The water beat against my shoulders, and I let myself remember what I'd spent fourteen years trying to forget. The weight of that pendant against my skin. The smell of leather and hay and summer storms. The feeling of calloused hands that knew exactly how to touch me, reverent and demanding all at once. The way my name sounded in his mouth, that Texas drawl turning it into something between a prayer and a promise.
Ivygirl.
Nobody had called me that in fourteen years. In Dallas, I was Ivy or Ms. Garrison or occasionally "babe" from Mark when he was feeling particularly affectionate. But Ivygirl—that was something else entirely. That was who I'd been when I believed in forever, when I thought love could overcome anything, when I didn't know that sometimes the bravest thing you could do was run.
By the time I emerged from the bathroom, I'd rebuilt my walls and remembered my role. I sat across from Mark at my dining table that had never seen a family meal, eating food that was perfectly seasoned and utterly tasteless, making conversation about his latest case and my upcoming trip.
"You'll kill it," he said, raising his wine glass in a toast. "Show those country boys how it's done. Bring Blackwood into the modern age."
I clinked my glass against his, the sound sharp and hollow in my sterile apartment.
Later, in bed, he reached for me with those smooth, uncalloused hands. I let him, because it was easier than explaining why I couldn't. His touch was practiced, effective, achieving its goal with minimum fuss and maximum efficiency. He knew what he was doing, had probably read articles about that too.
But as he moved above me in the darkness, all I could think about was another darkness, another time, when making love had meant something more than achieving mutual satisfaction. When every touch had been a promise, every kiss a vow, every whispered word a piece of forever.
Mark finished with a satisfied sigh, kissed my forehead, and rolled away to his side of the bed. Within minutes, his breathing evened into sleep.
I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, and let myself admit the truth I'd been running from all day.
Come Monday, I was going back to Copper Creek. Back to the place where I'd been loved completely and left completely broken. Back to the ranch where every fence post and barn door held a memory. Back to the people who'd offered me family when I'd had none.
Back to him.
The man whose heart I'd shattered. The one whose name I still couldn't say, even in the privacy of my own mind. The one who'd made me promises I'd never let him keep, loved me in a way that had ruined me for everyone else.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from an unknown number with a 903 area code.
Heard you're coming home. The creek's been waiting. -L
L. Liam. His message was simple, but I read between the lines. He was warning me. Preparing me.
Because if the creek had been waiting, that meant Wyatt had been too.
And in five days, ready or not, I was going to have to face what I'd done to him. What I'd done to us.
What I'd done to the only version of myself that had ever felt real.
Chapter 2
Wyatt
"I don't need a damn consultant tellin' me how to raise cattle."
My words hung in the air of the Blackwood dining room like a challenge, but nobody took me up on it. They all just sat there around the big oak table that had been in our family for four generations, looking at me with varying degrees of pity, amusement, or concern.
"Nobody said you did," Dad replied, his tone mild in that way that meant he wasn't going to budge. Owen Blackwood might be pushing sixty, but he still ran this ranch with an iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove. "But the industry's changing, son. We either change with it or get left behind."
I leaned back in my chair, the wood creaking under my weight. Around the table, my whole family was gathered for this "important meeting" Dad had called.
Mom sat at his right, her silver hair pulled back in the same practical ponytail she'd worn my whole life, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee that had probably gone cold an hour ago. Clay lounged across from me, boots up on the empty chair beside him despite Mom's disapproving look. Liam sat silent and watchful, that thoughtful expression that made him look older than his thirty-two years—same as mine, though we weren't blood brothers. His parents had died when he was thirteen, and Mom and Dad had taken him and Sophie in without hesitation, raising them as their own. Hunter had his nose in some car magazine, only half-listening until someone said something that required his expertise. And Maggie—at twenty-nine, she'd grown into the sharpest business mind in the family—had her laptop open, fingers flying across the keyboard as she tracked our orders and budgets in real-time.
"The expansion's going to require significant infrastructure updates," Maggie said, not looking up from her screen. "New embryo transfer facilities, upgraded lab equipment, enhanced data tracking systems. We're looking at a major investment."
"Which will pay for itself within two years if we do this right," Dad countered. He stood, moving to the window that overlooked the main pasture where our prize heifers grazed. "Blackwood Ranch has been a leader in Texas cattle for the last twenty-five years. But leadership means innovation, not just tradition."
"Our bloodlines are already the best in the state," I argued, frustration creeping into my voice. "Our conception rates?—"
"Could be better," Hunter interrupted, finally looking up from his journal. "The Dailey ranch increased theirs by thirty percent after modernizing their program."
