The next day he’d come to the house and told me it was over. I’d sat there as he’d told me it wasn’t going to work. My dad had stood in the doorway and watched. His face had been grim as usual. He’d never been shy in how he felt about Huck Manning. While I’d been heartbroken, my dad had consoled me by telling me I was better than a loser like Huck, that he’d never amount to anything, that he’d drag me down.

I hadn’t believed any of it, but Huck hadn’t changed his mind. I’d gone off to college and tried to heal my broken heart. Until I found out I was pregnant. Until a short while later I’d miscarried.

I’d heard Huck had moved to Helena to go to the police academy, but he’d never contacted me, so I never told him about the baby we’d made. The loss of him and the miscarriage had made that first year horrible. But I’d persevered. College was what I’d wanted. What my father had always planned for me. To amount to more, although by then all I’d wanted was the life Huck and I had begun to plan. That was never going to be.

When school ended for the year, I’d returned to The Bend for the summer. Huck had too. With a baby. With little Claire.

Since I was good with numbers, I’d done the math, figured he’d gone from taking my virginity in the back of his truck to another woman’s bed within a month. Proven we were truly finished.

It had taken years to get over him. The way I was reacting to this news, I wasn’t past him at all.

He’d returned to The Bend and worked as a deputy, raising Claire on his own. He had Alice, the awesome Manning housekeeper, and two brothers to help, but never once reached out to me. I’d had to hear all the gossip about it, the mystery of who the mother was. I’d had to listen to all the times my dad told me how much better off I was without him. How Claire had proved Huck Manning was a deadbeat, that he’d have ruined my life.

But now? Kale’s papers? Claire wasn’t Huck’s baby. Why had he lied? Why had he let me believe she was his, that he’d slept with another woman so soon after me? That I’d meant so little to him that he’d found another. That he’d gotten her pregnant.

I was so angry as I let out the cable on the winch. Graham grabbed the end and went to hook it beneath the front of Kale’s pickup.

I willed the tears away. I’d grieved not only the end of our relationship but the baby I’d thought we’d made in love. Had to see Claire Manning and know the child we’d created would have been exactly her age. That she could have been ours. Together.

I had to confront Huck. I had to know the truth. But first I was going to get even. How dare he lie to me about something like that! How dare he think so little of me. He’d turned his life around, proving to the entire town he was a stand-up guy. A leader in the community who gave back.