“And the two of you connected over riding horses.”

Jamie nodded. “Yes.”

“Well, Hank and I didn’t. He wanted me to pay better attention in school. He wanted me to get into a good college. He wanted me to have everything that he didn’t have. And when it was clear to him that I wasn’t going to fall in line, he took matters into his own hands.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He sold the horses. All of them. I loved the horses, and I wanted to make them my career. More than that, they were the way I dealt with the shit going on in our family home. I wanted to make that life my life. And since nothing he could say would get me to do it, he took them from me.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE WAY GABE spoke the words was almost mechanical. There was no emotion behind it, but Jamie felt something move through her, creating a rift inside her chest. The very idea of having a horse sold out from under you like that. She had loved the horse she had in high school. She’d been such a beauty. And she and her dad had spent hours riding together. When they couldn’t connect any other way, that was it.

And... And Gabe’s had...

“Wow,” she said. “I mean, you know, Quinn didn’t want Wyatt getting saddled with the ranch if it wasn’t going to be profitable. We struggled when I was growing up. But it was complicated. A lot of it was linked to my dad’s grief. To the fact that he was trying to balance being a rancher with raising four children. The fact that he ended up with me, all by himself, from the time I was three days old. But he would never have done that. Never.”

“Hank is a hell of a character,” Gabe said. “And yeah, it’s complicated. But I had to let that go. I couldn’t have back what he took from me. But I also didn’t have to give him what he wanted.”

“So you went into the rodeo to piss him off.”

“Yep. I think...you know, I worried so much about being like him. I think he worried about it, too. In some ways I think I did just what he did to make him see how that looked. And then Jacob and Caleb followed me right on when they were eighteen. I don’t think they did it to make him mad. I think they did it because they were following their big brother. And that’s... Yeah, that pissed him off, too.”

“What does pissed off look like with your dad?”

“Oh, stony silence. For about two hours of a family barbecue. After which he’s drunk and forgets he’s supposed to be ignoring you, so he starts grumbling. He didn’t buy me a Christmas present for about three years, but that was pretty hollow since my mom bought me two and I didn’t care.”

“He obviously didn’t stay mad.”