Out here, there was nothing. Just wire fences, dry grass, and a sky so big it felt suffocating.

The car coughed once. Twice. Then gave up entirely, rolling to a stop with the defeated wheeze of something that had officially clocked out.

Silence rushed in to fill the void. The kind of silence that had weight. That pressed in from all sides.

And then—a sound. Hoofbeats. Slow and unhurried, like the horse had all the time in the world and knew it.

She looked up—way up—into the shadow of a man on a horse. The sun sat behind him like a halo he definitely hadn't earned.

He was all sharp angles and stillness. Jaw set. Eyes hidden under the brim of a dusty brown hat. The kind of handsome that annoyed you on principle.