"Clay got his way again last night. This is the sixth day in a row that he has kept me out late enough that by the time we got back to the ranch, I was too tired or it was too late to work with Casper." Misty told her sister on the phone. She chuckled as she thought about her goofball boyfriend; she knew that Clay cared which is why he was so protective, but she also had to do her own thing sometimes, including working with the wild horse.  

      "He's just doin' that because he cares for you, honey. I think it's sweet." Lindsey replied, a smile in her voice. "I wish I had a guy like Clay; he sounds seriously amazing. I cannot wait until I'm back in town so I can meet him." 

     "He really is amazing." Misty said in a dreamy voice. "But stop tryin' to distract me. You're using my boyfriend's charm against me. I'm trying to be mad at him for not letting me work with my horse, but you keep reminding me of how great of a guy he is." 

      "You're right. Sorry, peach. Do you think Clay is purposely tryin' to stop you from workin' with the horse, or does he just want to spend time with you and y'all end up hanging out the whole day and then there's no time for you to work?" Lindsey asked. Misty could hear horses neighing on her end of the phone, telling Misty her sister was at work. 

        "I think it's both, but for some reason, he really does not want me workin' with Casper. The other day, he said that he would much rather him be the one workin' with Casper because he was worried I would get hurt again." Misty explained. Looking to her right, she checked her clock for the time. She would have to wrap up this phone call pretty soon so she could start her daily chores outside. 

      "Misty, do you think that Clay might feel guilty for some reason? Like maybe he blames himself for your accident?" Lindsey inquired.

      Misty thought about it for a few seconds before responding. "You know what? I never thought about that before." She walked over to look out her bedroom window. Down below she saw a couple of the ranch hands tying their fully tacked horses to the hitching post right outside the barn, waiting for orders from Misty's dad. Scanning the cowboy hats below, Misty smiled when she made eye contact with Clay, giving him a wave before he was beckoned back into the barn by one of the hands. Turning from her window, Misty paid attention to her phone call again. "But why would he blame himself for it? It was my fault. I was distracted because of what had happened with me and Jace before hand and so I wasn't paying attention to Casper. It was not Clay's fault at all." Thinking about it more, it would really explain why Clay was acting how he was. "Do you really believe he thinks it is his fault?"

      "From what you've told me, yes. I do think that he feels guilty somehow for you getting hurt." Lindsey paused, then ended with, "Hey, peaches, sorry,   but I gotta go. My lessons are about to start. I recommend you talk to Clay. Just ask him what's up. Love you, peach." Misty's sister said, hanging up her phone.

      With a sigh, Misty pulled her phone from her ear, tucking it into the back pocket of her Wranglers before grabbing her hat off of the horseshoe hook by her door. After fancying her hat on her head, Misty trotted down the stairs, making her way to the mud room to slip on her boots before making her way outside.

       Walking towards the main barn, Misty smiled when she saw Clay begin to saunter over to her, the same smile mirrored on his lips. Before Misty was twenty feet from her boyfriend, a cowboy cut in front of her, blocking her path to Clay. Looking who made her stop in her tracks, Misty glared as she asked, "Jace, what do you want?" Cocking her hip, Misty folded her arms over her chest as she gave her once-best-friend sass.

      "I was hopin' we could ride the fences together so we could talk." Jace said in a kind voice, slipping his thumbs into his jeans pockets as if this was a casual conversation exchanged between two friends.

      "Jace, what do you want to talk to me about?" Misty asked, trying to soften her hard expression, which she found to be a difficult task. Her and Clay had already made plans to ride the fences together, and she didn't want to change those plans.

       "I miss our friendship, Misty." Jace told her honestly, taking a step closer to her.

       Misty protectively stepped back, putting a hand in front of her. "I don't think we will ever be as close as we used to be, Jace." She said in a truthful, but sad, voice.

        "That's why I want to talk to you. Please, Misty." He pleaded with her.

        Glancing over Jace's shoulder, Misty saw Clay give her a look before turning his back to untie his horse, giving Misty his silent permission. Clay had to know what was happening between Jace and Misty right now, otherwise he would have walked over and stopped it. "Okay, we can ride together. Just remember, I'll be on a horse, so if you tick me off, I'll just ride off and find Clay, so you are not allowed to fight with me." Misty grinned slightly, pointing a finger in Jace's direction.

      "There's the Misty I remember." Jace smiled, following Misty into the barn to saddle her horse.

      For the first five or ten minutes of the ride, Misty nor Jace said anything as they rode the fences side by side.

      Finally, after an agonizing silence with just birds and the creak of saddle leather filling the air, Jace asked, "So, how have you been?"

       "Good." Misty replied simply. There was so much she had to tell Jace, and she honestly missed him being her confidant.

       "How's your ribs? I heard about what happened. Sounded pretty bad. I knew that horse would be trouble, but you've always liked the crazy ones." Jace shot a glance Misty's way, a double meaning to his words.

       "I know that you didn't bring me out here just to talk about my ribs, Jace." Misty ignored Jace's double meaning to their childhood joke. 

      Jace cast a hand upward, letting it fall to his side as he replied, "Just tryin' to make conversation." 

      With a sigh, Misty answered his previous question, "The ribs are healin'. This will be the first time riding since the accident, so we will see how much they've actually healed." She spared a glance in Jace's direction, just to be polite. "Actually, Clay had planned to ride with me today just to make sure I would be able to ride. He knows me well enough to know when I'm tryin' to mask pain."

      "I know you well enough, too, Misty." Jace reminded, a hurting edge to his words. Pulling back slightly on the reins to stop his horse, Jace looked over at Misty through his sunglasses. Leaning over, he rested his forearms on the saddle horn. "Do you not think that I would take good enough care of you?" He asked, no longer talking about Misty's injury.

      "Jace, please." Misty started, not looking at him. "We agreed to no fighting, remember?" 

      "I'm not tryin' to fight with you, Misty. I'm just trying to understand, that's all." There was an edge to his words, but after taking a deep breath, Jace calmed down.

      "Jace, yes, I do think that you could take good enough care of me, and you always have, but only as my friend. There are ways that Clay can take care of me that are different than how you can take care of me." She explained, keeping her cool. "It's not a competition between y'all, at least it doesn't have to be." Taking a deep breath, Misty pressed on, wanting this conversation to be over with so they could get done riding fences and she could get back to Clay. To make that happen quicker, Misty let her horse have it's head, telling him to walk. "Jace, I really really want us to go back to being friends, whatever that takes. You have always been my best friend, and I do not want Clay to be the reason that we are no longer friends. I know that you still have feelings for me but I love our friendship, Jace, and I will do whatever I can to patch things up between us, I don't care how long it takes." Misty told him truthfully.  

      "You are okay with us being friends?" Jace asked, looking over at her again, hoping that would tell him of she was being sincere. "Misty, I said some really hurtful things to you recently. Not to mention when I kissed you."

      "I know, Jace. But I have forgiven you, I hope that you can forgive me, too. Of course I am fine with us being friends. But Jace, we can just be friends and that's it, I'm sorry." 

       "Okay. It'll take some time, but I know eventually I will be fine with just bein' friends. But, I just have one question before I change the subject." Jace looked over at Misty trough his sunglasses. 

      "Sure, anything. Shoot." 

      "If the tables were turned and you didn't have feelings for Clay, would I have a chance? Could there have been something between us?" Misty could tell that it was hard for Jace to talk about this with him pretty much already knowing the answer. "Please just be honest." 

       "Honestly, Jace, no. I really do not think that we could ever be more than friends. You've always been my best bud, my pal, and like a brother to me. I don't think I could ever see you as more than that." She told him truthfully.

       "Then why did you kiss me? And you kissed me more than once, why?" There was hurt in his voice. "When you did, I thought that was your way of sayin' we could be more than friends. I thought that you were sayin' that you felt the same way about me that I feel about you. But then you shoved me off of you and pushed me out the door, yelling at me." The more he spoke, the more worked up he was getting; Misty could see it took everything in him to not shout at her, letting out pent up anger, hurt, and confusion.

       "Jace, I truly do not know why I kissed you back. Maybe because when you kiss someone, you expect to feel something, and that's what I was looking for. I thought that I would feel something if I kissed you back. And when I say that, I don't mean feel something romantically, I mean just feel any emotion and all I felt was the fact that it wasn't right. I couldn't help but feel like I was kissing my best friend, and that's all it was. Truly, Jace, I felt nothing, no romantic feelings at all when you kissed me. I'm really sorry." Looking to her left, Misty looked at her best friend, really hoping her words didn't hurt him. Based on his tight set jaw and death grip on his reins, Misty could tell that he was tense, taking everything in him to not say something hurtful to Misty. "If it's any consolation, it's nothing against you. There's nothing wrong with you; you're a fantastic guy, but you're my best friend, I can't picture you as anything other than that." 

       "I understand. Thank you for being honest, Misty." Jace looked over at her, glad he was wearing sunglasses so she couldn't see the pain evident in his hazel eyes. With a smile to try to mask his hurting heart, he partially teasingly asked, "Just between you and I, who's a better kisser? Me, or Clay?"

       Shaking her head, Misty let out a chuckle. "You're not helpin' yourself here, pal."

      With a smile that mirrored Misty's, Jace replied, "Just answer the question."

      Looking at Jace, Misty told the truth, "You're not a bad kisser, but Clay is a lot better. Sorry, cowboy." 

       "That'll come back to bite you one day." Jace teased, pointing a finger at Misty.

       After riding with a smile on her face for a couple more minutes, Misty stated a realization. "Jace, you do realize that we haven't checked any of the fences? We've just been ridin' and not paying attention to the task at hand." 

       "Yeah, I know. A couple of the hands and I already rode this fence and fixed the problems. I really just wanted to talk to you, and I knew the only way to do that was to get you to believe that you were fixin' to check fences with me." Jace glanced at Misty, letting out a chuckle as he smiled at her surprised expression.

      "Jace Michael! You had this all planned out?!" Now it was Misty's turn to laugh. Grabbing the ends of her split reins, she flicked them in Jace's direction playfully.

      "Why are you mad at me? You have to admit if I just walked up to you and said we have to talk, you wouldn't've obliged, now would ya?" He cast a questioning glance at Misty, already knowing the answer.

      "I reckon you're right." She defended. Smiling at the cowboy to her left, Misty added, "You know something? I think we just made up. We ain't fightin' anymore."

      "I reckon you're right, Misty McAdams." Reaching a gloved hand out to Misty, Jace cocked a grin. "Friends again?"

      Taking Jace's hand in hers, Misty smiled. "Friends again."

      Instead of heading back to the ranch, Misty and Jace decided to ride for just a bit longer. Watching Jace as he spoke, Misty knew it would be easy to tell Clay that her and Jace made up, but knowing Jace still had feelings for her, how would she break the news that her and Clay were official? She couldn't stand to break her best friend's heart all over again.