The months after the engagement party settled over Ironstone like the dust that hung in the stables’ still air. The property felt different now—not quieter in the way of a place at rest, but quieter in the way of a room where someone had stopped speaking mid-sentence.

Bryce drove over to help Grant with the float hitch and found him standing in the yard, staring at the ridge line like he was reading something written on the hills.

“Right,” Grant said, turning at the sound of the ute. The smile came easily, as it always did, but it didn’t reach the same depth it used to. “Good timing. The coupling’s seized again.”

“Yeah, I know,” Bryce replied. “You called me to come help.”

They worked through the morning, Bryce doing most of the bending and swearing while Grant handed him tools and told stories Bryce had heard twice before. The rhythm of it was familiar, comfortable even, but there was a thread running under the words that Bryce couldn’t quite catch hold of. Grant laughed at his own jokes a beat too late. He checked his phone more than he used to. When Elara came out with tea, his eyes followed her across the yard in a way that had nothing to do with wanting.

Bryce wiped his hands on his jeans and took the mug she offered. “Thanks.”

“How’s Saige?” Elara asked. The question was warm, genuine.

“Good. She’s got exams coming up. Reckons she’s going to fail everything.”

“She said the same thing last year. Came home with a distinction.”

“She told me that. She also told me she cried for an hour the night before, so I’m taking the threat seriously.”

Elara smiled, and for a moment she looked like herself—the woman who ran this place with her hands and her gut, who could read a horse’s mood from twenty paces and a person’s from across a room. Then the smile faded.

Bryce didn’t ask. He’d learned that questions had a way of landing harder than they meant to, and whatever was sitting between Grant and Elara wasn’t his to pull apart. He finished the coupling, checked the brake lines, and left with a wave and a promise to come back for dinner over the weekend.

A few days later, Saige came to the cabin with a stack of textbooks and a scowl that could strip paint. She dropped the books on the table, kicked off her boots, and climbed into his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“I hate studying,” she said against his neck.

“I know.”

“I’m going to fail.”

“No, you won’t.”

“How do you know?”

He ran a hand up her back, feeling the tension knotted between her shoulder blades. “Because you’ve never failed anything you actually cared about.”

She was quiet for a moment, her breath warm against his skin. Then she pulled back, and her eyes searched his face with that directness she had.

“Mum and Dad are being weird.”

Bryce kept his voice even. “How do you mean?”

“I don’t know. They’re not fighting. But they’re not talking much either. They’re just—” She struggled for the word. “Weird.”

He’d noticed it too. The careful way Grant asked Elara about her day, the measured way she answered. The way they moved around each other in the kitchen, never quite touching, never quite not.

“Maybe they’re just tired,” he offered.

Saige made a sound that wasn’t quite agreement. She pressed her forehead to his and let out a long breath.

“I hate it when things change.”

“Things change whether you hate it or not.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“Wasn’t meant to be.” He kissed her, soft, and felt her mouth relax against his. “It’s just true.”

She stayed the night, and in the morning she went back home for a riding lesson, her textbooks still scattered across his table. He gathered them up and set them by the door. She’d be back later.

The first real heat of the season arrived with a dry northerly that sucked the moisture out of everything and left the paddocks pale and brittle. Bryce spent the morning in the shed, welding the last of the posts he needed, and by midday he’d worked up a thirst that had him reaching for the water bottle he’d left in the shade.

He was setting the hammer down when he heard hooves on the track and straightened to see Elara riding up on her mare, her hat pulled low against the sun.

She reined in near his ute and sat there for a moment, looking at the shed, the neat stack of timber, the steel and wire ready to be used in the paddocks.

“You’ve been busy,” she said.

“Keeps me out of trouble.” He walked over, resting his forearms on the bullbar. “What’s happening?”

She didn’t answer right away. The mare shifted underneath her, picking up on the tension in her rider’s hands. Elara let out a breath and loosened the reins.

“Grant and I need to talk to you and Saige. Tonight.”

The words were careful, measured. Bryce felt something settle in his chest, a weight he hadn’t admitted he was carrying.

“What’s this about?”

Elara met his eyes, and for a moment she looked like she might tell him. Then she shook her head, almost imperceptibly, and turned the mare back towards the track.

“Seven o’clock. Dinner.”

She rode away without waiting for an answer, and Bryce stood beside the ute long after the dust had settled, the day suddenly heavier than it had been.

Saige came over later, her hair still damp from the shower, a canvas bag slung over her shoulder. She took one look at his face and stopped in the doorway.

“What happened?”

“Your mum came by.”

He told her about the ride, the careful words, the invitation. Saige listened with her arms crossed, and when he finished she was quiet for a long moment.

“What the fuck,” she said flatly. “Told you they were being weird.”

“About what though?”

She walked past him into the cabin and dropped her bag on the chair.

“They haven’t touched each other in ages. Dad keeps talking about the coast. Mum’s been spending more time in the stables than the house.” She turned to face him, her eyes bright but dry. “Something’s not right.”

Bryce crossed the room and pulled her into his arms. She came easily, her face pressed against his chest, her hands fisted in his shirt.

“We don’t have to go,” he said.

“Yes we do.” Her voice was muffled. “They’re asking us because we’re family. We show up.”

They drove over in his ute, the windows down, the evening air finally carrying a hint of cool. Saige sat with her hand on his thigh.

When they pulled into the yard, Grant was on the veranda with two beers in his hand.

“There they are,” he called, his voice too bright, too loud. “Get in here, you two. Steak’s nearly done.”

Dinner was a strange, suspended thing. Grant talked more than Bryce had ever heard him talk, filling the silence with stories about horses and clients and places he wanted to see. Elara listened, nodded, passed the salad. Saige pushed her food around her plate and answered questions in monosyllables.

Bryce ate and watched and waited.

When the plates were cleared, Grant poured himself a whisky and sat back down. For the first time all night, the brightness in his face dimmed.

“We wanted to talk to you both,” he said. “Before we said anything to anyone else.”

Saige’s hand found Bryce’s under the table. He gripped it, felt her pulse through her palm.

“Your mum and I have been doing a lot of thinking,” Grant went on. “About the property. About ourselves. About what we want out of the next part of our lives.”

He paused.

“And we’ve realised we want different things.”

Elara reached across and put her hand on his. It was a small gesture, almost unconscious, and it said more than any words could.

She looked at Grant, and something passed between them, a shared understanding Bryce could only glimpse from the outside.

Saige’s voice was small.

“You’re splitting up.”

“We’re separating,” Grant said. “For now. We’re not sure what that means long term yet.”

Saige’s grip on Bryce’s hand tightened.

“Why now?” she asked. “Why after everything? I don’t understand.”

Elara looked at her daughter.

“Because we still care about each other. We’d rather recognise that we want different things now than wait until we start resenting each other for it.”

“But you built this place together.” Saige’s voice cracked. “You built all of it.”

“We did,” Grant said. “And I’m proud of it. I love this place. I love your mum. I love you.”

He stopped, his jaw working.

“But this life isn’t enough for me anymore. I want more.”

“What does that mean?”

Grant let out a breath.

“I don’t know. That’s part of it. I need to find out.”

Saige looked at her mother.

“And you?”

Elara glanced around the kitchen.

“This is enough for me. I’m happy here.”

Grant nodded.

“I know.”

“If you need more,” she said, looking at him, “then you should go and find it.”

Saige stared between them.

“What happens to this place?”

“It stays,” Elara said. “It’s still my home. It’s always been our home. Your dad and I have agreed I’ll take over the property.”

“And you?” Saige looked at her father. “What do you get?”

Grant let out a long breath.

“I get to figure that out.”

He reached across the table and took Saige’s free hand.

“I’m not leaving tomorrow. We’ve got arrangements to make.”

“Don’t stay for me.” Saige’s voice sharpened. “That’s the worst thing you could do.”

Grant’s face crumpled, just for a second, before he got it under control.

“I’m not. But I’m still your dad. I’m not disappearing.”

The silence that followed stretched across the table. Saige was crying now, silent tears tracking down her cheeks, and Elara watched her daughter without trying to interrupt them.

“How long have you known?” Saige asked.

“A while,” Elara said. “We’ve been talking about it for months.”

“So you lied to me.”

“We didn’t lie.”

“You pretended everything was fine. You toasted us, you had everyone here, and all the time you were planning to—”

She couldn’t finish the sentence.

She pushed back from the table, her chair scraping against the floor, and walked out without looking back.

Bryce started to follow, but Elara’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“Give her a minute.”

He sat back down.

Grant poured another whisky and didn’t drink it. Elara stared at the table.

“You knew,” Grant said quietly.

Bryce shook his head. “I knew something was off. I didn’t know what.”

“And Saige?”

“She said you were being weird with each other.”

Grant let out a sound that might have been a laugh.

“She notices everything.”

Elara reached across the table and took Bryce’s hand.

“Take care of her.”

“I will.”

Her fingers tightened around his for a moment.

Grant moved around the table and rested a hand on Elara’s shoulder. She leaned into him briefly before straightening again.

Bryce stood.

“I should go find her.”

Elara nodded. “She’ll be in the tack room.”

He found Saige sitting on an upturned feed bin with her arms wrapped around her knees. She looked up when he came in, her eyes red but dry.

“I’m not crying anymore,” she said. “I decided it’s a waste of time.”

Bryce sat down on the floor across from her, his back against the wall.

“It’s not a waste.”

“It doesn’t change anything.”

“No.”

The horses shifted in their stalls, the familiar sounds of the stables around them.

“I always thought they’d be together forever,” she said. “Even when I knew they were different, even when I could see them pulling apart, I thought they’d find a way to make it work. They were so good at making things work.”

Bryce waited.

She looked at him.

“You’re not going to leave me like that, are you?”

He crossed the room and knelt in front of her, taking her face in his hands.

“No.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

He kissed her forehead, her cheek, her mouth.

She let out a shaky breath and leaned into him, her forehead against his chest.

“I just needed to hear it.”

They stayed in the stables until the light faded.

When they came back to the house, Grant was on the veranda with a drink in his hand.

Saige stopped beside him.

“How long?”

“We’ll figure it out as we go.”

She looked down.

“I don’t want you to go.”

Grant’s voice was rough.

“I know.”

Saige stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.

Grant held her.

Bryce stayed back.

Later, after Saige had fallen asleep in his arms, Bryce lay awake beside her, listening to the sounds of the house settling around them. Somewhere outside, Grant and Elara were talking, their voices low and even.

Saige stirred against him, her hand finding his in the dark.

“You still here?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

She pressed closer.

Bryce closed his hand around hers.