His chest tightened. “Even then.”
Because some things mattered more than forgiveness. Some things mattered more than his own heart breaking into pieces on a sidewalk in Renegade, Colorado.
Keeping Sierra safe was one of those things.
Even if she spent the rest of her life hating him for it.
Four
She’d spent a decade teaching Huck that honesty mattered most, but the biggest lie of his life was walking around Renegade with his same eyes.
Sierra sat in Bailey Sinclair’s fourth-grade classroom, the kids having exited for the day, staring at the bulletin board covered with student artwork while her hands shook in her lap. Twenty-eight crayon drawings of “My Family” decorated the wall, and she could pick out Huck’s immediately—a woman and a boy standing beside a red barn, two horses grazing in a green pasture. No father figure. Just the two of them against the world, exactly the way she’d raised him to see their life.
Except now his father was buying coffee at the Renegade Café and offering to help with cattle rustlers and asking about a husband who didn’t exist. Because instead of telling her he was alive…he’d been spying on her.
Beautiful.
“Sierra?” Bailey looked up from the stack of math tests she was grading, her pen pausing mid-correction. Strawberry blonde hair cut in a practical bob framed her face, and concern wrinkled her forehead as she studied Sierra’s expression. At twenty-eight, Bailey had the kind of wholesome prettiness that made parents trust her instantly with their children. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Maybe I have.”
Bailey set down her pen and really looked at her—the way best friends did when they sensed disaster lurking beneath the surface. She pushed her chair back and moved to the supply cabinet, pulling out construction paper while keeping her attention on Sierra. “What happened? You were fine this morning when you dropped Huck off.”
Fine. Right. Sierra stood and began helping Bailey sort the colored paper into neat stacks—red, orange, yellow, brown. October art projects, probably. Her hands needed something to do while her mind tried to process the impossible.
This morning she’d been a single mother running a struggling ranch and worrying about stolen cattle. Now she was a single mother who’d been lying to her son about his father being dead when he was apparently very much alive and sitting in the police station offering his services.
“Rowan’s back.”
The words hung in the classroom air between construction-paper pumpkins and a poster about proper comma usage. Bailey’s hands stilled on the paper stack, several orange sheets fluttering to the floor.
“Rowan Wallace? Your Rowan?” Bailey’s voice dropped to a whisper as she bent to collect the scattered papers.
Her Rowan. Yeah, she needed to stop thinking that way. “He’s not my anything.” Sierra bent to help her. “But yes. Rowan Wallace, who’s supposed to be buried in the Renegade cemetery—and now I know why he wasn’t buried at Arlington, thank you so much military who lied to me.” She shook her head as she stood up, papers in hand. “I walked into Mike Martinelli’s office this morning to report a connection between my missing cattle and maybe, I don’t know…Tom Hendrick’s death, and there he was…just—sitting there.”
“Wait.” Bailey stood up too. “You have more missing cattle?”
“Six head of pregnant cows stolen last night. Cut fence, tire tracks, professional job. But that’s not—Bailey, Rowan said he knew about the rustling, said he could talk to my husband about providing security services.” Sierra’s voice cracked on the word husband. “He thought I was married.”
“Oh, Sierra.” Bailey took her hand, led her to a chair next to her deck. “Are you okay?”
Sierra sat. “No, I’m not okay. I screamed when I saw him. Literally screamed in Mike’s office and then had a public argument with Mr. I’m Not Dead on Main Street.”
Bailey reached for the water bottle on her desk and handed it to Sierra. “Drink something. You look like you’re about to pass out.”
Sierra took a sip, but it didn’t help the spinning sensation in her chest. “He looks exactly the same. Older, bigger, but still…” She gestured helplessly. “Still him. Only better-looking, if that’s possible.”
“Yikes. What did you tell him?” Bailey raised an eyebrow. “Or what did he tell you?”
“He told me nothing. Nothing. And I said he was ten years too late. That I’d learned to handle things without him.” Sierra’s laugh came out bitter, hollow. “Then I told him he’d obliterated his promises to Grandpa Elway and walked away.”
“Harsh.” Bailey winced. “But accurate.”
“He let me think he was dead, Bailey.” Sierra’s voice cracked on the words. “I got the flag. I mourned him.”
Bailey was quiet for a moment, her mouth pressed into a thin line. “What are you going to tell Huck?”
The classroom fell silent. She had nothing.
