“So what are you saying?” Hank asked. “What does that have to do with us?”

Typical of his father, that he immediately wanted to know how it all boiled down to him. “I’m choosing to stay here. And to use your property to run this ranch with these boys. I’m choosing it to try and rectify some of the mistakes of the past. I’m choosing not to be angry at you both.”

He turned his focus to his father. “Dad, I thought I was scared I’d be like you, but that’s not it. I was afraid I was going to grow up and be like Mom. And stay, and stay. Let someone hurt me. But I won’t. I’m not going to let fear dictate who I am. And most of all, Dad, you were right. You have changed. You’ve changed, and Mom forgave you. I’m going to choose to do the same. I’ve got to set aside those things you did back then. Because otherwise...none of us gets to move forward. But I think you have to do the same for Mom. Otherwise, there isn’t a point. You can’t hang on to someone that you’re that angry at. It gets in the way of everything else. It gets in the way of being family.” Gabe shook his head. “We’re not a perfect family. But I think sometimes we’re more good than bad. I want to make my life more good than bad.”

Gabe stood up. “I have somewhere to be.”

“Where you going?” his mother asked.

“To get my life.”

Gabe Dalton had spent more than fifteen years believing that the restlessness inside of him could never be fixed. But now he knew.

He’d been searching for peace. For a reason to stay home. To make a home.

He’d found it.

In Jamie Dodge.

And he wouldn’t rest until he had her back.

* * *

JAMIE WAS HOT, sticky and feral by the time she got back to the barn after what had been an arduous trail ride. Not because the ride itself should have been arduous. It was for inexperienced guests, after all. But it was the dumb-ass rider she’d had on the trip that had made it a pain in the ass. There had been a bachelor party, which was unusual. It was much more common for groups of women to come to the ranch than groups of men.

But she had herself a pack of frat burros, who hadn’t listened to anything she’d said, had been intent on using bad language in front of the family on the ride, and who had gone off course and forced Jamie to go after them, and get into a screaming match with drunk douchebro best man.

She was sick of everything, and the next person who got in her face was going to end up savaged by her teeth.

Plus, everything just kind of pissed her off right now.

A side effect of heartbreak, she was realizing.

Heartbreak she was no longer able to hide. She’d been the recipient of pitying glances, threats to Gabe’s body and three pies in the past forty-eight hours. She had to admit, the threats and the pies were nice.