mind refuses to quiet. I slip out from under the covers, bare feet silent on the old wooden floor, and pad to the window.

The fairy lights from the porch cast everything in soft focus, like looking at the world through a gentle dream.

Sweetwater Falls sleeps peacefully below.

A few windows still glow with warm light—night owls reading or watching TV, living their ordinary lives. A pickup truck rumbles down Main Street, heading home from some late shift. The mountains ring the town like protective walls, their dark shapes just visible against the star-filled sky.

It's postcard perfect, almost aggressively so, like the town knows exactly how charming it is and leans into it.

I press my palm against the cool glass, watching my breath fog a small circle.

Twelve hours ago, I was just trying to make it to the ranch before dark. Now I'm standing in a borrowed room above a bookstore, taken in by a woman who sees rebellion as a kindness and kindness as rebellion.

The whiplash of it makes my head spin.

How did I get here? Not just to Sweetwater Falls, but to this moment—twenty-eight years old, running on fumes both literal and metaphorical, placing my trust in strangers because I've got no other choice?

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