I felt it before I saw him.
Cal Northport was not like club men.
He was something older.
A real cowboy in the way tourists never understood. Not shiny boots and belt buckles. Not rodeo posters or denim commercials. Cal was weather, land, horse sense, and silence. He had a way of looking at people like he could tell whether they’d last one winter under an open sky.
He loved his family.
He tolerated the club.
He hated mess.
He had hated Mandy.
Not loudly. Cal didn’t waste energy on loud when a look could do the work. But I knew. Everyone knew. Mandy had been chaos, and Cal had no patience for chaos that hurt the people he claimed.
Which meant I was really looking forward to rolling onto his land bruised, drugged, and freshly responsible for an exploding rich-kid bonfire apocalypse.
“Great,” I muttered.
Dylan looked down. “What?”
“Cal’s going to murder me with disappointment.”
“Does that hurt worse than being shot?”
“Yes.”
“Good to know.”
We crossed the fence line as the sun broke.
For a moment, the world turned gold.
The ranch opened beyond the wash, wide and quiet, tucked between desert and mountain like it had been hidden there on purpose. Barn roofs caught the first light. Cottonwoods moved silver-green near a dry creek bed. Horses lifted their heads in the distance, watching us arrive like they already knew everything and planned to judge me later.
Cal stood by the north gate.
No hat drama.
No gun out.
Just boots planted, hands at his sides, eyes hard enough to make the morning reconsider itself.
Skye stood behind him with a blanket over one arm and worry all over her face. JD must have gotten word to her. Of course he had. Skye looked like she had been crying too, but when she saw me, she smiled like I was not the worst thing to happen to everyone’s sleep schedule.
That almost broke me.
Cal’s gaze moved over Regan first.
Then Nate.
Then Dylan.
Then me, cradled against a San Diego Royal Bastard with an IV tube in my arm and desert still tangled in my hair.
His mouth tightened.
