Page 53 of Wild Then Wed
He lets out a low, impatient whine. I sigh and tear off a piece of bacon and toss it down. He catches it midair with a snap of his jaws and wags his tail.
I shake my head and throw him another for good measure.
I got Hank from a local shelter a few months after I lost Julia and Violet, back when the house felt too big and too empty and too silent to live in.
People kept telling me to get a dog, like it was some kind of magical cure. At the time, it honestly sounded like a load of bullshit. Nothing could fix what broke in my life.
But Hank was a reason to come home. A reason to get up in the morning. A reason to open the door and walk outside when everything in me wanted to stay buried under the covers and forget the world kept spinning without them.
He gave me something I didn’t know I still needed—responsibility, routine, the quiet comfort of another living thing depending on me when I didn’t even trust myself to keep standing.
Nearly five years later, he’s still here. Still trailing after me like it’s his full-time job. Still looking at me like I hung the damn moon.
And on the days when the weight of it all catches up to me—when I feel like I’m still walking through the wreckage, still dragging it behind me—he’s the one thing that never asks me to be anything more than exactly what I am.
Looking back, getting him was probably the smartest damn thing I did. Maybe the only thing that kept me from falling all the way apart.
I look forward to our runs every morning. Even on the days Dom’s got a session lined up, I still lace up my shoes and hit the road with Hank. The runs clear my head better than anything else does.
Better than sleep, which I almost never get these days. Better than silence.
And keeping my stamina up saves me from Dom’s mouth, which is the real win. If my cardio dips, he makes damn sure I hear about it.
I check the time on the stove clock, scraping the last few bites of bacon and eggs off my plate before tossing it into the sink. The day’s already trying to outrun me.
The house is quiet, the way it always is. Tucked back from the rest of the Hart Ranch, past the barns and the noise and the steady churn of everyone else’s mayhem.
It’s big, built modern when my parents added it onto the land years ago, all clean lines and wide windows that swallow the view of the fields.
A little too big for one person and a dog. A little too empty, if I’m being honest.
I never bothered much with decorating. Never cared about it. That was always Julia’s thing. She had a way of making any place feel lived-in, warm. Without her, it’s just a lot of space I never figured out how to fill.
I make sure Hank’s got food and fresh water before grabbing an extra jacket from the hall closet. The mornings are colder lately, and it can crawl into your bones if you’re not ready for it.
When I reach for the jacket, my eyes flick up to the door across the hall. The one I locked up for good almost five years ago.
The lavender paint is still bright, untouched by time, little butterflies stenciled along the edges of the doorframe. Inside, there’s a crib that’s never been slept in. A dresser full of folded clothes that never got worn.
A room full of dreams that never had the chance to come true.
I haven’t opened that door since the day I shut it. Just slid the key onto the ledge above the frame, out of sight, out of reach, and told myself that was enough.
Most days, I walk past it without thinking. Or at least I pretend I do. But it’s there, a bruise pressed into the bones of the house, stitched into every quiet morning and every empty night.
A room that doesn’t breathe anymore, but somehow still manages to haunt the air around it.
I shrug on my jacket, glance once more at the closed door, and keep moving.
I quickly grab the two thermoses off the counter—one mine, one Wren’s—and head out to the car, Hank trotting after me until I give him a quick scratch behind the ears and point toward his bed. He gives a low, unhappy huff before settling down.
The air bites as I step outside, cold enough that I’m glad I grabbed the heavier jacket. Frost slicks across the fields, the fences, the top of my car. It’s going to be one of those days where the cold stays stitched to the ground no matter how high the sun gets.
I set the thermoses into the cupholders and slide in behind the wheel, the leather stiff with the chill. If I’m lucky, I’ll catch Wren before her session ends.
If not, well…I guess I’ll have a spare thermos of hot chocolate.
I found the mix at a specialty store down in Bozeman the last time I was there for work—vegan hot chocolate tucked between all the over-priced protein powders and gluten-free snack bars.
