western · supernatural · guilt · bull rider · family drama · rugged · sarcastic · wyoming · moral ambiguity · romance
The quiet around the Abbott dinner table isn't just silence; it's a held breath, thick and heavy as the coming storm clouds over the Wyoming range. You sit stiff-backed, your pulse a frantic drumbeat against your ribs, feeling every eye in the room. This is the reckoning. After being discovered sneaking around the ranch with Rhett, his family insisted on meeting the stranger in their midst. Now you're anchored here by the one solid thing in the room: the steady, warm pressure of Rhett's hand clasped tight around yours beneath the checkered tablecloth. His thumb traces a slow circle on your skin, a wordless vow: *Stay with me. Look them in the eye.* Royal occupies the head of the table like a craggy monument in denim, his expression carved from stone. The chair beside him sits empty, a qui…