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“Of course. You should help take care of her, since she took such good care of you,” I tell her, and she skips happily after the ranch hands. “How did she do?” I ask Cane when she’s out of earshot.

“She did amazing. Seriously, Scar. A million times easier to teach than you ever were. She actually listens and does as she’s asked,” Cane replies with a smirk.

I narrow my eyes. “I feel like you’ve been waiting for me to bring her here so you could pull that out.”

“Pretty much since the second I found out you were pregnant, yeah.”

“Scar was the worst student as a kid. She questioned everything and wouldn’t do anything if she didn’t agree with the way she was told to do it,” Piper tells Fallon.

Fallon looks shocked. “Seriously? You give off straight-A vibes to me.”

“Oh, I got straight As. I just pissed everyone off in the process by doing it my own way.” By the time I graduated high school, all of my teachers were convinced I was going to go off to college and do big things. My chem teacher cried when she found out I dropped out to have a baby.

“I assume, based on the accent, that this is another relative of you-know-who?” Cane asks, nodding his head toward Fallon. Between the hat, the boots, the mustache, and the shaggy blond hair cut in some semblance of a mullet, I can’t blame her for looking at him and immediately thinking “cowboy”.

“This is Killian’s sister,” I explain.

Fallon holds her hand out and runs her gaze up and down Cane. “Fallon Michaelson, at your service.” Jesus. Subtlety really isn’t in her wheelhouse, and I kind of love her for it.

Cane looks momentarily stunned before taking off his hat and shaking her hand. “Cane Lowry. It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” I almost choke on my laugh.

“Should we give you two some privacy? Damn,” Piper says, looking at Cane like he’s grown another head. Understandably so—we’ve known him our whole lives, and he’s never once sounded so polite.

Neither of them gets the chance to answer before someone slides the arena door open and leads in a tacked-up horse I recognize as Cane’s own pride and joy, Druzy. She was born here, and he hand-reared her after her mom rejected her. That was almost twenty years ago, and I don’t think Cane has ever loved anything like he loves that horse.

“Thanks, Kaleb,” he calls as the ranch hands closes the door behind her. “Hey, baby girl. You going to come say hi?”

Druzy trots over to us (or rather, to Cane, who I’m pretty sure she could find in a crowd of a thousand people in three seconds flat). He kisses her nose and I feel Fallon recoil beside me. I open my mouth to warn her that Druzy is a very friendly horse, but don’t get the chance before she turns toward us and swings her head over the windowsill, right at Fallon.

She jumps back with something that sounds like a mixture of a scream and a groan. But all it does, apparently, is make Druzy more interested in her. Druzy whinnies, showing her teeth to Fallon in the “smile” Cane taught her and that all of the little kids love. Fallon … not so much.

Her face twists in disgust. “Ugh. Gross.”

“What the hell did you just say?” Cane growls, pulling Druzy away from the window and glaring at Fallon.

In two words, any chance Fallon had of seducing Cane goes up in flames. But based on the revulsion on Fallon’s face as she looks at Cane, I’m guessing she’s no longer interested.

Thank god, Caitlin chooses that moment to burst into the viewing room. “Mama, I got to give Banshee a peppermint!”

I focus on her, instead of the standoff happening between Fallon and Cane. “I bet she loved that. Did she tickle your hand?”

“Mhmm. But I liked it. Thank you for bringing me.” She wraps her arms around me, and I melt into her hug. Even if I’d had to somehow work twenty more hours a week to pay for these lessons, it would have been worth it.

“You’re welcome. I’m so happy you had fun.”

She grins up at me. “Can James and Killian come next time? I have even more fun when we’re all together.”

Every now and then, there’s a moment that grounds me as a parent—a moment when all of the hard shit fades into nothing, and I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have the life I have, with the kids I have. A moment when I wouldn’t change a single thing.

This is one of those moments, looking down at my daughter and feeling nothing but love and happiness.

But I would change one thing this time: I wish James and Killian were here, too.

31

Scarlett

Killian holds my hand on the gear shift on the drive home from Otter Peak. The kids are too keyed up from a day of sugar, skating, and snow to notice, but even if they did, I don’t think they’d think anything of it.