The sun made her hair look like threads of gold, and the way it caught the breeze… she was perfect here. She’d been on the ranch before, so long ago now. I’d wanted her here. Saw her being on the ranch permanently.

I headed in her direction again and dropped down beside her on the warmed rock. Our sides touched. She wasn’t crying, but the evidence of it was there. Flushed cheeks, red eyes. A bleakness about her that said she carried something heavy. I wanted to take it from her. All her problems. I was fucking strong enough to do it.

“Baby girl, what’s the matter?”

She tilted her head, rested it against my shoulder. “Claire’s perfect.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “I think so.”

“You better put a collar on one of those puppies soon, otherwise she’s going to want to keep them all. Even the black one.”

“You mean Sandy, Sandra, Sandrine, Sandor, and—”

“Sandor?” She looked up, a pale brow arched.

“Colonel Sanders?” I added, hoping to make her smile.

“She’s so smart, Huck. I bet she’s going to figure out how to tuck that dog into her backpack and take her to kindergarten.”

I tipped her chin up with my finger. “I took a frog. Thatcher somehow took the feral barn cat.”

“It runs in the family then.” Her smile slipped, and her gaze shifted away.

“Look at me,” I murmured. It took a few seconds, but she glanced back. “What’s the matter?”

“I… I have something to tell you.” She pulled at my hold, and I dropped my hand.

I braced myself, unsure of what she was going to say. Whatever it was—and it seemed bad if it made her cry—we’d deal with it together. I waited, recognizing I needed to be patient.

“You were it for me.”

My stomach dropped. “Baby girl, I am it for you.”

“When you left, I was destroyed. At first I thought you were just chicken.”

I frowned and it actually made her smile.

“I thought you were pushing me away because you couldn’t handle it. In the back of your pickup, we’d just—”

“I took your cherry. As I did so, I said you were mine.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“You didn’t believe me?” I reached up, stroked her hair back.

“In the moment I did. It was perfect, Huck. But after, I thought… I don’t know what I thought. The next summer when I came home, you had Claire.”

“We talked this through already,” I said. It had been hard enough in her kitchen. Doing it again now was like messing with a wound and keeping it from healing.

“Remember I said I thought you left me and slept with someone else right after?”

“It wasn’t true,” I reminded.

“I thought you got someone pregnant.”

“I didn’t.”

“You had a baby.” She glanced away. “Without me.”

I stilled.

“Sarah,” I murmured, kissing the top of her head. “You want to make a baby? We’ll have as many as you want.”