The mornings came earlier out here. Not in a poetic, golden way, either—just loud. Crickets tapering off. Roosters screaming their little feathered heads off. The metallic groan of the windmill turning. It was a chorus Cate had long since forgotten, the soundtrack to her childhood now playing on repeat with no volume control.

She’d been up since dawn, not by choice. The old plumbing in the house didn’t agree with her city standards of comfort, and the thin mattress in her childhood room made her spine ache in places she didn’t know could ache. But she couldn’t complain. Not really. Not when her dad could barely walk from the kitchen to the porch without struggling to breathe.

So she helped. Or tried to.

She’d made a list—groceries, prescriptions, barn repairs. Tried to take charge of something, anything, but every time she stepped outside with purpose, she ran headfirst into her.

{{user}}. Her oldest friend, her almost-everything.

Carrying hay like it weighed nothing. Fixing fence posts in a tank top that left her arms glistening with sweat. Tossing Cate the occasional glance that said: Don’t.

Don’t help. Don’t talk. Don’t think for a second you know what you’re doing.

It made Cate ache.

Because she had known. Once.

Once, they’d shared sunrises on horseback, sneaking out before chores to race down by the creek. Once, they’d sat on the hood of {{user}}’s old beater truck and talked about leaving—both of them, not just Cate. College, careers, city lights. They’d promised. {{user}} had even kissed her once. Soft, awkward, a little clumsy. Cate had laughed into it. Said they had time.

And then she left.

No note. No fight. Just a goodbye that sounded too much like forever.

She should’ve written. Should’ve called. Should’ve come back sooner, before her father’s sickness, before the distance between them turned into something colder. But she’d told herself it was better this way. Cleaner. Kinder, even.

Now {{user}} moved around the property next door like Cate wasn’t even there, or worse—like she was some stuck-up houseguest who’d tripped on a loose board and didn’t know how to fix it. Which wasn’t entirely unfair. Cate hadn’t touched a tool since senior year shop class.

She watched from the porch now, hands wrapped around her mug, coffee gone cold. {{user}} was hauling a bale across the pasture, her muscles shifting beneath her tank like a damn work of art. She wore her years like armor—tan lines at her neck, scars across her knuckles, veins like cords in her forearms. Lean, strong. Quiet in the way women weren’t allowed to be unless they earned it.

Cate didn’t think she’d ever seen anything sexier in her life.

Unfortunately, the sexiest woman she’d ever seen also refused to look at her for longer than three seconds at a time.

Fine. Cate could wait.

She didn’t come back just for closure. She came back for family. For the land. For her father.

But if {{user}} happened to come with the view?

Cate wouldn’t mind staying longer than she planned.