Page 28 of Wild Then Wed
I flip on the dim barn lights and walk down the aisle, passing Elvis, who must’ve snuck out here at some point from the main house. He’s curled up in a pile of straw.
“You’re lazy, you know that?” I mutter. He lifts his head and blinks at me like he’s heard that before, which he has. Often.
And then I see Ringo.
He’s standing in his stall. Big, broad-shouldered, with a dark chestnut coat that still somehow catches the light in this half-frozen barn. His mane’s a little unruly and his eyes are warm in a way that makes something sharp in me go soft.
I got him when I was fifteen. Right after I started competing in reined cow horse events on the youth circuit. He was green and unpredictable and way too much horse for me. But I figured him out. Or maybe he figured me out. We made sense in a way that nothing else did back then.
He’s been my best friend ever since.
Which is, objectively, pathetic. I know that. Most people have actual friends. Group chats. Text threads that aren’t just appointment reminders from their dentist.
But I’ve never been good at making friends. Not because I don’t want to—I do. I just don’t come off the right way. I’m too quiet until I’m too blunt. I don’t know how to smooth things over with small talk or play nice when I don’t feel it. I skip the part where people ease into knowing each other, and by the time I’ve said something too honest, it’s already over.
People like people who make them feel comfortable. Who knows what to say and says it with a smile. I’ve never been good at that. I’m the one who notices too much, who remembers things you didn’t mean to share. I’m reliable, sure. The one you call when you need a favor or a ride or someone to hold the hard stuff. But that’s not the same as being wanted. It’s not the same as being easy to love.
Ringo doesn’t mind that I’m quiet or weird or not exactly the life of the party. He just leans his head over the stall door and exhales a warm breath against my cheek, like he’s checking to make sure I haven’t turned to ice.
“Hey, you,” I murmur, brushing my fingers along the bridge of his nose. His coat’s warm beneath my hand, solid and steady in a way I haven’t felt all day. He radiates heat and I rest my forehead against his, close enough to feel his breath.
I pat his neck once before stepping away, making my way down the row of stalls. Each horse lifts their head when I pass. I murmur softhellosand brush my gloved hand over their noses like I always do. Gentle. Familiar. I don’t rush it. It feels rude to rush.
At the end of the barn, I duck into the old tack room. It smells like leather and old wood and crisp winter pine. The light inside is dim. In the far corner, behind an unused saddle rack and a stack of empty grain buckets, is my stash—a few stretched canvases, a crate of paint tubes, and a few worn paint brushes.
I drag it all out and carry it back to Ringo’s stall, where he’s already waiting with his head hanging low over the door.
The straw is cold, but I sink down into it anyway, legs folding beneath me. I set the canvas up on an overturned bucket, angle it toward the light, and pull off my gloves.
The cold hits fast. My fingers burn, then go numb at the tips. I rub my hands together hard, trying to coax some feeling back. The paint tubes are stiff in my hands, like they’re resenting mefor bringing them out in this weather. The pigments separate faster in the cold, and I’ve learned which colors hold up best. Titanium white always betrays me first. Cerulean blue holds out the longest.
I’ve been doing this almost every day for years. Ever since I was sixteen and needed a reason to come out here that wasn’t about feeding or mucking or helping Dad wrap an abscess. Back then, I used whatever scraps of cardboard I could find in the burn pile and pilfered paint from the school art closet. Now I keep better supplies tucked away in the tack room, but the rest of it’s the same.
And I don’t mind the cold. Not if I get to paint.
Painting isn’t just something I do. It’s the one place where I don’t have to be anything for anyone. I don’t have to smile right or speak up or make myself easier to hold. The canvas doesn’t care if I’m too quiet or too much. It doesn’t care at all.
It just…lets me exist.
When I paint, the world goes a little softer around the edges. The thoughts that usually won’t shut up finally settle. I don’t think. I don’t plan. I just move—color to color, breath to breath—until everything feels a little more like mine again.
I squeeze a bit of ochre onto the palette, watching it resist the cold before finally giving in. The brush in my hand is worn, the bristles a little frayed, but it still works. I’ve used this one so many times I don’t even think about how to hold it anymore. My fingers move before I ask them to. And that’s the magic of it, really—this one part of my life that doesn’t feel forced.
I don’t know what I’m painting. I never do at first. I just start, and eventually, the shapes turn into something that makes sense. I press the first stroke onto the canvas, and it’s messy and too dark, and I don’t care. It’s honest.
The barn is silent except for the sound of Ringo shifting in his stall, the soft creak of old wood, the storm still raging justbeyond the walls. I should be in the house. I shouldwantto be. But I’ve never felt more at home than I do right here—sitting on cold straw with numb fingers, covered in paint.
This is the place I come to remember who I am when everything else feels too loud.
And maybe that’s what a happy place is. Not somewhere warm or perfect. Just somewhere that doesn’t ask you to be anything but exactly who you are.
This is mine.
Chapter 6
SAWYER
The ropes burn like hell, which is exactly why I don’t stop.
