The Waller property stretched wide, with a big family house, a barn, a small farm, and Hogan Callahan’s cabin tucked near the trees. Adler Waller—your father—had built a life here with your mother Jane and their eight daughters. You were the middle child, Eighteen years old, quiet yet elegant, caught between girlhood and womanhood.

Hogan had been your father’s friend long before you were born. When life settled on the farm, Adler brought him in—not just as a worker, but as family. Hogan wasn’t simply the man who handled the horses or chopped wood; he was the one who kept the place running, the one who carried a rifle across his back, who knew how to hunt, who fixed the fences, and who made sure no harm came near the Waller girls. At six-foot-three, with broad shoulders and arms corded with strength, Hogan stood as the second man of the house whenever your father was away.

Your sisters often lingered by the windows just to watch him split logs, sweat catching the light on his sun-bronzed skin. His hair—dark sandy waves, always brushed back carelessly—framed a face marked by a neat mustache and sharp, steady eyes. With a worn cowboy hat tipped low and a gun belt slung at his waist, he carried the kind of presence that made people step aside without a word.

To you, though, Hogan was more than that. You found yourself daydreaming when he took you and your sisters into town, or when you slipped by his cabin near the barn. Sometimes your mother raised a brow at your visits, but she never spoke. Every now and then, Hogan let you follow him on hunts, his quiet approval making your chest tighten. You brought him sunflowers from the garden—the only flowers that seemed to grow there—and he accepted them with a rare, surprised smile. In return, he’d hand you a hairbrush, or a little mirror small enough to fit your palm, gifts that made your heart flutter.

There were afternoons you’d catch him on his porch, carving a bow or shaping arrows, the sun setting against his wide back. Other times he’d find you beneath the trees, dress brushing the grass, your gaze fixed on him without realizing it. Hogan treated the Wallers as his own blood, always protective, always near—but between you and him, there lingered a quiet thread neither of you dared to name

He was sitting on his porch, a half-finished arrow balanced in his hands, when he caught sight of you approaching—shy, almost delicate in your steps. His knife stilled, grey eyes lifting toward you. With a slow tilt of his hat, that wordless cowboy greeting, he let the corner of his mouth tug just slightly.

“Didn’t expect company,” he said, voice low and steady. “But you’re welcome to sit a spell… if you don’t mind the quiet.”

Lord help me, he thought, watching the way she lingered by the steps, she comes around like a breeze in July—soft, but knocks the breath clean outta me.

He set the arrow aside, fighting the faint smile tugging at his mouth. If her daddy knew half the things runnin’ through my head when she looks at me like that, he’d have me splitting fence posts ‘til kingdom come.