"You've trusted us with your life more times than I can count. This isn't us forcing something on you. This is us asking you to acknowledge what's already there." "What's already there is friendship," Cole said. "Maybe. Partnership at best."
"And marriage is both of those things," Lyra said from the window. "With a promise attached." "A promise I didn't ask for." "No. But you earned it anyway."
Cole shook his head. "You can't earn something you don't want." "Can't you?" Kaya stepped closer. "You didn't want us following you, but here we are. You didn't want to care whether we lived or died, but you do."
"You've been fighting this for ten years, Cole. Aren't you tired?" "Tired of what?" "Of running from the only people who've stayed." The words hit harder than Cole expected.
He looked away, jaw tight, and tried to find an argument that would hold up. But the truth was sitting right there in the room with them, and no amount of denial would make it disappear. "This isn't how things work," he said quietly. "Not in my world." "Then maybe your world's been wrong," Lyra said.
"Or maybe yours has." "Maybe." Lyra pushed off the window frame and walked over to stand beside Kaya. "But we're here anyway, and we're not leaving. So you've got two choices."
"Accept what we're offering and build something real, or spend the rest of your life dragging us behind you like ghosts." Cole looked at each of them. Kaya, steady and certain. Lyra, sharp-edged and defiant. Sani, quiet and unmovable.
Three women who'd taken a single moment of reckless courage and turned it into a decade-long commitment he'd never asked for and couldn't escape. "I need air," he said. Kaya nodded. "Take it. But we need an answer by sunrise."
Cole left the room, descended the stairs, and stepped out into the night. The temperature had dropped, and the cold bit at his skin through his shirt. He walked to the edge of town again, found the same rock he'd sat on earlier, and dropped onto it with a heavy exhale. His mind was a mess. Thoughts collided and scattered like startled birds, refusing to settle into anything coherent.
He tried to picture what they were describing, marriage, partnership, some kind of shared life, and couldn't make the image hold. It was too foreign, too strange. But then he thought about the alternative. Riding alone again. Waking up to silence.
Working jobs with strangers who'd forget his name the moment he left. Growing old with nothing to show for it but scars and regrets. That image came easier, too easy. "Damn you all," he whispered to the empty desert. A sound behind him made Cole turn.
Sani was walking toward him, moving slowly like she was approaching a skittish animal. "Kaya said to give you space," she said. "But I thought you might want company." "I want answers." "I don't have those. Only questions."
Sani sat down beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. For a while, neither of them spoke. Then Sani broke the silence. "Do you know why I came with Kaya and Lyra that day?" "When we ran from the hunters?"
"No. Because staying meant dying slowly. We'd been captives for months, starved, beaten, used. Every day we stayed, we lost more of ourselves." "So when Kaya found a way out, I followed."
"Even though I didn't think we'd survive. Even though running felt like choosing one death over another." Cole listened, throat tight. "And then you appeared," Sani continued. "The stranger with a rifle and no reason to care."
"You stood between us and the men who wanted us dead, and you didn't hesitate. Not for a second. Do you know what that meant to me?" "No." "It meant the world wasn't entirely broken."
"That there were still people who do the right thing even when it costs them. You gave me more than my life back that day, Cole. You gave me hope." Cole stared at the ground. "I'm not a hero, Sani."
"I know. You're just a man. A stubborn, difficult man who thinks he's better off alone. But you're wrong." "How do you know?"
"Because I've watched you for ten years. I've seen you smile when you think no one's looking. I've heard you laugh at Lyra's terrible jokes. I've watched you teach Kaya how to track, even though she already knew half of it. You're not alone because you want to be."
"You're alone because you're scared." "Scared of what?" "Of losing people. Of caring too much and having it ripped away." Cole's hands curled into fists.
"You don't know what you're talking about." "Don't I?" Sani's voice was soft, but relentless. "You told us once your parents died when you were young. That you've been moving ever since."
"How long has it been since you let yourself stay anywhere? Since you let yourself want something that wasn't just survival?" Cole didn't answer. "We're offering you a choice, Cole," Sani said. "Not between freedom and obligation."
"Between running forever and finally stopping. Between surviving and living. And I know which one I think you should choose, but it has to be yours." She stood, brushed off her skirt, and started back toward town. Cole watched her go, the weight in his chest growing heavier with every step she took.
He sat there until the stars came out, cold and distant and unchanging. Then he stood, walked back to town, and found a different room in the boarding house, one he could afford for the night. He needed to think without their voices in his head. Needed silence. But silence didn't help.
He lay on the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling, and replayed every moment of the last ten years. The canyon. The cattle drive. The ambush. A hundred small moments in between.
Shared meals. Quiet conversations. The easy rhythm of working alongside people who knew his moods and didn't judge them. Somewhere along the way, without meaning to, he'd built something. Not a home, exactly, but something close.