I saw himandhis daughter.
I knew who she was as soon as she approached me.
Her face dances in my head as I drive home. She’s innocent and chatty. I can still hear her tiny voice asking about Bluebell, her big blue eyes watching me like I had all the answers in the world.
“My name is Evangelina Mercer, but everyone calls me Evie. What’s your name?”
“Sarah. But everyone calls me Doctor K.”
Her eyes go wide. “Are you a doctor?”
“I’m a veterinarian.”
“A who?”
“An animal doctor. Bluebell’s walking funny. I think she hurt her leg, so I’m here to make it better.”
The little girl is beautiful. She looks like Cade.
She’s dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, along with thecutest pair of cowboy boots. A part of me had thought it would break my heart to see a child he made with someone else. But all I saw was a part of Cade.
I fell in love with her, instantly, as I had with her father.
I pull up to the house and stare at my father’s house…now mine.
The porch light is out…or rather still out.
I haven’t gotten around to replacing it yet. It’s high up, and I need a ladder and tools because of how it’s set up. I asked Hank, the electrician, and he said he “wouldn’t be helpin’ peoplelike me.”
So, the porch light will stay out until I have the time to buy a freaking ladder and toolbox or find Daddy’s in that garage that’s filled to the gills.
I walk up the stairs and let out a weary breath.
The sag in the front steps will also stay put.
The construction crews in town are old school. They hang up the second I tell them who I am.
Ask me to stitch up a skittish gelding in a thunderstorm or tube a colicky mare at two a.m.—no problem. But fixing wood and nails? That’s beyond me.
But it’ll be fine.
The house has strong, stubborn bones—a lot like the man who left it to me.
Jack McCready, lawyer slash cowboy, Mac to everyone in the canyon, had warned me about the reception I was likely to receive if I stayed in Wildflower Canyon when he explained Daddy’s will to me and gave me the letter he left me.
“Landon Mercer is still one of the most popular congressmen in Colorado, Sarah. You will win no popularity contests against him.”
But I stayed anyway, because this is my home, and more importantly, because I am done hiding.
Landon ran out a scared nineteen-year-old girl. I’m not that girl anymore.
I’m not broken because my father and Cade turned their backs on me.
Whispers don’t bother me.
I am a grown woman now.
Strong. Stubborn. Maybe too much like my father.
