Trying Not to Need You

Prologue

Baylor comes home expecting Todd to be there, already picturing the two of them sharing one last dinner before she leaves on her trip. Instead, the apartment greets her with silence. Nothing is touched. No plates out, no sign he ever planned to be present. The quiet does the talking for him.

She calls him anyway, holding onto the plan they made, wanting him to honor it. Todd picks up and hands her an excuse instead of an apology. He already ate. He is busy. The dinner she had been counting on evaporates in a few words. When he tells her not to wait up, the instruction lands less like consideration and more like dismissal, and Baylor is left holding the wreckage of an evening she had tried to salvage.

That is when she stops pretending the missed dinner is the real problem. Standing in the untouched apartment, she confronts the pattern itself: the distance, the disappointment, the way she keeps expecting him to show up and he keeps not showing up. Five years together, and she cannot pinpoint when they drifted, only that they did. The pursuit of partnership at his firm has swallowed everything else, and she has been living in the leftovers of his ambition.

She turns to the mail he left lying out, doing what she always does, tidying the loose ends he abandons. Among the envelopes is a medical bill, three weeks old. It stops her. Three weeks is long enough for a secret to settle in. She reads it, and the floor shifts. Todd had a vasectomy. The procedure happened during the conference he claimed to be attending. The lie is not small. It is surgical, deliberate, and it cuts straight through the future she thought they were building.

She goes online to the medical facility, needing to be wrong, needing the bill to be a mistake or someone else's. The search confirms it. Her worst suspicion is no longer a suspicion. It is a fact with a date and a provider and a recovery she never noticed because she was not looking for betrayal in her own home.

Baylor grabs the bill and rushes out. She does not change her shoes. She does not calm down. She wants Todd to admit it to her face, and she wants it now. The rage carries her through the three blocks to his office, and she lets it, because stopping to think might let doubt catch up with her.

She reaches his floor and finds him alone at his desk. Everyone else has gone home. The office is quiet in a way that makes the confrontation feel inevitable. Baylor slaps the bill down on his desk and demands an explanation for the lie. She accuses him of betraying the plan they made for a family, the one she believed they shared.

Todd does not deny it. He admits the vasectomy, and then he defends it. He dismisses her with a phrase that turns her into an outsider in her own relationship: my body, my choice. The words are technically his to claim, but he wields them like a wall, and Baylor is left on the other side of it.

She reminds him they had agreed on kids and marriage. She wants him to acknowledge that this was a shared decision, something built between two people, not a private medical matter he could settle alone. Instead, he tells her he changed his mind. No discussion. No warning. Just a revision to the life they had planned, delivered after the fact.

What Baylor sees in that moment is not regret or conflict. She sees cold indifference. She wants to be valued and loved, and standing in his office, she understands that she is not. They are no longer compatible, and the realization is less a heartbreak than a verdict.

She leaves his office without making a scene. She tells him she will see him at home, but the words are only a formality. The relationship is already over.

Back at the apartment, Baylor moves before doubt can return. She writes a resignation letter citing a family emergency, giving herself an exit that does not require explaining the truth to anyone at work. She packs only clothes and pictures, leaving behind everything that belongs to the shared life she is walking away from. She arranges a rental SUV and a cab for the drive home.

She chooses Magnolia Ridge. She wants her sisters. She wants a fresh start. And when she thinks about leaving Todd, what she feels is not grief. It is relief.

Chapter 1

Baylor wants to escape New York, Todd, and her old life, so she drives thirteen hours overnight, uprooting her life on impulse. She does not book a flight or plan a careful exit. She simply gets in her car and goes, leaving behind the job and the relationship and the version of herself she built there. The drive changes everything because it turns a private decision into a physical fact, putting miles between who she was and who she is trying to become.

Baylor wants to process her decision alone, so she avoids flying and uses the drive to sit with the reality of quitting her job and ending her relationship. The highway gives her hours of dark and silence, mile after mile, with nothing to do but feel the weight of what she has done. By the time the sky starts to lighten, she has not solved anything, but she has stopped running from her own choice. The drive changes her from a woman fleeing into a woman arriving.

Baylor wants comfort and rest, so she arrives at Sophia's house and is greeted by Sophia running out to hug her. Baylor is hollowed out and running on fumes, barely able to make it to the door before her sister reaches her. Sophia asks no questions and shows no hesitation, just holds her. The hug changes Baylor because it is the first moment in thirteen hours that she feels something other than forward motion.

Sophia wants to give Baylor space to talk, so she has Nathan stay at his parents' house. She clears the house without being asked, removing the audience Baylor never said she needed removed. It is a small logistical choice and a huge emotional one. The empty house changes the conversation before it starts, letting Baylor know she can speak freely.

Baylor wants to unburden herself, so she tells Sophia everything that happened with Todd, trading privacy for relief. She lays out the whole ugly story, holding nothing back, because Sophia is the one person who will listen without judgment. The confession costs her the protection of secrecy. It changes her by making the truth real outside her own head, shared with someone who loves her.

Sophia wants Baylor to feel secure, so she offers her a place to stay as long as she needs. There is no deadline and no condition attached, just an open door from a sister who means it. Baylor feels the generosity land. The offer changes her options, giving her a soft place to fall if every other plan collapses.

Baylor wants to avoid disrupting Sophia and Nathan, so she decides to stay in her old room at home once Ellison knows she is back. She refuses to become the sister who moves in and never leaves, a permanent guest in someone else's marriage. The decision costs her immediate comfort. It changes her plan by tying her next step to her family home instead of her sister's spare room.

Baylor wants sleep, so she accepts clothes from Sophia and goes to the spare bedroom to nap. She changes out of the clothes she has worn through thirteen hours of driving and lets herself lie down. The nap is not escape, just necessity. It changes her by giving her body the rest it needs before she has to face anyone else.

Baylor wants to celebrate her sister, so she arrives at the inn with gifts for the baby shower. She shows up with presents in hand, determined to be a person at a party instead of a person falling apart. The gifts are an offering, a way of saying she came for Ellison and not for herself. The arrival changes her role, pulling her out of her own crisis and into her sister's joy.

Kara wants to welcome Baylor, so she calls her "the New York sister," which stings Baylor and makes her feel disconnected. The greeting is meant kindly, but it lands as a label instead of a name. Baylor hears the distance in it, the proof that she has been gone long enough to become a category. The words change her mood, adding a small ache beneath the celebration.

Courtlynn and Leighton want to see Baylor, so they rush her with hugs and urge her to move home. They wrap her up and tell her she belongs back with them, meaning every word. Baylor feels the pull of their love and the pressure of their hope at the same time. The moment changes her by showing her that home has been waiting, even if she did not know it.

Baylor wants to keep the focus off her problems, so she laughs off Courtlynn's suggestion and avoids explaining about Todd. She deflects with a joke and keeps her voice light, refusing to turn the shower into a confession. The choice costs her the chance to be honest in that moment. It changes the room by keeping the celebration intact and her pain private.

The group wants to surprise Ellison, so they hide and yell "Surprise!" when she and Copeland walk in. Everyone crouches and waits, barely breathing, until the door opens and the shout goes up. The noise changes the room instantly, turning a quiet gathering into a celebration. It also changes Baylor, giving her a moment of pure joy to stand inside.

Baylor wants to see her sister, so she races over, hugs Ellison, and touches her baby bump. She crosses the room without thinking, pulling Ellison close and resting a hand on the curve of her pregnancy. The touch is instinctive, a sister's claim on a sister's happiness. It changes Baylor by connecting her to the future instead of the past.

Baylor wants to be home for good, so she blurts out that she is moving back, shocking her sisters. The words escape before she can plan them, landing like a small bomb in the middle of the party. Her sisters freeze, then react. The announcement changes everything by making her private decision public and irreversible.

Baylor wants to reassure her sisters, so she confirms she is staying and asks for her old room, and all three sisters immediately say yes. She repeats the promise and makes a specific request, giving them something concrete to hold. They answer without hesitation, no conditions and no questions. The yes changes Baylor by proving she still has a place, and it changes her sisters by giving them back the person they missed.

Baylor wants to protect Ellison's day, so she promises details later and redirects everyone to start the party. She refuses to let her own news swallow her sister's shower, so she waves off the questions and points everyone back to the food and the gifts. The redirection costs her the chance to explain herself. It changes the room by returning the focus to Ellison, where Baylor believes it belongs.

Baylor wants the kind of love Copeland and Ellison share, so she resolves to take time for herself before pursuing it. She watches them together, sees the ease and the tenderness, and admits she wants that for herself. She does not rush toward it. She decides to heal first, to become someone who can receive that kind of love. The resolution changes her by giving her a direction that is not backward, and for the first time in a long time, she lets herself believe she might find it.

Chapter 2

Macklin agrees to attend Copeland’s co-ed baby shower before she even finishes asking, saying yes with a smile that looks easy and uncomplicated. He tells himself it is about friendship, about showing up for people who have always shown up for him, and the lie is familiar enough that he almost believes it. The real reason has a name, and the name is Baylor. He agrees because she will be there, and that has been enough for him for years.

He has kept his feelings for Baylor hidden for a long time, and the reasons stack up like fence posts around a field he is not allowed to cross. She is younger, which makes him feel like he should know better. She is on the rodeo circuit’s road, moving from town to town with the same restless rhythm that once carried him, so there is never a stable moment to say anything. And she is Ellison’s little sister, which makes her the one woman in the world who should be off limits. Any one of those reasons would be enough to keep a smarter man silent, and together they have kept Macklin quiet for years.

So he comes home. Holidays, breaks, any stretch of days that might put him in the same room as Baylor, he finds a reason. He tells himself it is for family, for his mother, for the ranch, for the comfort of familiar ground. But he knows the truth every time he pulls into the drive. He is hoping to see her. He is hoping for a moment, a conversation, a sign that the distance between them might close.

When Baylor moves to New York, Macklin stays on the rodeo circuit three extra years. He tells himself it is the competition, the money, the only life he knows. But the truth is simpler and sadder. She is no longer nearby, and without her the circuit loses the thing that kept him tethered to it. He delays retirement because leaving means admitting she is gone, and he is not ready for that.

Eventually his body makes the decision for him. He retires from bull riding, and everyone believes the aching bones and battered joints are the whole story. It is a good story, an easy one, and Macklin lets them believe it. He never tells them the other reason, the one that lives in his chest. He retires because he hopes Baylor might come home, and he wants to be there when she does.

Five years ago he comes home for good, ready to finally pursue her. He has waited long enough, hidden long enough, and he tells himself this is the moment. But Baylor introduces him to Todd, and the plan collapses before it ever begins. She is happy. She is with someone. Macklin pretends to be happy for her, shakes Todd’s hand, says the right things, and buries the heartbreak where no one can see it. He even tells himself he would follow her to New York if she asked, if it meant being near her. She never asks.

Now Baylor arrives at the shower with bags in her hands, and Macklin notices immediately that something is off. Her smile is there, but it does not reach her eyes. It is the smile she wears when she is holding something back, and he has known her long enough to read it. He watches her move through the room, greeting people, playing the part, and the wrongness of it settles in his gut.

Then she announces she is moving back home, and the room reacts with surprise and delight. Macklin goes still. The words land like a shock through his chest, and for a moment he cannot breathe. She is coming home. After all the years of waiting, after the retirement and the pretending and the quiet hope he thought he had buried, she is coming back.

He approaches her at the drink table and welcomes her home. It is a small thing, a few words, but it is the opening he has been waiting for. Baylor hugs him briefly, and the contact is over almost before it begins, but it is enough to set his heart hammering. He asks about New York, and she says New York is in the past. She tucks her hair behind her ear as she says it, a nervous gesture he recognizes, and he knows there is more she is not telling him.

Macklin presses her privately, steering her away from the room, shielding her from the noise and the questions. He asks if she is okay, and the question is not casual. He needs to know. Baylor admits she quit her job by email, packed her life into a rental car, and drove thirteen hours overnight. The words come out in a rush, and Macklin listens, piecing together the shape of something broken.

He asks if Todd hurt her, and the question comes out harder than he intends. Baylor assures him Todd did not physically harm her, and the relief is immediate but incomplete. Something still happened. Something still sent her running. Then she tells him the truth. Todd had a vasectomy without telling her, after they had discussed having children. She kept it from her sisters to avoid ruining the shower, carrying the weight of it alone so the celebration could go on untouched.

Macklin stands there with the knowledge settling over him. Baylor is finally single. She is back home. The years of watching from the sidelines, of hiding his feelings, of waiting for a moment that never came, have led to this. He decides he is done watching. He is going to take his shot and pursue her, and this time he will not let the chance pass him by.

Chapter 3

Baylor returns to her childhood home wanting to settle back in, but the absence of a countdown changes her sense of belonging. She stands in the doorway and waits for a feeling that does not come. The house is the same, the light through the windows is the same, but something is missing, and it takes her a moment to name it. There is no countdown running in the back of her mind. No return ticket, no end date, no quiet arithmetic of how many days until she leaves again. She has come back to settle in, to stay, and the absence of that internal clock unsettles her more than she expected. Belonging, she realizes, feels different when it is not temporary.

Ellison invites Baylor to sit and takes her hand, wanting closeness, which steadies Baylor for the confession ahead. Ellison finds her before she can sink too far into the thought. She invites Baylor to sit and takes her hand, and the simple contact does what words cannot. Baylor's sister is not asking for anything yet. She is just there, holding on, wanting closeness. The steadiness of it braces Baylor for what she knows is coming, the confession she has been carrying since she walked through the door.

Copeland leaves for a beer with the guys after kissing Ellison, wanting normalcy, which leaves the sisters alone to talk. He breaks the moment without meaning to. He kisses Ellison goodbye and heads out for a beer with the guys, chasing a slice of normalcy after everything the family has been through. The door closes behind him, and the house settles into a different quiet. The sisters are alone now, and there is nothing left to hide behind.

Courtlynn and Leighton settle in with Baylor, wanting sister time, which pushes Baylor to face why she is really back. They pull chairs close, claiming the kind of sister time that does not happen often enough. They are not prying, exactly, but they are not leaving, either. Their presence does what Ellison's hand did. It pushes Baylor toward the truth. Why is she really back? Not for a visit. Not for a holiday. They want to know, and Baylor can feel the question sitting in the room, waiting.

Baylor admits she is home for good until she figures out her next move, wanting honesty, which exposes her lack of a plan. So she says it. She is home for good, at least until she figures out her next move. The words land with more honesty than she intended, and that honesty exposes the thing she has been avoiding. There is no next move. There is no plan. She has come home because she has nowhere else to go, and saying it out loud makes the ground feel thin beneath her.

Ellison and Courtlynn press Baylor to explain, wanting the full story, which forces her to relive the breakup. They do not let it rest. They press her to explain, gently but firmly, wanting the full story. Baylor hesitates, then gives in, and the telling forces her to relive it. The breakup comes back in pieces, sharp-edged and fresh.

Baylor tells them about Todd's unilateral decision about kids, wanting understanding, which confirms the relationship is over. She describes Todd's decision, the one he made unilaterally, without her, about kids. Not a conversation. Not a compromise. A verdict handed down. She had wanted understanding from her sisters, and what she gets instead is confirmation. The relationship is over. It was over the moment he decided her future without her.

Courtlynn and Leighton condemn Todd, wanting justice for Baylor, which validates her anger and hurt. They do not hold back. They condemn Todd with the ferocity of people who love Baylor and have watched her give too much for too long. Their anger is loud and unapologetic, and it validates everything Baylor has been too tired to feel. For a moment, she gets to be the wronged one. She gets to be angry.

Baylor admits she stayed too long and ignored the signs, wanting accountability, which shifts her pain toward self-blame. But the anger does not hold. Baylor admits the rest, the part that keeps her up at night. She stayed too long. She saw the signs and ignored them. She wanted accountability from herself, and the confession shifts her pain inward, turning it into self-blame. Maybe she should have known. Maybe she did know.

Leighton and Ellison reframe Baylor's loyalty as strength, wanting to comfort her, which loosens Baylor's guilt. They refuse to let her carry it that way. They reframe the story, taking her loyalty and holding it up as strength rather than weakness. She was not foolish. She was faithful. She gave her whole heart to something she believed in, and that is not a flaw. The reframing loosens the guilt knotted in her chest, not erasing it, but making it bearable.

Ellison urges Baylor not to let Todd's choices block future love, wanting hope for her, which turns the talk toward healing. Ellison pushes further, and her push is toward hope. She urges Baylor not to let Todd's choices block her from future love. The talk turns from what was lost to what might still come, from grief toward healing. It is a small turn, but it changes the temperature of the room.

Courtlynn jokes about Ellison and Copeland's marriage, wanting levity, which breaks the tension into shared laughter. Sensing the weight has gotten heavy enough, Courtlynn jokes about Ellison and Copeland's marriage. The levity is deliberate, a lifeline thrown across the table, and it works. The tension breaks into shared laughter, the kind that only sisters can make out of the wreckage of a hard conversation.

Ellison asks Baylor to take over the inn's books, wanting relief during maternity leave, which gives Baylor an immediate role. Then Ellison asks Baylor for something. She wants her to take over the inn's books during her maternity leave. It is not a favor offered out of pity. It is a job, a real one, and it gives Baylor an immediate role.

Baylor agrees to handle the books, wanting purpose, which begins her return to family responsibility. Baylor agrees, wanting purpose more than she wants to admit. The yes is small, but it begins her return to family responsibility, the first thread tying her back into the fabric of the place.

Courtlynn calls Copeland and orders the first-floor main bedroom move, wanting space for the baby, which overrides Ellison's hesitation. Courtlynn does not wait for anyone's permission on the next matter. She calls Copeland and orders the move of the first-floor main bedroom, wanting space for the baby. Ellison hesitates, but Courtlynn overrides her, the way she always does when she has decided something is right.

Copeland agrees to come home with help, wanting to support Ellison, which turns the evening into a moving party. He agrees to come home with help, wanting to support Ellison, and just like that the evening turns into a moving party.

The sisters sort baby gifts and separate what is needed now from later, wanting order, which settles Baylor into being home for good. They sort through baby gifts, separating what is needed now from what can wait. They make piles, make decisions, make order out of the chaos. And somewhere in the folding and the sorting and the arguing over which onesie counts as newborn and which as three months, Baylor stops feeling like a guest in her own life. She is home. For good. The countdown is gone, and for the first time, that feels less like a loss and more like a place to stand.