“Are you ready to talk yet?”

“I told you about my dad selling the horses. But I didn’t tell you about the other piece of it.”

“I’m all ears,” she said.

“My dad was my hero when I was a kid. I think your dad is always your hero.”

Jamie nodded. “Yeah. Definitely.”

“To me, he could do no wrong. He was like a larger-than-life figure. A real cowboy come to life. And I didn’t understand the conflict he and my mother had. I just knew they fought. I didn’t think... I didn’t know why. It wasn’t until I got a little bit older that I realized he cheated on her. A lot. They separated for a while, but then they got back together. They actually divorced at one point. But then they got back together. And she was never... She was never not with him. Not really. Their relationship is one for the ages, with a dose of toxic that I could never understand. She just... She loved him so much. No matter what he did, she could never leave. And so he really had the power to hurt her. And I...I’m the oldest. I started taking it on myself to protect her. Because if I didn’t, I didn’t know who would. My dad wasn’t doing it. So I had to. She was enraged at my dad when he sold those horses. Because she knew. She understood that sometimes logic and love don’t come into each other. She didn’t care what I did with my life, as long as I was happy. She felt like anything else coming from the two of them was hypocrisy. And that was right when she found out the thing that had betrayed her most deeply. That my father didn’t just cheat, but that there were children. That he had other children with other women and had covered it up. She wanted to hurt him, and I did, too. For her. For me. So I didn’t let him win. I didn’t let him have me. I didn’t let him have control over who I was going to be. That was why I joined the rodeo. And it’s why when McKenna came... It’s why it was so easy to embrace her. Accept her. Because I’d known about those other kids, and I had felt guilty about it for as long as I could remember. It wasn’t like it was their fault.”

Jamie didn’t know what to say. No one had ever really sat and spilled their guts to her before. And she wanted him to. She wanted more of it, more of him. She just didn’t quite know how to comfort anyone. There was no real right or wrong. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even a request for her to fix anything.

She swallowed. “My brother has a kid, you know. Bennett. He really didn’t know about him. Maybe your dad didn’t...”

“He didn’t,” Gabe said. “At least, that’s what he’s telling me. My mom said he did. And so either... Either none of it was true, and she was manipulating me... I don’t even know what else to think.”