I looked out the window. The Bitterroots were dark against the sky, same as they always were. Same as they'd been before I got here. Same as they'd be after.
Except I wasn't thinking about after anymore.
"I think I'd like to bring my granddad out here. To the ranch, for sure, but maybe to your mom's, too."
His hand tightened on mine.
"Yeah," he said. "I think that'd be real nice."
I leaned my head against the window and watched the road unspool ahead of us in the headlights.
Real nice.
There it was again.
CHAPTERFORTY
Two weeks had goneby in a blink. With all the working I was doin' on the ranch and all the fucking I was doin' in Brody's bed, I'd never slept better.
One more afternoon of work, and then it was a night out at The BP to celebrate Slim's birthday followed by a couple blissful days of working on Brody's house and cozying up with Cat.
I was toppin' off water troughs along the near paddock when a white dually rounded the last bend in the drive onto Wild Acre Ranch, kicking up a lazy trail of dust that hung in the hot afternoon air. It pulled to a stop in front of the main house. I cut the water, wiped my hands on my jeans, and squinted against the sun.
A door opened, and the driver stepped out.
My vision tunneled.
I knew the shape of him before I saw his face. The narrow shoulders. The way he moved, unhurried and a little bowlegged from decades on the circuit, like his body had memorized the shape of a saddle and never quite let go of it.
Denny Jennings.
My daddy.
The air left my lungs like someone had reached through my ribs and squeezed.
He hadn't changed a bit in sixteen years. Same wiry frame, same sun-scorched skin, same beat-to-shit Resistol he'd worn since before I was born. He looked older, sure—harder around the eyes, thinner in the face. But it was him. Unmistakably, undeniably him, standing in front of the house that used to be my grandfather's like he had every right to be there.
He didn't.
He had no business being on this ranch.
Why is he on this ranch?
No way in hell him being here was a coincidence, but not once insixteenyears had he tracked me down.
Why now?
My brow scrunched as the last few seconds rocked my fucking world—and not in a good way.
Daddy reached back into the truck for something—probably a pack of cigarettes—and turned toward the house.
Then the passenger door opened and the world tilted beneath my feet.
If there was any oxygen left in the big Montana sky, not a lick of it was makin' its way into my lungs.
Wyatt Cole unfolded himself from the cab, easy smile already in place. Broad shoulders. Dark hair curling out from under his hat. He moved the way he always had—loose and confident, like the whole world was a bar he'd just strolled into and already decided he owned.
Thirty-seven years old and still riding bulls—though Meagher County wasn't exactly where the big names rode. He was smiling like he hadn't broken a single thing that mattered, still handsome in the way fifteen-year-old Calvin had drooled over, but thirty-four-year-old Calvin knew was just pretty packaging for something utterly foul underneath.
