He squeezed my hand gently. "We're comfortable. The ranch has been in my family for generations."
"This is more than comfortable," I whispered.
He laughed, warm and a little bashful. "Well… it'll all be yours soon. Yours and the kids, too."
My heart somersaulted. I pressed my hand to my chest as if that could calm it. I had held a feeling Gideon might be better off than I had thought when I met him. I mean, the hotel, the clothes… but this?
I didn't have time to consider what that meant, because just then the house came into view. And whatever thoughts I had vanished completely.
"Oh…" I breathed. "Oh, Gideon."
Because it wasn't a farmhouse.
It was a dream.
A massive two-story home stood at the center of the ranch like a proud white jewel. Crisp white paneling, freshly painted, gleamed in the sunlight. Dark green shutters framed every window, matching the wide wraparound porch that hugged the house like welcoming arms. The roof was steep and elegant, with dormer windows and a tall stone chimney sending up a thin curl of smoke.
Behind it stretched a labyrinth of barns, huge red structures with wide doors and loft windows, some newer, some older and sun-bleached. Smaller outbuildings peppered the grounds in neat rows: workshops, storage sheds, a smokehouse, and a chicken coop as big as a Berlin apartment.
To the left spread a cluster of fenced pastures where horses grazed, tails flicking lazily. Beyond them roamed cattle, hundreds of them, like dark dots moving across the light green fields.
And then?—
Cowboys.
Real cowboys.
Riding horses, dusty hats tipped low, lean bodies rocking with their mounts. One lassoed a steer in a practiced arc; another led a string of horses toward the barn; a third shouted something across the field, waving as the truck approached. The kids simply exploded.
"Kühe!" Klaus screamed.
"Horses!" Axel squealed.
"Look! Look! Cowboys!" Hilde shrieked, standing up so fast she nearly toppled over.
The truck hit a bump, and the children bounced like popcorn, laughing, pointing, shouting in three different directions at once. I pressed a hand to my heart. This wasn't just different from Berlin. It was the opposite of it.
I blinked hard as we turned down the long dirt lane toward the house. This was where Gideon had grown up. This was the world that shaped him. The sky. The land. The freedom. The dragon in him. The goodness in him.
"This is…" I whispered, unable to find the words. "Gideon… it's beautiful."
He looked at me then, really looked at me, eyes soft and full.
"Not as beautiful as the woman I brought home," he murmured.
My heart turned to melted butter.
As the truck rolled to a stop in front of the great white house, I knew this was the beginning of my real life. The one I had never dared to dream of. The one I would protect with everything in me.
We had barely rolled to a stop in front of the great house when the screen door snapped open. A woman stepped out onto the wide porch, blinking into the sunlight. She wore her graying dark hair braided and pinned back, anapron tied around her waist, hands still damp from whatever she'd been doing in the kitchen. Her round face was warm and soft, the kind of face children would instinctively trust. Flour dusted her cheek. She squinted toward us, shading her eyes with her hand.
Suddenly, she jolted backward. "Gid—?" Her voice cracked. "Giddy?"
I felt Gideon stiffen beside me, then smile. Before he could even open the truck door, the woman's voice rang out through the warm Montana air, "HANK! HANK! Get out here, right now!"
She flew down the steps so fast her apron strings trailed behind her like ribbons. Her feet hit the dirt, and she sprinted toward us with the speed of someone twenty years younger. Gideon barely had time to step around the truck before she crashed into him with enough force to stagger them both.
"Mom," he laughed, arms going tight around her. "Hi."
