I remember the sound of the screen door slamming if you didn’t catch it just right. The smell of coffee and bacon creeping up the stairs before the sun even showed up. Mom’s old hallway clock that never chimed on time—always a minute behind, but we all knew to go by it anyway.
Me and my siblings—hell, we slept outside more than we did in our beds most summers. Rolled our bedrolls out in the back pasture and claimed we were “watching the herd,” even though we weren’t doing a damn thing but lying under the stars. Sky was so big out here, it made everything else feel small. We’d stay up till our eyes quit on us, listening to the cattle shift in the dark, coyotes calling somewhere in the distance, the wind moving low across the hills.
And Dad…he was everywhere and nowhere at once.
He taught me how to work cattle. How to rope. How to pull a calf when time was running out. How to make a clean cut when a steer needed doctoring. He was the one shaking me awake before the sky even turnedgray, telling me if I wanted to be a man, I had to earn it.
But he wasn’t the kind of man who gave out praise. He didn’t pat you on the back or say he was proud. He expected you to get it right the first time. Expected a lot. And if you couldn’t keep up, you sure as hell heard about it.
I let out a breath, rub the back of my neck. This house, this land, this life—it built me, from the ground up.
I step out of the truck and barely get both boots on solid ground before I hear her.
“Boone Jameson Wilding, if you’re tracking mud on my porch, I swear to God—”
I turn toward the garden, already smirking.
Molly Wilding is a one-woman army. The kind of woman who could calm a colicky baby with one arm while roping a runaway yearling with the other. She didn’t just run this ranch—she kept it upright when it should’ve fallen. I’ve got more memories than I can count of her with Ridge or Sage strapped to her back in a carrier while she stacked hay or hauled fence posts or rode out to check on a sick cow without blinking.
I’ve seen her break colts with nothing but grit and patience. Then come inside, wash the dirt off her hands, and balance the books like the whole ranch depended on it.
She’s standing in the garden now, hands on her hips, staring me down.
The garden’s her thing. Always has been. Runs along the whole side of the house, fenced in with timber Dad built back in the day. She grows damn near everything—beans, squash, tomatoes the size of softballs, carrots that always come out crooked but taste better than anything you’ll buy at a store. There’s a grapevine twisting up the trellis like it knows where it’s going. And just beneath it, a patch of wildflowers that Mom refuses to pull. They’re scrappy and mismatched—purple thistle, yellow daisies, the occasional pop of crimson. She says they remind her that not everything has to be neat to be beautiful. That some things earn their place by showing up, season after season, without anyone asking them to.
She’s in a pair of old overalls, white shirt underneath, Carhartt jacket slung over her shoulders. One knee’s got a streak of dirt across it. Her redhair’s tied in a knot at the top of her head, loose strands falling in her face. The same red hair she passed on to my sister, Wren.
Her face is all freckles and fire—fierce brown eyes that miss nothing and a mouth that always has the last word.
“You gonna stand there gawking, or you planning on being useful?” she says, one brow lifted.
“Depends,” I say, crossing my arms. “What kind of hard labor are we talking about?”
She peels off a pair of gloves and tosses them at me. “Harder than standing there lookin’ pretty, I’ll tell you that much.”
I shake my head, laughing under my breath as I pull the gloves on. Saying no to Molly Wilding? Not an option. Never has been.
I drop to one knee beside her, stretching my fingers out in the gloves, already feeling the dirt push in through the seams.
“Alright,” I mutter. “Let’s hear it. What am I getting roped into this time?”
Mom lets out a long sigh, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Damn aphids,” she mutters, motioning to a row of kale. “Little bastards are all over my greens. I’ve been trying neem oil, but it’s not cutting it. If I don’t get them under control, they’ll take out half the bed before I know it.”
I smirk, grabbing a handful of the leaves, flipping them over to check for the tiny pests. “Aphids, huh? Never thought I’d be back here playing exterminator.”
She huffs out a laugh, brushing dirt from her knees. “Never thought you’d be back here, period.”
I glance over at her, but she’s just watching the plants, assessing the damage, her hands moving with the ease that comes from decades of working the earth.
I don’t say anything, just start picking off the worst of the it.
After a beat, she flicks her eyes toward me. “Where you been?”
I shrug, keeping my hands busy. “Stopped by the Bluebell.”
Mom raises an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth twitching like shealready knows exactly how that went. “And?”
I let out an exasperated sigh, flicking a bug off one of the leaves.
