Page 24 of Run to Me
I finally stop, letting the hammer dangle from my fingers. The silence is heavy, and I hate it almost as much as I need it. “Got to get it done,” I say, the words a weak defense, like an old dog that can’t bite anymore.
Gavin steps over a loose board, reaches to steady a wobbling beam. His presence, solid and unwelcome, makes everything feel more real and more desperate. “You’re working yourself to death out here,” he insists. “For what, Ace?”
I swallow hard, my throat raw from more than just the dust. The words are lodged there, heavy and sharp. I think of Olivia, of the way she looks at me, of the way I can’t look at myself. “Maybe I’m not enough for her,” I say, my voice a fragile thing, almost lost to the wide, empty land.
Gavin’s silence is its own kind of answer. I pick up another plank, try to ignore the way my hands shake, the way my chest tightens.
“Olivia doesn’t need this,” Gavin says finally, motioning to the mess around us, to the mess I am. “She needs you.”
The hammer slips from my grip, clattering to the ground like a final confession. I want to tell him he’s wrong, that she needs more than I can give, more than some broke-down cowboy with a broke-down dream. But I can’t find the words, can’t even find the courage to meet his eyes.
Gavin picks up the hammer, holds it out to me like an offer of something I don’t know how to take. “Talk to her,” he urges, and there’s something like kindness in his voice, like hope.
I hesitate, the weight of everything bearing down, the old ranch creaking under the strain. Then I reach for the hammer, for the chance he dangles just out of reach. “I don’t know how,” I admit, and it feels like the truest thing I’ve said all day.
Gavin claps a hand on my shoulder, the pressure more reassuring than the words he’s spoken. “Figure it out.”
He turns to leave, and I watch him go, watch the dust swallow his truck until I’m alone again, alone with the fence and the sun and the fear that nothing I build will ever last. But Gavin’s words linger, and I know I’ll have to choose soon, between risking too much and not enough.
OLIVIA
“The investor’s offer puts everything at risk—I may lose both my dream and Ace.” I glance at the steam curling from my coffee.
Serena watches me, her calm eyes holding a patience I envy. She’s always been like this, steadfast and sure, a light in the uncertain darkness I can’t quite banish. “You need to tell him. Don’t let fear decide for you.”
I shake my head, the doubt as thick and bitter as the coffee cooling between us. “It’s not just about fear. It’s about everything I’ve worked for.” My words tangle, tripping over ambition and affection, each chasing the other in an exhausting loop.
“You won’t lose what matters most,” Serena insists, leaning forward, her hand reaching across the table, not touching, but close enough to offer a lifeline. “But if you don’t talk to him, you might.”
I let her words hang there, let them sink into the quiet. The brochures scattered on the table blur together, promises of success and security that now feel like threats. “He thinks I’m choosing the ranch over him,” I say, a whisper of desperation, a plea for understanding. “Maybe he’s right.”
“He’s not,” Serena counters. “You have to trust that he loves you enough to understand.”
Her certainty is disarming, as steady as the beat of my own heart. I want to believe her, want to believe that love isn’t just another risk. “What if it’s not enough?” I ask, the question hanging like a storm cloud ready to burst.
Serena smiles, that gentle, knowing smile that sees through to the core of things. “What if it is?” she replies, tapping her fingers lightly on the table to punctuate her point. Her optimism should annoy me, but it doesn’t. It never does.
The weight of decisions pressing down, relentless and real. “I’m scared, Serena. Scared that I’ll lose him, lose everything.”
“We all are,” she admits, and there’s something freeing in her words, in the shared fear. “But you have to try. You have to be honest with him—and yourself.”
Her encouragement is relentless, as relentless as the dreams I’ve chased, as relentless as the love I pretend isn’t my greatest ambition.
“You think I’m doing this all wrong,” I say, trying to find lightness, trying to find a way back to myself.
“I think you’re doing it all right,” Serena assures, reaching for her cup. “You just need to remember why you’re doing it. We’re all behind you.”
I meet her gaze, finally letting the warmth of it thaw the parts of me frozen with doubt. “Even Ace?” I ask, the question more a statement, more a dare to the universe that I will make this work.
“Especially Ace.”
The noise of the café rises around us. I feel it then, the lift in my heart, the delicate, daring belief that I can have it all, that I won’t have to choose.
“I’m going to find him.” I pick up my things and head to my truck, dialing Ace’s phone, but get no answer so I head toward Gavin’s.
The route to Gavin’s Ranch is muscle memory, a path I could drive with my eyes closed, though I never do. The old truck handles like the veteran it is, rough and rattling but somehow holding together, a metaphor I’d laugh at if the stakes weren’t so high. It’s all I have to get me to him. He is what I want. That I am the only one holding myself back from him. I catch sight of the ranch and press harder, faster, as though I can speed through the years we’ve wasted.
I pull up just shy of the house, barely registering the crew gathered nearby, their faces serious. My foot hits the ground before the dust can settle. The ranch hand steps toward me, face shaded by the brim of his sweat-stained hat. “Olivia,” he calls out, voice gravelly and urgent. “Ace had himself an accident.”
