Not really.
I don’t know a single one of their phone numbers by heart. The realization hits harder than it should. I never had a life there. Not one that was mine.
Wow.
A moment later, Rose comes into the kitchen with Wyatt and a small stack of folded clothes in her arms. She smiles when she sees me, the kind of smile that’s an invitation rather than a formality.
“Thought you might like some real clothes,” she says, holding them out. “Before the boys start teasing you about stealing their hand-me-downs.”
In that moment, it hits me how little I have of my own. I’ve left everything behind, in a clean break. Just the wedding dress, the denim jacket, and the bits I had in my bag. Tragic. “Thank you.”
Rose shifts Wyatt, smoothing a tiny curl off his forehead.
“We never really talked much back then, did we?” she says.
I blink, a little startled by the bluntness, but grateful for it too. “No. We didn’t.”
“But it’s good to see you,” she says with a smile. “Even if you came in a little unconventionally.”
“Hmm, a crash in a snowstorm. Typical me.”
We’re both quiet for a beat, but it isn’t uncomfortable.
“You know,” she says at last, “if you need anything—clothes, quiet, someone to talk to—I’m right over at the guest house. Maybe I can help.”
I smile and nod. I might not know her that well, but this is the kindest anyone has been to me in years.
How tragic is that?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dallas
December 26th
The storm’sbeen throwing punches at us all day.
By late afternoon, it feels personal. The wind’s still shoving at the ranch as if it’s got a grudge, rattling gutters and whistling through every gap this old wood frame has collected over the years. The world past the barn is a solid blur of white. Somebody painted over Buckhorn in frost and forgot to leave a way back out.
My legs are half numb, my back aches, and there’s ice in my beard. We’ve been out in it since first light, and the snow just keeps coming.
Boone’s ahead of me on the east fence line, a dark, broad shape through the flurries. Nash is a blur of motion a few posts down, stomping snow off the bottom wire. Clay’s up at the corner, testing the brace post with a gloved shoulder, ready to fight it if it so much as creaks wrong.
Rusty weaves between us all, chest deep in powder.
“Gate’s still holding!” Nash yells, tugging on the chain.
The wind steals half the words, but the thumbs up translates just fine.
“Check the shelter again,” Boone calls back. “If that roof’s sagging, we move ’em to the north lot before dark.”
We slog toward the calf shelter in a line, heads down against the gusts. My eyelashes keep freezing together, and every other breath is glass going in, steam coming out. It’s the kind of weather that turns a ten-minute job into an hour.
A dark shape is already moving near the rough-hewn door of the shelter. My stomach drops, too many years of seeing things that shouldn’t be there in fields. Then the shape straightens, shoulders squaring, and lifts an arm.
Caleb.
He’s half crusted in snow, jacket dusted white, hat pulled low. He gets the door shoved open another foot with his shoulder, then braces it with his boot so it doesn’t slam back on the calves crowding inside.
