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Apiece that had been knocked loose inside Michael Hammond found the right place to be as the familiar pine trees lining the road went by. “I’ve missed Ivory Peaks,” he said.
“Mm.” His father drove, and Mike’s memories ran at him fast and hard. He’d come to work this farm every summer since the age of twelve. He’d met a pretty girl here—Gerty—and he’d kissed her. His first kiss. Hers too.
They’d been real friendly for years, but the past two times he’d come back to the family farm, she hadn’t been here. The first time, he’d tried to find out where she’d gone. Her father, who still worked for Uncle Gray, had said she was down in Texas, doing farrier school.
Gerty would always work with horses, Mike knew that. For some reason, he’d expected her to stay right here in Colorado, on his uncle’s farm, and wait for him to get out of the military.
She hadn’t, unless she was waiting at the familiar farmhouse around the bend in the road Mike knew by heart. His pulse jumped, but he told himself she wouldn’t be there. Why would she be there? He hadn’t spoken to her in thirteen and a half years, after that last summer after his senior year, when he’d gone to college and then enrolled in the Marines.
He’d become a helicopter pilot, just like he’d told his father he wanted to become. Now, at age thirty-one, he had to have his daddy drive him home after his honorable discharge from the military.
“Looks like they’ve got everyone in off the farm,” Dad said as the big red barn where Molly, Mike’s cousin-in-law, ran her children’s equine therapy program. Stables and more barns, horse rings, paddocks, and pastures ran to the west, and across the wide pasture sat the farmhouse, as well as the generational house where Mike’s grandfather had once lived.
He’d come back to the farm for his grandfather’s last few days on earth, and then the funeral. Forty hours later, he’d been back in the Middle East, with completely different people and a completely different climate.
Oh, how he missed Colorado.
Dad rolled down his window, and the cheers and whistles of the cowboys and cowgirls gathered along the fence came in through the window. Mike’s face heated, and he wanted to turn away.
“I don’t need this,” he murmured.
“They miss you,” Dad said. “Be nice.”
“I am nice, Dad.” Mike used to swallow his tongue when his dad told him to be nice. Now, he didn’t have to. He wasn’t fifteen, or even twenty-five. He was a grown man, and just because he had a hurt shoulder right now didn’t mean he needed to be lectured by his daddy about how to be nice. “I just don’t know any of them that well.”
“You know Matt,” Dad said, his voice aged and gravelly. Mike hadn’t gotten married yet, but his younger brother Easton had. Mike had come home for that too, and he’d been back in Coral Canyon for about four months, recovering. But now that summer had arrived, Dad had brought him to the farm.
Always the farm.
“Oh, there’s Elise,” his mom said from the back seat.
Mike saw his Aunt Elise, and she’d aged gracefully. She was far younger than Dad or Uncle Gray, and she still wore pretty sundresses that made her seem more youthful than she was. None of Uncle Gray’s younger kids had gotten married, though Jane had been engaged for about eight months last year.
He caught sight of Hunter, and a dose of extreme guilt punched Mike in the gut. “Dad,” he said, but he couldn’t get his voice to say anything else. He knew he’d disappointed his father by joining the military instead of coming back to the greater Denver area to take over the family company.
Hunter had been running it for close to seventeen years now, and he and Molly had four children. Mike had looked up to Hunter for his entire life. He couldn’t see himself anywhere near Hunter’s stature in only thirteen more years, which was how many years older Hunt was than Mike.
He wouldn’t be married with four kids in even fifteen years. He wouldn’t be running the huge family company, with a beautiful wife running her own business. He wouldn’t own this farm, live in this beautiful farmhouse, or have any of the serenity or happiness Hunt had.
In truth, Mike was absolutely miserable.
That’s not the right word, he thought as Dad brought the truck to a stop. He rolled up the window, and Mike waited patiently for his mother to come help him unbuckle his seatbelt. He hated this part, and he locked his jaw while Momma opened the door.
Their eyes met, and Mike did his best to put a smile on his face. “Thanks, Momma.”
“I know you hate this,” she said, reaching across his lap to undo the belt. “But I have a really good feeling about this summer.” She gave him a smile. “Easton and Allison will be here in a couple of weeks, and Opal has a week or two off from her residency, and she just told me she’d come to the farm.”
She smiled at Mike like this was just fabulous news, and Mike supposed it was. He really just wanted to be shown to his cabin; he wanted to close the door behind him; he wanted to be alone.
As the cowboys who’d cheered for him crowded around the truck, Mike didn’t think he’d be alone for at least a few hours. Aunt Elise had likely been cooking for hours—days, even—and Mike stayed in his seat as his mother stepped back.
Lord, he thought, but he couldn’t finish the prayer. He didn’t know what to say anyway, and he realized that he wasn’t miserable.
He was lost.
“Come on, son,” Daddy said, and Mike slid out of the truck and landed on his feet. He could walk just fine. His right shoulder just didn’t work anymore, and no amount of therapy, painkillers, surgery, or prayer had healed him.
