Page 160 of Sunrise & Serenity

“Maybe you were. But my brother?” She smiles, though it fades too soon. “I thought it was proof that he’d finally stick around. That you both would.”

For a moment, I can’t quite bring myself to look at her, so I focus on adjusting my reins.

“I’m pretty sure he’s miserable, by the way,” she says.

I exhale through my nose. “Taryn⁠—”

“I’m just saying. He sounded awful the last time I talked to him.”

The pain in my chest sharpens. “He left.”

Hurt flashes across her face as she looks back toward the trail ahead. “I know.”

I regret my response immediately. She’s hurting too. The whole family is.

Silence stretches between us for a while after that. The only sounds are hoofbeats and cattle shifting through pasture grass.

Part of me is still angry at Holden for leaving. The other part misses him so badly it’s a physical ache. Which is ridiculous considering he made his choice perfectly clear.

“You know he hasn’t always been like this, right?” she says quietly.

I glance sideways. “Like what?”

“Leaving.”

The word lands heavily between us.

She shifts in her saddle. “Before Mom died, he was always laughing. Always having fun, you know?”

I nod. I’ve seen the photographic evidence.

“But after the accident, he moved out to his cabin and started focusing more and more on bull riding. After he graduated, he began entering more events and staying away between them. Then he just… stopped coming back.”

My heart twists. How much pain must he have been in to make leaving easier than staying? She stares ahead as she keeps talking.

“It was hard. Dad was in a bad way but trying to hold it together.” She exhales deeply. “Sterling stepped up and did the best he could to help Dad manage the ranch and the rest of us. And we didn’t make it easy on either of them. I was too young to do more than cry a lot. Chance and River and Quinn acted out, got into trouble. Nothing really bad; just lashing out, I guess. But Holden, he just… checked out.”

It’s like a vice is squeezing my lungs. I knew how hard their mother’s death was for him. But the rest is new to me, and the details make the situation hit even harder.

Taryn hesitates, her fingers tightening around the reins. “He got detention that day—for fighting with Gage Ashland.”

I steel myself for what’s coming.

She lets out a breath. “Mom went to pick him up. It was an accident, just bad timing. But…”

Oh god.

For a second, I forget how to breathe.

“It was just before his seventeenth birthday,” she murmurs. “After that…” Her throat works, her swallow audible. “I think he decided that if he hadn’t screwed up, she’d still be alive.”

Tears sting my eyes. Now all those years of distance make a terrible kind of sense. I let out a shaky breath. “I wish he’d told me.”

“Maybe there’s a reason he didn’t.”

Surely, he wouldn’t have thought I’d blame him. Or maybe opening up so completely to someone he expected to walk away afterward was too hard? Either way, I feel scraped hollow all over again.

Taryn scans the horizon. “Doesn’t mean leaving was the right thing, though. I don’t think he understands how much it hurts us when he does it.”