But Ruby’s expression softened as she looked between us. “He’s here, sweetheart. That means something.” Then she leveled her gaze at me. “If you leave and break her heart again, I swear I’ll put your face on every missing person flyer in the county until I find you and drag you back here myself.”
Kody and Huck joined the circle with Garner right behind them. Huck coughed into his hand. “Not legal, Ruby.”
“I didn’t say it was legal,” Ruby fired back.
Scarlett stepped closer to me. “Ruby, stop.”
Ruby smiled, satisfied. “Fine. But only because you look happier than I’ve seen you in years.” She finally drifted off toward Orville, muttering something about needing to find more marshmallows.
Scarlett turned back to me, her eyes shining in the glow of the lights.
“Everyone’s staring at us,” I murmured.
“Let them,” she said. “I’m done worrying about what they think.”
I let out a long, slow breath. “Then I’m done too.”
Her lips curved. “Good.”
The wind brushed flakes of snow between us as she slid her hands up my coat, her fingertips curling into the fabric. Her voice dipped low, meant only for me.
“So what now?”
“Now,” I said, “I take you home.”
Scarlett smiled as if she’d been waiting to hear those words for the past fourteen years. And maybe she had been.
She threaded her fingers through mine again, the way she always used to, and together we said our goodbyes to everyone who’d gathered around us.
“You’re both invited to the ranch for Christmas dinner,” Shane said as he shook my hand.
I looked at Scarlett as I wrapped my fingers around his. “We’ll be there.”
Then we stepped out of the glow of the tree, past the families and friends who pretended not to watch us, past the whispers that no longer felt like walls, past the memories that had weighed me down for so long. For the first time, the town didn’t feel like a place I had to survive. It felt like a place I could stay.
And with Scarlett’s hand in mine, I knew I already had something better than forgiveness. I had a future.
EPILOGUE
SLADE
The storm had blownthrough overnight, leaving the ridge wrapped in a hard, bright cold that would sink straight into a man’s bones if he stood around long enough. I’d been up since before sunrise, same as every day, checking fence lines and counting cattle, trying to get ahead of the mess the wind liked to make this time of year.
By midmorning, the sky was clear, the kind of sharp blue that only showed up a few times each winter. I took advantage of it, loaded new wire into the truck bed, and headed up toward the north boundary.
That stretch of land was older than anything else on the ranch… older than the buildings, older than the roads, older than the Kincaid name itself, if I believed my grandfather’s stories. I’d spent half my life riding it, working it, memorizing every curve and cedar tree. So when something didn’t look right, I felt it before I saw it.
I hopped out of the truck and scanned the ridge. The storm had knocked down a good section of fence overnight. Nothing new there. But the ground… there was something about the ground that felt off. I moved toward the disturbed snow and crouched, brushing away the frost with my glove.
Metal glinted underneath. It was a survey marker. An ancient one. Older than anything that should’ve been sitting on my family’s land. I brushed it clean with the back of my hand, and the engraving came into view.
H.M.Below it, someone had engraved a date that didn’t line up with any Kincaid history.
My stomach sank. “Well, hell.”
I wasn’t a man who panicked easily, but this? This felt like the start of a headache that wasn’t going to fade on its own. I stood and looked out across the ridge, letting the cold steady me. The land had always felt like an extension of my body… solid, known, and loyal. But today, it felt like it was keeping secrets.
I didn’t have time for secrets. Or for whatever fight this was going to start between my family and the Hollisters. Neither needed much of a spark to set off generations of bad blood, especially when I was trying to get all of us to work together on bringing the rodeo back to town.
