John looked over at me, and something in his expression shifted—from the tight-jawed, sharp-eyed old man I'd met in that facility to something softer. Something that looked a lot like hope.
"I'd like that, Vinny."
We rode on. The sun moved slow across the sky, stretching our shadows long over the grass. Maribel's stride was easy beneath me, and I let my body move with it—hips rocking, spine loose, hands quiet on the reins. Muscle memory from a life I'd only lived for twelve years, coming back to me like a language my body hadn't entirely forgotten.
John was quiet for a long stretch, and when he spoke again, his voice was steadier.
"You gonna stay?"
The question settled over me like the afternoon light—warm and unavoidable.
I looked out over the land. Twenty-two hundred wild acres that had belonged to my family before they belonged to anyone else. The barn where I'd mucked stalls and found a friend in a woman I thought I'd hate. The paddock where my mother died and where I'd learned to sit a horse again at thirty-four years old. Somewhere beyond all that was a house in town with its windows slowly being unboarded and a flickering porch light and a pink cat bed that a ridiculous, beautiful man had bought because he couldn't help himself.
The road to Idaho was still out there. Wide open. Going somewhere that wasn't here.
I thought about it for exactly one second.
"Yeah, Granddad." I looked over at him, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, the words didn't feel like a concession.
They felt like a choice.
"I'm gonna stay."
EPILOGUE
THANKSGIVING, THREE MONTHS LATER
Dad usedto say Montana told you who it really was in November. Stripped of all the green and the wildflowers and the long golden evenings, it was just the bones of the place—the fence lines and the dirt and the mountains standin' there like they'd been waitin' for you to stop bein' distracted long enough to notice 'em.
I'd always loved that about Montana.
Mom had been cookin' since dawn. Not at her place—at Rhett's. When the guest list had grown past what her kitchen and table could handle, Rhett had offered the main house without bein' asked. Bigger kitchen, bigger table, bigger everything. Mom had protested for about thirty seconds before she'd loaded up her truck with enough food to feed a small army and set up camp in the Calloway kitchen like she owned the place.
Rhett didn't seem to mind. If anything, havin' Colleen Lancaster commandeerin' his kitchen gave the house a warmth it'd been missin' since his mama had stopped comin' home. Mr. Calloway was notably absent—Vegas, supposedly, though no one asked and no one cared. The house breathed easier without him in it.
The dining table was stretched to its limit with both leaves in, covered in that cream-colored tablecloth Mom only brought out for holidays. Candles. The good plates—the ones with the little wheat pattern around the edges that had belonged to my grandmother. Enough food to bankrupt a man if he stopped to think about the grocery bill, which Mom would never let him do because she'd swat his hand and tell him to sit down and be grateful.
So I sat down and was grateful.
Rhett took one head of the table because it was his house. Mom took the other because she cooked this damn fine meal and deserved it. Elena and Chase were to Rhett's left, their baby girl asleep in a portable bassinet tucked behind Elena's chair—one of those fancy ones with the mesh sides that probably cost more than my first truck. John and Hank anchored the far end, John lookin' better than I'd seen him in months. Regular trips out to the ranch had done somethin' for the old man that the facility never could—fresh air, purpose, a granddaughter who showed up every Sunday to take him ridin'. His color was good. His eyes were sharp. He was givin' Hank shit about his cloudy eye, which was as reliable a sign of health as any doctor could hope for.
Luke sat across from me, quiet as usual, workin' through his plate with methodical focus, avoidin' eye contact like he was afraid I'd start askin' questions.
Calvin was on my right, her knee pressed against mine under the table in the way that had become so natural I barely noticed it anymore. Barely. Still noticed it enough for my dick to have an opinion, which was not appropriate at Thanksgiving dinner with my mother sittin' three feet away.
Somewhere between the turkey and the sweet potatoes, Hank leaned forward and fixed me with that cloudy eye.
"Lancaster."
"Sir."
"Why you still payin' rent on that apartment above my bar?"
Good fuckin' question, Hank.
The truth was, I hadn't slept there in months. My clothes were at the house. My toothbrush was at the house. I had a designated side of the bed. So did Calvin. And Cat slept wherever the fuck she pleased—which was anywhere and everywhere except the damn bed I'd bought her.
But Calvin and I'd never actually talked about movin' in together.
