Chapter 9: The Arrival
The stable outside Woodbridge was called Four Winds, a sprawling, well-kept place that smelled of fresh hay, manure, and liniment. The kid who came out to meet his truck had eyes that went wide as dinner plates.
“No way. You’re Brandon Croft. You rode Diablo Blaze at Fort Worth last year. Eight seconds like it was nothing.” The kid, whose name tag read ‘Tim’, was practically vibrating.
Brandon shook his hand, a bit embarrassed. “This is Thor. Needs a good stall, fresh water, some turnout if you’ve got it.”
“Yes, sir. We’ve got the best. My boss is gonna lose his mind.” Tim was already unbolting the trailer ramp with reverent care.
True to Tim’s word, the stable manager, a grizzled man in his sixties, emerged and within minutes Brandon was being refused payment. “Just let us say we boarded the Croft horse,” the manager insisted, patting Thor’s neck. “Honor’s enough.”
It was a strange feeling. His name, his achievements, were just facts of his life out west. Here, hundreds of miles from home, they were currency. It unsettled him. He thanked them, left his number for emergencies, and drove the now-empty truck and trailer to a motel on the town’s outskirts.
The Lazy River Motel was a single-story strip of doors facing a cracked parking lot, the neon sign of its namesake river flickering with a defeated buzz. His room smelled of bleach and stale cigarettes underlaid with floral air freshener. It was clean, though. Anonymous.
He stood under the shower’s weak spray for a long time, letting the road grime and two days of driving steam away. The water was almost painfully hot. He shaved carefully, the scrape of the razor loud in the tiled silence. He dressed in dark jeans, a clean gray henley, his good boots, and his hat. He looked like himself. He felt like an impostor.
He sat on the edge of the stiff motel bed, the cheap mattress groaning under his weight. The air conditioner chugged to life with a rattle. He realized, with a cold splash in his gut, that he had no idea what he planned to do next.
Show up at her house? That was creepy. Call her? His thumb had hovered over her contact a dozen times on the drive, but the thought of hearing her voice, potentially distant or annoyed, had stopped him. Text again? The last one still sat there, unanswered, a digital artifact of his own boldness.
He closed his eyes. The motel room faded, replaced by the dark warmth of the bar back home. The low music, the weight of her gaze on him. He heard his own voice, young and too eager. So you’re a nurse? Her laugh, warm and melodic. Pediatric nurse practitioner, actually. He’d been impressed. He’d asked where. She’d told him. The name of the hospital—St. Jude Children’s—hit him now with the force of a remembered fact.
It was a place. A public place. Neutral ground.
He was in the truck five minutes later, the motel door clicking shut on the hollow room. The evening was settling into a deep blue twilight as he navigated the unfamiliar streets towards the medical district.
St. Jude’s was a modern brick and glass structure, glowing against the darkening sky. The main entrance was all soft lighting and quiet efficiency. His boots echoed too loudly on the polished floor. The scent of antiseptic and floor wax filled his nose. A reception desk sat in the center of the lobby, and behind it was a man in his late twenties with perfectly styled hair and a smile that seemed genuine.
Brandon approached, feeling every inch of his height, overly conscious of his hat in this sterile environment. He took it off, holding it in front of him like a shield.
The receptionist’s eyes flicked over him, a slow, appreciative sweep that didn’t hide its interest. His smile widened. “Well, hello. Can I help you?”
“Uh, yes, sir,” Brandon said, his voice rougher than he intended. He tipped his head slightly, a gesture of habit. “I was hopin’ to see if Alysha is working today? Alysha Miller?”
The man’s eyebrows rose playfully. “Alysha, huh? Lucky woman.” He tapped a few keys on his computer, his stare lingering on Brandon’s face, the line of his shoulders. “She did work today. But her shift ended… about an hour ago. You just missed her.”
The disappointment was a physical drop in his chest. “I see. Okay. Thank you.”
He started to turn, the plan evaporating.
“But,” the receptionist sang, drawing the word out. He plucked a sticky note from a cube and uncapped a pen with a flourish. “If you’re looking for something to do… and maybe someone to find…” He scribbled an address, his handwriting looping and elegant. “She and some of the other nurses sometimes unwind at this place after a long day. It’s a club and bar. The Midnight Hour. Good music. Not too rowdy.” He slid the note across the desk and winked. “Might be worth a look.”
Brandon stared at the piece of paper, the numbers and street name a lifeline. He picked it up, a slow grin breaking across his own face. He tapped the brim of his hat in gratitude. “Thank you. Sincerely.”
The receptionist gave a little shooing motion. “Go on. And good luck, cowboy.”
Brandon turned, the hat going back on his head, the note clenched in his hand. The automatic doors swished open, releasing him back into the warm, promising night.
The Midnight Hour pulsed with a deep, rhythmic bass that vibrated up through the asphalt of the parking lot. It was a long, low building of reclaimed brick, with strings of Edison bulbs casting a golden glow over a crowded patio. Laughter and fragments of conversation tangled with the music leaking from inside. Brandon cut through the haze of grilled food and perfume, his eyes scanning the clusters of people.
He saw her.
She was leaning against a wooden railing, a half-finished drink in her hand, haloed by the soft light. The tight jeans hugged her curves, and the shirt with its daring center slit revealed a smooth expanse of her stomach. She was laughing at something one of her two friends said, but the laugh didn’t quite reach her eyes, which held a distant, preoccupied gleam.
“I’m just saying, the man curled your toes into your shins,” said the taller friend, Tamika, her voice carrying a playful insistence. “And you’re ghosting him? That’s criminal, Sha.”
Alysha shook her head, staring into her glass. “What am I supposed to do, ‘Mika? You know my wiring. I grew up knowing all men turned into my father. The drinking, the empty promises, the yelling. I’ve spent my whole life managing my expectations down to zero.” She took a sharp breath, her voice dropping but hardening with frustration. “And here comes this… this man. This sweet, kind, gorgeous man who looks at me like I hung the moon and talks to me like I’m the only person in the room. He makes me feel a way I was taught didn’t exist. It’s terrifying.”
Tamika placed a hand on her arm. “The cycle has to break somewhere, Alysha. Why not with you? Why not with a man who seems to actually deserve the chance?”
Alysha smiled then, a beautiful, semi-frustrated twist of her lips. She looked up at the night sky. “What the hell am I doing getting butterflies at this point in my life? It’s ridiculous.”
She looked back at Tamika, but her friend’s expression had shifted. Tamika’s eyes were now focused past her shoulder, wide with surprise and deliberate innocence. A knowing smirk played on her lips. “Don’t look now,” Tamika murmured.
Alysha turned.
The world narrowed to the space between them, ten feet of humid air charged with the unspent energy of the last few days. Brandon stood there, having navigated the crowd without a sound. The journey, the motel, the stable, the hospital—all of it crystallized in this single point. His sun-streaked hair was messy from the drive, his vibrant blue eyes fixed on her with an intensity that stripped every other sound from the patio.
She froze. Her drink felt suddenly heavy in her hand. Every cell in her body was aware of the slit in her shirt, the vulnerable skin it revealed to his gaze.
His stomach was in knots, a tight, hot coil of anticipation and fear. The carefully planned words, the casual greeting he’d rehearsed, dissolved. All he could manage, his voice rough with travel and emotion, was the simple, devastating truth.
“Hey gorgeous.”
For a heartbeat that stretched into an eternity, there was only the thrum of the bass through the floorboards and the electric silence between them. Her friends, Tamika and the other woman, seemed to vaporize into the background haze. Alysha’s honey-brown eyes widened, her breath catching audibly in her throat. All the careful frustration, the resigned logic she’d just articulated, shattered.
She lost all sense and hugged him.
It wasn’t a gentle embrace. It was a sudden, full-bodied launch across the short distance, her drink hand splaying out to the side to avoid spilling on him. He caught her with a soft, surprised grunt, his arms encircling her waist instinctively. He squeezed her tight and her feet were off the ground, her sandals dangling as he lifted her easily, spinning her just a half-turn as if to reaffirm her solid weight in his arms. The scent of her—jasmine and warm skin—obliterated the smells of the bar.
Whatever he was embarrassed to say before, he wasn’t now. His lips were close to her ear, his voice a low, rough vibration that was for her alone. “I missed you.” It was simple, unadorned, and true.
Her own arms were locked around his neck, her face buried in the soft cotton of his henley where it met his sun-warmed skin. She told him she missed him, too. The words were muffled but fervent. More than she thought she would. More than she thought she could. When he finally set her down, her hands came up to cradle his jaw, her thumbs brushing the clean-shaven skin as she searched his face. A single tear escaped, tracking a quick path down her cheek before she caught it.
She wipes a tear away from her eye and asks what he’s doing in town.
He kept one arm around her, his hand a firm, possessive warmth on the bare skin of her lower back. He tells her it’s a forced vacation. “Mike ambushed me in the office with coffee and a verdict,” he said, a disbelieving laugh coloring his words. He’s worked 365 days a year either cowboying, training, or ranching and Mike told him to take Thor and come here and not to call him, he laughs. The memory of the edict, of Mike’s gruff love, relaxed something in his shoulders she hadn’t realized was taut.
She smiles at his laugh, the sound transforming her whole face, erasing the weary distance from moments before. Her eyes lit up, genuinely excited. “Thor is here? You brought him all this way?”
“Had to. Mike’s orders included ‘getting some riding in that isn’t for checking fences.’” He mimicked Mike’s gravelly tone almost perfectly.
Her gaze flicked over his shoulder, then back to his face, a new awareness of their audience dawning. He followed her look, nodding politely to Tamika, who was watching with unadulterated delight. He felt a sudden, awkward certainty that he was intruding. The boldness that drove him here retreated, replaced by manners.
He tells her he will leave her to have the night with her friends. He started to slowly withdraw his hand from her back. “I shouldn’t have just… crashed your evening. I’ll catch you tomorrow, maybe for coffee–”
Her fingers, which had been loosely linked behind his neck, tightened. Her playful demeanor solidified into something absolute. She says, “Boy, if you think I’m letting go of you, you’re high.” There was no laughter in it, only a fierce, joyous possession that stole the air from his lungs.
He blinked. A slow, genuine smile spread across his face, erasing the last of his uncertainty. The quiet confidence that defined him settled back into place, now mingled with pure, unfiltered happiness.
He says, “Yes, ma’am,” and complies. His arm reclaimed its place around her, pulling her snug against his side. He wasn’t going anywhere.
He wasn’t going anywhere. Alysha kept one hand firmly locked with his as she turned back to her friends, her expression shifting into one of pure, triumphant glee. “Tamika, Chloe, you remember Brandon. From back home.”
“Remember?” Tamika grinned, sliding a chair out from their high-top table. “Girl, you’ve been sighing like a teenage poet for days. We feel like we know him. Sit, sit.”
They settled into the ring of chairs, the pulsing music becoming a backdrop. Brandon’s hand found its place on Alysha’s waist, her bare skin warm under his palm. Her own hand came to rest casually on his thigh, a point of contact that sent a steady current through him. Chloe, the quieter of the two friends, pushed a basket of loaded fries toward him. “So. You’re the cowboy.”
Brandon took a fry, smiling. “That depends on your definition, I guess.” He chewed, thoughtful. “I rope. I ride. I shoot. I herd cattle. So if that’s the checklist, then yes, ma’am.”
“And the competitions?” Tamika asked, leaning forward. “The bull riding, the shooting? That’s the real job, right? The glamour?”
He shook his head, a dismissive shrug in the motion. “That’s just free publicity for the ranch. Gets our breeding stock noticed, bumps up auction prices. My full-time gig is the land. The cattle. The paperwork.” He made a face, and Alysha laughed, giving his thigh a squeeze as if she’d seen Mike’s coffee-fueled intervention firsthand.
Chloe sipped her cocktail, her gaze shrewd. “Okay, Mr. Modest. Let’s get to it. What does a full-time cowboy-rancher-publicity-stuntman actually make?”
The question hung in the humid air. Brandon felt Alysha’s fingers tense slightly on his leg. He shifted, the leather of his boot scraping the concrete. “The ranch does alright,” he said, his voice even.
He looked at Alysha, who just raised her eyebrows, daring him. He exhaled. “Last year, gross revenue was just shy of two hundred and forty million.”
The silence at the table was abrupt, swallowed by a sudden bass drop from the speakers. Tamika’s mouth was open. Chloe blinked slowly, as if recalibrating. “Dollars?” she finally whispered.
“It’s the ranch’s income,” Brandon said quickly, his ears turning pink under the patio lights. “That’s not my personal bank account. That’s revenue. There’s payroll, equipment, taxes, vet bills, feed—it’s a business. A big, complicated, weather-dependent business.”
“Stop being so damn modest,” Alysha chimed in, her eyes sparkling with affectionate teasing. She looked at her stunned friends. “He inherited five hundred thousand acres and a mountain of debt at four. He turned that into this. So yeah. The ranch makes a quarter-billion. He just happens to be the brain and the brawn behind it.”
They teased him for another twenty minutes, the shock melting into curiosity about cattle drives and bull rides and whether he’d ever dated a celebrity. He answered everything with a patient, easy humor, his thumb tracing idle circles on Alysha’s side. Gradually, the empty glasses piled up, and the night deepened.
Tamika stood, stretching. “Okay, we are officially third wheels with flat tires. We’re Ubering home.” She leaned down and kissed Alysha’s cheek. “You kids be good. Or don’t. I don’t judge.”
Chloe followed suit, offering Brandon a genuine smile. “It was really nice to meet you. Take care of our girl.”
“I plan to,” he said, and meant it.
They watched the two women weave through the thinning crowd toward the street. The music seemed to dial back a notch, leaving a pocket of relative quiet. Alysha turned fully toward him, her knee nudging his. The playful energy softened into something more intimate, more weighted.
“So,” she said. “Where are you staying?”
“The Lazy River Motel, out on the highway.” He made a face. “The ranch books it as a business expense for stock buyers. It’s… clean.”
She studied him for a long moment—the earnest blue of his eyes, the slight weariness from the drive that still lingered at their edges, the solid, reliable shape of him anchored in the flimsy patio chair. A decision settled over her features, calm and final.
She finished the last of her water, set the glass down with a soft tap, and stood, taking his hand.
“Let’s go.”