part one
10 years ago
BOONE
one
She’d told herself last night that if he called again, she’d go.
Then he’d called at 3:17 a.m., a time that always made her think of those “if you’re awake, you’re not alone” suicide hotline billboards, which only made the decision feel worse.
But here she was, driving toward a man she’d promised herself she’d forget, and a ranch that was more dream than reality at this point.
The sky looked like an empty slate, the mountains like smudges of charcoal against the polar white. Most days, you could see the pale burn of the sun behind a lid of clouds, but not today. It was dark and gloomy, and as Johanna Perrin nudged the old Subaru up the last quarter mile to the turnoff, she wondered if she should take the weather as a sign.
The ranch was easy to miss once you left the county road, nothing more than a rusted metal gate stretched between two posts, and a new wood sign with hand-burned lettering: VALOR RIDGE RANCH. VETS WELCOME. There was no mailbox, just a black PVC pipe sticking up out of the snow, stuffed with rolled-up notices and coupons.
The gate stood open.
She sucked in a breath and turned onto the long driveway. It was caked in salt and ruts, a thin layer of ice glinting in the tracks, crackling under her tires.
God, what was she doing here? This was crazy.
She rolled the window down to clear her head. The air tasted like ice, woodsmoke, and pine resin. Seven degrees and dropping. Her breath stung her nostrils as she sucked in the fresh air.
The land was empty, broken only by the main house, a squat rectangle of blue siding and a sheet-metal roof, with other buildings set farther back. A barn and maybe a bunkhouse.
She pulled to a stop in front of the house and let the engine die. The silence afterward was so complete she thought she’d gone deaf. Nothing moved except a windrow of snow peeling across the fenceline. Johanna’s jaw ached from clenching it, but the rest of her felt hollowed out.
She couldn’t do this.
She couldn’t face him.
She should turn around.
The porch light came on, even though it was barely past noon, and the front door opened.
Too late.
No backing out now.
Walker Nash stepped out onto the porch, and, dammit, for a man approaching fifty, he still looked good. He hadn’t changed much in the past five years. Maybe a bit more gray at the temples and a few more lines around his eyes. But that body—always tense like he was waiting for a sniper’s bullet—hadn’t softened a bit. He was still all shoulders and square jaw, even under the battered Carhartt vest and a flannel that was obviously new.
Johanna’s last mental snapshot of him came from a hospital corridor five years ago, under artificial lights thatmade everyone look jaundiced and haggard. This light was barely better, so why did he look so damn good now?
He stood there, hands shoved deep in his vest pockets, holding himself like a man who would rather take a bullet than admit he needed anything.
She didn’t wave. He didn’t either.
Okay, she was here. Shecoulddo this.
She braced herself, popped open the door, and crunched across the crusted snow. Walker met her at the midpoint, where the drive gave way to the concrete slab leading to the porch.
“Hey,” he said. Same voice as always—low and rough as torn burlap—and it still had the same effect on her, setting a rabble of butterflies loose in her belly. “Thanks for coming, Jo.”
She nodded, not trusting herself to answer. There were words she’d rehearsed all the way up—blunt, clinical, safe—but now they sounded useless. There was a Tootsie Pop in his hand, and she was thrown back to the first time she’d seen him with one. He’d come grudgingly to a support group she ran through Frontier Veterans Services, a non-profit for veterans the VA wouldn’t take. He’d always had one in his cheek back then, said it kept him from returning to cigarettes.
“You… said there’s a veteran here in need of help,” she said finally.
