“What am I supposed to do?” I felt split open. Raw. Panicked. I didn’t talk about feelings. I was the easygoing brother. It was safer being happy-go-lucky. The brother that didn’t have the weight of the world on his shoulders. But I did.

I felt it now. I wanted to go to Astrid and make her hurt go away. To fill in the void that her family had made.

“Just pass on going to Mexico and take her on a date.”

“It’s that simple?” Was it really that simple? Was it easy like Claire said?

“What does your heart tell you?” she asked.

I looked to Alice, who gave a little nod.

Huck stayed quiet, which was probably smart.

My heart was telling me Astrid deserved someone to love her unconditionally. Who didn’t care what her size was. If she had flour on her cheek. If she could hit a home run or fuck like a porn star. I wanted to give that to her.

“She deserves more than me.”

“I think you’re enough, Thatcher Manning,” Sarah said. “You’re a good man who deserves everything. Don’t hold yourself back. It sounds like she has too.”

I nodded, thinking of how she’d pushed me away. To protect herself. Her family was a disaster, and she didn’t want love because she had horrible examples and it was safer to not to. I steered clear of it because I’d had such good examples that I knew how amazing it could be. And how devastating when it disappeared.

Like now. With Astrid somewhere else, with her hurting, I wanted to fix it. To take the pain away. For her to give it to me to help. To hand over those reins just as she had in her parents’ kitchen.

And that might mean I had to hand over the reins to her right back.

“I gotta go,” I said.

Sarah stepped back, nodded.

I fled, knowing exactly what I was going to do.

15

ASTRID

Maybe I was an idiot. Maybe I was going to look back on this moment and cringe. Maybe I was stupid showing up at Thatcher’s house in the softball outfit I’d had on all day with my face all blotchy and my eyes swollen. Glancing in the van’s rearview mirror, I cringed and wished I hadn’t.

But Thatcher knew the worst about me. Knew the very alive skeletons in my closet. Would he still be interested in me after meeting my parents and Amy? God, was he even at the ranch? I’d left him in Cutthoat. Was he hitchhiking his way home?