“We’ll see.”
The drive home was filled with the boys’ chatter about roping techniques and the rodeo competition. Sierra half listened, her mind churning with Bailey’s words.
And Rowan. Oh, she’d never pry the look of him, intense, those blue eyes on her, ripping through her world out of her mind.
She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t let him back in.
She dropped Mal and Gunnar at their respective houses, then headed toward the ranch as the sun began to set behind the mountains. October evenings came early, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple that made the landscape look like something from a postcard.
“Mom, can I ask you something?” Huck’s voice was quieter now, more serious.
“Always.”
“Do you think my dad would have taught me to rope?”
The question hit her in the chest. “Yes, baby. I think he would have loved teaching you all kinds of things.”
“Do you miss him?”
Sierra’s throat tightened. “Every day.”
It wasn’t a lie, exactly. She did miss Rowan every day—missed the boy she’d loved, the man she’d thought he might become, the father she’d imagined he would have been to their son.
“Do you think he would have liked me?”
Oh, no. “Huck, he would have loved you more than his own life.”
That part was absolutely true. Whatever else Rowan had become, whatever choices he’d made about staying dead to the world, he would have loved his son with the fierce protectiveness that had always defined him.
But that was the Rowan she knew. This man…? Oh, she didn’t know.
They came to the final hill before the ranch, and Sierra saw the smoke before she saw the flames.
“Mom.” Huck’s voice was small, frightened. “Something’s wrong.”
Something was wrong.
The red barn was on fire.
Flames licked through the roof, sending sparks into the darkening sky. Smoke billowed across the pasture, and she could hear the sound of sirens in the distance—someone had already called the fire department.
Sierra floored the accelerator, her truck flying down the gravel driveway. No—nooo. The barn where her great-great-grandfather had stored his first harvest. The barn where Grandpa Elway had taught her to gentle horses and stack hay and understand what it meant to be responsible for something bigger than yourself.
The barn where she’d kissed Rowan Wallace for the first time when they were fifteen years old.
The barn where Huck was made.
Sierra pulled up to the house and saw Morrie running toward them from the direction of the fire, his face black with smoke and his eyes wide with something that might have been panic.
“Get to the house and stay there. Fire department’s on the way, but this thing’s burning fast.”
Sierra climbed out of the truck on unsteady legs, pulling Huck close to her side as they watched four generations of Blackwood history disappear into smoke and flame.
And somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard Rowan’s voice from this morning. You can’t handle this alone.
He was going to haunt her forever. Because the stupid man just might be right.
How did he think he could just drive into Renegade and fix everything in a day?
