I blink, thrown. “You… you know?”
He bends down, adjusting the post we’d just set. “Son,” he starts finally, driving another nail into the wood with a firm, echoing crack, “there ain’t a damn thing on this ranch I don’t know about.”
He hammers the nail flush, then rests his forearmon the top of the post, his gaze still fixed on the fence line instead of me.
“Just don’t break her heart,” he adds sternly. “Or I’ll have to bury you in the east pasture.” His threat sounds undoubtedly serious, but when he lifts his head, I catch the faintest hint of a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like it on his face.
I don’t wait. I turn and walk toward the paddock. Glancing over my shoulder, I call, “James… Thank you.” His response comes in the form of a small nod, like it was nothing. Like he hasn’t just given me the permission I didn’t know I needed. My strides are long, each faster than the last, pulled forward by something stronger than fear and guilt.By her.The fence comes up fast, but I don’t slow down. My hands grip the top rail, and I vault over it in one smooth motion, my boots hitting the dirt with a dull thud on the other side.
Hearing me coming, Teagan turns, her brows pulling together in confusion as I rapidly close the distance between us. “What are you doing?” she asks.
“Saying I’m sorry for walking away this morning,” I reply, stopping in front of her. I reach out, cupping her face and tilting it up toward mine. “And remembering to live my life for those who can’t,” I whisper, pressing my lips to hers.
The past will always be a part of me. Rosie will always be part of me. But Teagan… She might be my future.
I’m halfway through filling the water trough when I catch an unfamiliar sound. I take a moment to place it before realizing someone is turning up the long drive that leads from the main road to the ranch. It’s not the rattling growl of Knox’s old diesel, or the low rumble of one of the other farm trucks. This sound is smooth and expensive.
I straighten slowly, squinting toward the long stretch of dirt road that winds its way from the main road to the house. Dust kicks up in a thin plume behind a vehicle that looks so out of place against the landscape, it might as well have fallen from the sky. The sleek yellow sports car—polished to the sheen of a mirror—is so low to the ground it would bottom out in the smallest of Montana snowstorms.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I huff.
The engine purrs to a stop near the front of the house, the shine of it almost offensive against the old, faded siding. For a moment, I don’t move. My stomach has already started totighten, because I know only one person who would drive a car that obnoxious.
The driver’s door opens, and six months of hiding shatters in an instant when Mason steps out. He’s dressed exactly the way he always is—dark jeans, boots that have never seen real dirt, and sunglasses that cost more than my monthly pay as a ranch hand. His hair is a little longer than it used to be, swept back carelessly, but I’d recognize him anywhere.
He closes the door slowly as his gaze roams over the ranch. When he spots me, his face flashes through a series of expressions in under a second—confusion, disbelief, and relief. “Holy hell!” he exclaims on a breath.
I wipe my hands on my jeans and walk toward him, each step heavier than the last. I haven’t seen him since I left Nashville. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” I say, aiming for casual and missing by a mile.
“You’re alive.” He is full of disbelief, like the statement shocks even himself.
Hell, a few months ago, it would’ve shocked me, too.
“Last I checked.”
He rips his sunglasses off and sucker-punches me in the gut. I double over as the wind gets violently knocked out of me, near certain I’m going to vomit. “How could you do that?” he snarls.
“Do what?” I choke, hunched over my knees and gasping for air.
“Disappear off the face of the Earthlike that.”
Forcing myself upright again, I manage, “I sent a text. I told you I was leaving.”
“You sent a text that sounded like a damn one-lined suicide letter!” he exclaims. “I’ve literally been waiting to get a call for months that you OD’d in some shitty motel room or parked your Bronco at the bottom of a ravine.”
I swallow, his concern hitting me square in the chest. Shaking my head, I sigh. “It wasn’t a suicide note.”
“It fucking read like one, Easton.” His voice cracks on my name in a way I haven’t heard from him before. “You said you couldn’t live this life without her.”
“I meantthatlife.”
“Then maybe you should’ve been more specific.”
Silence stretches between us for a moment before he gestures toward my stomach and begrudgingly asks, “You okay?”
“Please,” I rasp, straightening fully and forcing a breath that doesn’t feel like broken glass in my lungs. “You couldn’t fight your way out of a wet paper bag.”
His mouth twitches, despite himself. He steps forward like he’s going to hit me again, but he catches the back of my neck, pulling me into a hard, one-armed hug. I return it, gripping his shoulder just as tight, the unspoken truth passing between us in the firm clap of his hand against my back.
