I exhaled. “I can’t force her, sweetheart.”
“I know,” she said, voice breaking. “But you can try.”
I nodded once. “I will.”
Brooke stepped forward, touching Maddy’s shoulder. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s find some feed for your mare.”
Maddy didn’t move right away. She stared at me, searching my face like she was looking for cracks.
“You’re mad,” she said.
“Yes,” I admitted. I forced my jaw to unclench. “I’m not mad at her for being scared. I’m mad at the situation. I’m mad at the bank, mad at Ray for leaving her buried under paperwork. And I’m mad at myself for giving her space and letting her disappear.”
Maddy swallowed, eyes shiny. “Okay.”
I reached out and squeezed her shoulder once, quick and steady. “After you feed your mare, get your stuff packed up. I’ll take you to your mom’s instead of meeting her somewhere.”
She nodded, but her face stayed tight. “You’re going to see her tonight?”
A ghost of a smile tried to pull at my mouth. It didn’t make it. “Yeah, I am.”
She stepped forward suddenly and hugged me, hard, arms tight around my waist. She didn’t do that much anymore. Not since she’d hit the age where affection turned embarrassing. The fact that she did it now made my throat burn.
I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her for a beat. “I’ve got you,” I murmured, and I meant it.
Brooke led her away, glanced over her shoulder, and gave me half a smile.
Holt was watching me like he had something to say and didn’t know where to put it.
“What,” I asked.
He shook his head once. “Nothing. Just looks like you’re about to burn the world down.”
“I might,” I grumbled as I headed toward the house.
Holt grunted. “Fair.”
Forty-Three
Wyatt
Maddy sat in the passenger seat with her knees pulled up, earbuds looped around her fingers but not in her ears, staring out the windshield. Calgary was an hour out, the prairie stretching wide and pale under a sky that looked scrubbed clean, and I kept both hands on the wheel like I could hold the day steady if I gripped hard enough.
Two weeks.
That was all I’d had, and it hadn’t been enough. It never was. She’d filled my house up just by existing in it, by leaving her shoes all over the place and humming to herself while she fed the chickens, by laughing at Holt’s terrible jokes and then pretending she hadn’t. She’d ridden until her thighs ached and she’d smiled that fierce, hungry smile she got when she was doing something that made her feel capable. She’d made the place feel like a home again.
And now I was bringing her back to the city, back to her mother, back to the life that didn’t include me.
Maddy glanced over at me, eyes sharp and too old for her age, then looked away again. She’d been doing that all morning,like she was checking on me in little stolen moments and deciding whether to push.
She finally did.
“Dad,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, sweetheart.”
“You’re doing the jaw thing.”
