“No. I didn’t get to read it.” Not that it mattered. Even if I’d asked to review it, my father would have frowned and refused.
“Of course. Because anyone who treats their daughter like an ornamental plant doesn’t expect them to have any interest in their future.”
I bite the inside of my cheek at his assessment. “Seen and not heard.”
He drops a kiss on the top of my head, so light I barely feel it, and squeezes my hip. “We’ll find a way out for you.”Then hesteps back to take up the tools.“Tell me more about Frost, while I finish this. How did you and your father meet him?”
I tell him about Aiden coming to one of my father’s holiday parties. Likely as a guest of someone else. Also, his offer to help with the technological security for the family businesses, which led to further invites to social gatherings. He sort of wormed his way into our lives andbecame an advisor to my father over the last few years.
I don’t know much more other than after I turned twenty, he was suddenly everywhere I went. He was charming and polite. Reserved, like he was waiting for something. I didn’t know my father considered him a suitor for me until five months ago.
When my sister, Elizabeth, turned twenty-one, my father arranged her marriage to one of his business partners. She tried to make a happy marriage, but with each passing year, she grows deeply unhappy. The only joy in her life is her daughter Sophie, my niece.
It’s the kind of marriage I expected to have with Aiden. But the more time I spent with him, the more he unsettled me. Even his hand on mine made my skin crawl.
Bronco scowls the more I talk but lets me get it all out. He sets the new post, then strings the new wire as we talk, working with swift, sure movements, like he’s done this dozens of times.
He answers my question with a smirk. “I grew up on a farm in Montana, princess. I fixed so many fences I used to dream about it when I was in the Army.”
“I’ve seen pictures of Montana. It looks pretty. Did you like growing up there?” I would love to see it. It has the same kind of open skies as here. I bet that’s why he bought this land. It reminded him of home.
“I did. It was a good place to raise three boys.” He tests the new wire, seeming satisfied. “Maybe I’ll take you there one day.”
The hope that maybe I could live a life where that would happen warms me from my head to my toes. I’ve had more choices in the last day with Bronco than I’ve ever had. That kind of freedom is heady.
I don’t think I can go back to the life I had before.
Bronco begins loading the tools into the utility vehicle when his phone rings again. Heglances at the screen and exhales. “It’s my brother.”
He swipes and tosses the phone onto the tailgate. “Ford.”
A man’s voice fills the open space between us. “Hey, bro. Do you have Dallas’s number or address?”
Bronco drops more tools in the back. “Probably his phone number. Why?”
“I need to send him an invitation. Ember and I are getting married, and I need my brothers standing up with me.”
Bronco pauses, holding a shovel over the bed. He slowly lowers it. “Congrats man. You deserve happiness. I’ll reach out and have him call you.”
His brother sighs. “You always were closer to him than I was.”
“Only as close as he lets me. You know that.”
“Yeah. Maybe that will change one day.” There’s a wistfulness to his voice that I heard when Bronco talked about Dallas.
He means a lot to these two.
“Thanks. And thanks for coming up for Christmas with mom and dad. Ember loved them.”
Bronco snorts. “Well, they won’t forget meeting her.”
Ford groans. “Never bring that up again.”
“Okay, but mom already said she will never cook on that kitchen counter again.”
“It’s not like we...”
He trails off when Bronco laughs.
