A truck rumbled past, the driver giving me the two-finger country wave. I smiled despite myself.
For half a second, I considered turning around. I could call Doug, fake a family emergency. “Sorry, boss, can’t do the breeding contract. My goldfish died.”
Except no one lied to Louisa Blackwood and lived to tell about it.
I sighed, dropped my head against the headrest, and stared at my reflection in the rearview mirror. “You can do this,” I said to myself. “You’re a professional woman with a master’s degree and excellent credit. You have handled million-dollar accounts andirate executives. You can handle one cowboy with a grudge and the bone structure of a Greek god.”
Pause.
“Probably.”
But even as I said it, I knew I was lying. Wyatt Blackwood wasn't just some cowboy. He was my first everything—first kiss, first love, first heartbreak. He was the standard I'd measured every other man against and found them wanting. He was the ghost that haunted every relationship I'd tried to have since.
Five miles from town, I passed the old Baptist church where we'd hidden from a storm one winter night when we were seventeen. The memory hit so hard I almost swerved. We'd been driving back from a school basketball game when the storm hit—sudden and violent, the kind of Texas storm that could spawn tornadoes without warning. The church had been closer than home, and we'd run for it, already soaked by the time we reached the door.
Inside, we'd stood dripping in the vestibule, laughing at how we looked like drowned rats. Then the laughter had died as awareness crept in. We were alone, truly alone, in a way we rarely were. The storm had knocked the power out, leaving us in darkness, broken only by lightning flashes.
"We should probably wait it out," Wyatt had said, his voice rough.
"Yeah," I'd agreed, though the storm outside felt safer than the one building between us.
We'd ended up in the back pew, supposedly to wait out the weather, but really just needing to be close. He'd kissed me there in that church, soft at first, then deeper when I'd made a sound that might have been his name or might have been a prayer. His hands had stayed respectfully on my waist, but I'd felt the tremor in them, the effort it took to keep them still.
"If this is a sin," he'd whispered against my neck, "I'll gladly burn for it."
"Don't say that," I'd whispered back, but I'd been thinking the same thing.
The storm had passed, as storms do, and we'd driven home in silence, both of us knowing we'd crossed some invisible line. Three weeks later, on my eighteenth birthday, we crossed all the rest.
The memory made my face burn even now, alone in my car with no one to see.
Then, there it was. The sign I'd been dreading and anticipating in equal measure:
Welcome to Copper Creek – Where the Heart Rides FreePopulation 2,847 – Friendliest Town in East Texas
Someone had added a smaller sign underneath since I'd left:Home of the Blackwood Ranch – Excellence in Cattle Since 1952
I drove through town slowly, windows up, air conditioning blasting like it could keep the memories at bay. Main Street stretched before me, two blocks of businesses that had been there forever and would be there forever more, God willing and the creek don't rise, as Louisa used to say.
A few people on the sidewalk turned to look at my Mercedes, foreign and shiny among the trucks and practical sedans. I saw the moment recognition dawned on some faces. Mrs. Henderson from the post office stopped dead in her tracks, her mouth falling open. She immediately turned to the woman next to her—Mrs. Patterson from the bank—and I could practically see the gossip spreading in real-time.
Jake Williams came out of the hardware store, saw my car, and did a double-take. He'd been in my grade at school, had asked me to freshman homecoming before Wyatt and I were official. He was heavier now, wearing a wedding ring, but his expression was the same mix of curiosity and judgment I remembered from high school.
By the time I reached the Blackwood Ranch entrance, I knew the whole town would know I was back. The phone lines would be burning up, texts flying, the gossip mill grinding at full speed. "Did you hear? That Garrison girl is back. Driving some fancy car like she's somebody now. Wonder what she wants. Wonder what Wyatt will do."
The entrance gate stood open, the Blackwood brand worked into the iron arch overhead. The drive was the same crushed limestone. It crunched under tires in a way that sounded like coming home. Wind chimes hung from the gate posts—Louisa's touch, something about welcoming good spirits and warding off bad ones.
The drive wound through pastures where Black Angus cattle grazed in the morning sun, their coats gleaming with health. The fences had been upgraded—steel posts now instead of just wood, with electric wire running along the top. The pastures themselves looked lusher than I remembered, probably due to improved irrigation systems.
I passed the breeding barn—significantly larger than I remembered, with what looked like a mechanic workshop attached. Hunter's influence, probably. Solar panels gleamed on the roof, and I had to smile. Owen might honor tradition, but he'd never been afraid of progress.
The equipment barn was new entirely, massive and modern, probably housing millions of dollars in machinery. The old barn was still there, though, converted into what looked like storage. Good. That old barn held too many memories to tear down—first kisses stolen between chores, dance lessons from Louisa when she'd caught us practicing for prom, the kittens Maggie and I had hidden there one summer.
The main house came into view, and my breath caught hard enough to hurt. It looked like something out of a magazine—the white limestone walls gleaming, the wraparound porches on both levels decorated with hanging baskets overflowing with petunias and begonias. The wedding tree, the massive oak where Owen and Louisa got married, spread its branches over the side yard, and I could see they'd strung lights through them.
But what nearly stopped me in my tracks was everyone waiting in the front yard.
Not the whole family—thank God for small mercies—but enough to make my knees weak as I parked. Owen stood at the foot of the porch steps, tall and commanding despite being in his latefifties now. His hair had gone completely silver, and there were more lines around his eyes, but he still had that presence that made you want to stand up straighter, be better, earn his approval. He wore his usual uniform—jeans, boots, and a Blackwood Ranch button-down that Louisa probably pressed within an inch of its life.
