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As if I didn’t already know.

Winning over the locals is going to be every bit as hard as I thought it would be. I could make this easy on myself, settle down somewhere new. Start over in a place where no one knows who I am.

There’s just one problem. I don’t want to go somewhere new.

I want to come home.

“Will you be at dinner tonight?” I ask as Hattie hands a twenty to the cashier.

Before she can answer, a woman in too tight jeans and an equally tight, low cut shirt walks up to me. “Oh my word. You’re Noble Kane.”

Hattie looks at her, then at me, and while she doesn’t roll her eyes, I can see that she wants to.

“Uh, yeah, I am,” I say, trying to be polite and trying even harder to place her. This woman smiles a certain kind of smile, one I know all too well.

“I knew it. I looked over and saw you, and I just knew it,” she gushes. “I’ve seen you ride, you know.”

“Oh, yeah?” I try to subtly hint that I’m not in the conversing mood.

“You probably remember me from school—” She extends a hand. “Elise Cline?”

No. Way.

Hattie glances back over her shoulder, shooting me a look that feels like a challenge, as Elise moves in closer, wedging herself between us.

The cashier gives Hattie her change, and she doesn’t even look back before walking out the door, leaving me standing there with a bottle of wine I still have to pay for and a woman I can’t wait to get away from.

“Maybe we could get a drink while you’re in town?” Elise says.

“I’m pretty busy,” I say.

She reaches up and touches my arm. “Oh, come on. I’m sure you’ve got time for an old friend.”

I pull a fifty from my pocket and toss it down on the counter, then look at Elise. “We’re not friends.” I nod at the kid and say, “Keep the change,” then walk outside just in time to see an old baby blue Ford Bronco pull out of a parking space and drive away.

The drive out to Copper Ridge is like muscle memory. Amazing what still sticks after thirteen years.

The old guys at Seb’s, the ones who said I wasn’t someone to look up to . . . they were right. I’ve been back in town all of thirty minutes, and so far I’ve learned that people have got long memories, a certain kind of woman exists here too, and Hattie’s ticked.

Part of me hoped the people in this town had forgotten all about me and my past screw-ups, but even I knew that was wishful thinking.

It’s not like I’ve done anything to make it right. Not yet anyway.

When I left, I had no intention of ever coming back. I was spiraling, and worse, I knew I was letting down Hattie’s parents, Briggs and Melinda, two people who welcomed me into their family. People who believed there was more to me than the trouble I always found myself in.

Briggs Holbrook. Like the father I never had but always wished for.

He was full of “you can do anything you set your mind to,” and “hard work will take you far, but it’s your character that matters most” nonsense.

Doesn’t seem like nonsense now.

He’d first said those things to me when I was fifteen and he caught me stealing a candy bar at Seb’s. Asked me if I needed money for the chocolate in my pocket, and when I told him I didn’t, he leaned over and said, “Then take it out of your pocket and pay for it.”

Briggs didn’t come down on me like I was an idiot. He didn’t talk to me like a kid, and he didn’t treat me like a screw-up.

He steered me, and though he was firm and had very clear boundaries when it came to integrity, he also showed me grace.

Before I met him, I didn’t even know what that was.