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Meryl slowly puckered her lips and raised one brow. “I sure did. You’ve seen that name before, have you?”
I nodded.
“And not, I reckon, on a headstone down at the cemetery?”
“It was…” My voice cracked. “I-I saw it in a m-magazine. On a poem—a couple of poems—that I already knew from… somewhere else. I didn’t know who it was, but I thought…”
“Figured it out yet?”
Shivers raced through my body. “ItwasDusty!” Austen was the fake, presenting himself as the hero. The real man, the one with the heart of a poet and the soul of a lover, was the one who won my love without ever asking for it.
Meryl was nodding. “He may be quiet, but if you sit and listen for a minute, he’ll tell you more with a look than most men will with a hundred words.”
Butterflies prickled my stomach. It had been Dusty all along, and he loved me. I didn’t deserve it, but he cared in spite of the ways I’d ignored him. “Dusty! I thought it was him, but I couldn’t get it all to add up. It made me wonder if any of it was actually real. He really wrote that, didn’t he? Those beautiful poems—all of it?”
Meryl winked. “Bet your boots. And he wasn’t writing it for his horse.”
Chapter 25
Dusty
Duskwasalreadysettlingover the ranch when Cody pulled in at the gate. I’ve always loved watching the sun flame out on these winter evenings, with the sky an icy bronze and something surreal about how the shadows played over the frozen grasslands. It was a harsh kind of beauty, a stark sort of glory that I doubted many could appreciate.
But I was ready for spring. Changes happen fast around the ranch, and when February sighs its last, March tends to explode on the scene. Warmer weather never just happens. It always rolls in with fits and rumblings, soothing us with the promise of sunshine one minute, then threatening to send us back to the unforgiving days of winter the next. I peered through the windshield at the dark clouds fading to blackness over the mountains. It was already happening.
“Storm rolling in tonight,” Cody said.
We didn’t have to say any more. These late winter, early spring storms usually meant cows would start calving to beat the weather. All at once. As soon as that barometer dropped, it was like some unseen hand had laid them all out.
And now appeared to be no exception. No one was lurking around the barn yard, and the house lights were dark. “I gotta find Luke,” I muttered, reaching for my hat. “Do you need any help getting the horses settled?”
Cody shut off the truck. “Emily and I can do it. You go ahead.”
I stopped off at the house first. It wouldn’t do me any good to race out through the cow pastures without bundling up. I’d just slow everyone down as I gradually turned into a cowboy popsicle. I went to my room and threw on a pair of long johns, my heaviest flannel, a warm neck cloth, and my thicker felt hat. I was just rushing out when I remembered my phone.
That would speed things up. I’d call Luke and find out which pastures they had checked. I pushed the on button and stuffed it in my pocket while it started up, and went to the hook for my heavy coat and gloves. Within seconds, the phone started chiming and buzzing with notifications.
I’d figured that. Austen was probably tearing his hair out because I hadn’t answered him, and who knows how many others had tried to reach me. Luke was probably one of them, sending me horse ads and forgetting I didn’t have my phone to look at them. I bundled up into my coat, then reached for the phone again to call him.
There were about fifty texts, from a few different numbers. I scrolled past most of them. Yep, there were several from Austen, and what I could see of them from the preview on the lock screen didn’t sound very happy. I swiped the screen up and ignored them. I’d call Luke first.
When I got to my call screen, it showed a voicemail. Only one, which surprised me. I’d figured people would be leaving all kinds of messages when I didn’t answer my texts, but there was just this one. It was probably Austen. I touched over to that screen to just delete it, but when it showed me the transcription of the message, my heart stopped. It was from Jess.
I pulled it up and listened as her voice filled my ears. Was she… was she crying? She sounded broken.
She was sorry. And she was too late. What did she mean by that? She missed seeing me… And she was sorry.
I wasn’t breathing anymore. I had heard enough. She knew she had hurt me, let me down. Somehow, she’d figured out that she was the light in my skies, and she was sorry. Jess would never hurt anyone on purpose, but she’d had to make her choice.
And she was sorry.
Sorry didn’t cover a lifetime of disappointment. Sorry didn’t piece my heart back together, didn’t build the kind of future I’d always hoped and dreamed.
But in the end, it wasn’t her fault. I was the one to blame for never finding the courage to reach for that future until it was too late.
My ears ringing, my thumb trembled over the delete button. It was the only recording of her voice I would ever have, but if I kept it, listened to it whenever I ached for her, it would drive me into madness. Better to rip off the bandage all at once, right? I made myself push the delete button.
Then I called Luke, still reeling and numb, but there was stuff to do. I still had a family and a ranch to live for. “Where are you?” I asked when he picked up.
