I don’t think this is going to work.

I’m not cut out for long distance dating.

I’m going to let you go and hope you’ll come back to me one day.

Robin stared at her phone, reading and re-reading the three text messages from Shane. They’d just shared a great day together, but she’d felt the distance between them. He’d still kissed her with all the love he ever had, but he’d walked away a lot easier than she’d been able to drive away last weekend.

Robin read the messages again, a flash of emotion making her throat tight and her eyes burn. Tears slid down her face, but she couldn’t argue with him. She couldn’t lead him on as she roamed all over the state.

She sucked in her tears and wiped her face. I know how hard it is for you to let things go. I’m sorry we only had thirty-five days together.

She sent the message, hoping and praying he’d contradict her numbering system, as they’d had today too. He didn’t, and she climbed the steps to her loft with the words, “Come on, Arthur.”

The dog looked at her with concerned eyes as she wept. This crying was different than what she’d done when she’d found Misfit’s body. This was a slow, burning ache that required more somber tears.

She changed into her pajamas and curled into a ball on the bed. Arthur’s weight next to her was the only comfort, and her pain deepened when she remembered Shane was half-owner of the dog.

She made it through the following day, but it was one of the worst Mondays on record. A horse at Three Bars Ranch and Stables had kicked her in the thigh while she was cleaning the frog of his hoof, and she’d dealt with the throbbing pain in her leg, her head, and her heart for hours before she made it back to her tiny house.

Melinda Roundy had invited her to dinner at the homestead each evening, but Robin couldn’t bring herself to go that night. Or the next. By Wednesday, she’d ignored two calls from her mother, been injured again when she lost focus with a wily horse who was getting her first pair of shoes, and she really wanted to call Shane and tell him all about it.

The loss of his friendship felt too deep. The fact that she couldn’t kiss him seemed a tragedy. And when Melinda knocked on her door and said, “I know you’re in there,” Robin considered hooking her house up to the truck in the middle of the night and making her escape from Texas Hill Country completely.

Instead, she opened the door. “Yeah, I’m in here.”

Melinda, a petite woman who could pack a punch, appraised her. Her dark curls swung as she shook her head. “Oh, honey, y’all are lookin’ terrible.”

“I’ve been kicked a lot this week,” she said. “Three Bars has three horses going into shoes for the first time.”

Arthur edged past her and jumped down to the grass without touching the steps. Robin could get him to go down the stairs if she leashed him, but she rarely did. Melinda had a pair of boys who weren’t in school, and they’d been taking Arthur during the day while Robin worked.

“So you should need some supper then.” Melinda cocked one hip.

“I just want to take some painkillers and go to bed.” Robin didn’t want to admit that she didn’t want to socialize. Sure, her muscles hurt. But it was the heartache that brought the exhaustion.

Her eyes burned just thinking about Shane, and she willed herself not to cry. Not in front of Melinda, who Robin had known for several years but not well enough to bare her soul to.

“I’ll send Joey over with a plate then.” She turned as if the decision had been made, and Robin didn’t argue. Ten minutes later, the eight-year-old boy knocked and Robin gave him the best smile she could manage when he handed her the plate with lasagna and green salad on it.

“Tell your ma thank you,” Robin said. “And is Arthur still out there with you guys?”

“He’s in the house,” Joey said. “I’ll bring ‘im over later, okay?”

“Sure, okay.”

The boy left, and Robin ate the food, wishing she could cook the way Melinda did. She was decent enough in the kitchen, but this was homemade lasagna, not the frozen kind Robin made.

The two-hundred and eighty square feet seemed to swallow her whole, and Robin went up to the loft, hoping the smaller space would help her box in her emotions. All it did was condense them so they were more potent, and she fell asleep with tears staining her pillows.

Robin existed in the same pattern for a week, and then two. She had two more weeks in this area of Hill Country, and then she was moving north into the panhandle, stopping at a few remote ranches on her way up to Three Rivers Ranch just east of Amarillo.

She didn’t want to go to Three Rivers, and she kept putting off Squire Ackerman’s calls. Squire and Dwayne were cousins, and she felt sure that everyone at Three Rivers—which had grown to a huge conglomeration of several horse businesses—would know about her and Shane.

Which was ridiculous, really. Shane was from the San Antonio area and had never been to the Texas Panhandle that she knew of. Still, she didn’t want to go.

She feared if she went that far from Shane, she wouldn’t come back. After all, it was only a hop, skip, and jump from Three Rivers to the Oklahoma border, and she could find work all over that state too. Maybe she’d never come back to Texas.

By the time the third week dawned, she knew she’d need to talk to Squire. She’d either need to commit to him or tell him why she couldn’t come. After all, he’d taken on her business from Dwayne’s referral, and she’d only been going up there for the past four years.

She looked at herself in the small mirror above the bathroom sink, and she barely recognized herself. “This isn’t right,” she said to her reflection. But she had no idea what was right, or what to do to rectify the situation.

Talk To Me.

She stepped out of the bathroom and sent a text to Cecily Smith, who answered by the time Robin had dressed and pulled her hair into a ponytail.

Good to hear from you again. I see a lot in this paragraph. Should we schedule a phone call?

Robin had an hour before she was expected at the Rooster Ridge Ranch, so she simply thumbed out Yes.

Doctor Smith called twenty minutes later, and her higher, sweet voice reminded Robin of her mother. “So Robin, how are you?”

“Miserable,” Robin said, deciding to go with the first thing that came to her mind. And she wasn’t going to censor herself either. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could live like this, and she’d take any help she could get.

“I read that you and your boyfriend recently broke up.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me more about it.”

Robin launched into the story, and she said things she hadn’t even thought about, at least not on such a cognizant level. She ended with, “And I really thought we could make it work, but I just don’t see how.”

“This is a unique and tough situation,” Doctor Smith said. “I don’t have a perfect answer for you. You talked a lot about things that feel right or don’t feel right. What do you think would make you feel right?”

“Being with Shane,” she said.

“Maybe you should explore every option to make that possible,” the doctor said.

“I don’t know what any of those options are.”

A hefty pause came through the line. “Robin, can I tell you a story?”

Robin wasn’t really sure she wanted to pay this doctor to spill fairy tales. But she had another twenty minutes until she arrived at Rooster Ridge, so she said, “All right.”

“When I was younger, I was dating a man I really liked. He was tall, and handsome, and one of the best baseball players in the state. His future was not in Texas, and I thought it was impossible for me to go with him wherever the draft took him. I had a scholarship to Texas A&M, you see, and I’d worked really hard for it. My family was in the area, and I didn’t want to leave them.”

Robin hummed, because she could already see where this was going. “So you gave up what you were doing and followed him.”

“No,” Doctor Smith said. “I didn’t. I didn’t think I could. We broke up, and he went to the Miami Marlins and won the World Series. He’s married, with children, and they have a wonderful life in Florida.”

“Okay,” Robin said, not sure what she was supposed to take from this story.

“I finished my degree, and I’ve been working in the Dallas area for a couple of decades, with my family nearby.”

“Maybe that was what was right for you,” Robin said.

“Maybe,” Doctor Smith said. “But I’ve never married, and while I have my family and my degree, there are times when I wonder what I could’ve experienced, what greater things might have been in my life, had I been willing to give up what I thought was most precious.”

“So you’re saying my job might not be as important as I think it is.”

“I’m not saying that,” she said. “I’m saying that there are dozens of paths, and if you feel like you’re not on the right one, step onto another one, even if the price is something you think you can’t pay.”

Robin swallowed as her fear expanded. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“It takes a leap of faith, that’s for sure. Something I wish I’d had all those years ago with Eli.” She sounded sad, wistful, and Robin’s heart went out to the woman.

“All right,” she said. “I don’t like this path I’m on, so I will try to do something about it.”

“Let me know how it’s going. Any time, day or night.”

Robin promised she would as she pulled into the ranch where she’d be working that day. As she filed and hammered, shaped and reshaped metal, all she could think about was finding a way to work in the Grape Seed Falls area of Hill Country on a permanent basis.

Putting down her roots there felt like the right thing to do, but she couldn’t do it without a job. So she just needed to get a job.

Dwayne said he could employ her one day a week and give her a place to park her house. So she just needed work four more days a week.

And Shane had mentioned Levi. She hadn’t heard the boarding stable owner say he needed to hire a farrier full time. She’d mentioned a veterinarian, but she didn’t have those capabilities, and gone to teach his staff. Levi had never said anything, and her doubts that he could employ her full time intensified.

But she really wanted to get back to Grape Seed Falls. So with a prayer in her heart and with new determination to get off this miserable path she was on, she vowed to call Levi as soon as she finished her farrier work for the day.