“Trial? Damn, Wyatt, what’d you do?”

After expelling a ragged breath, Wyatt explained to his brother in detail what had happened and why he still avoided the opposite sex because of it.

When Kennedy had heard the story, he stared at the creek with a stricken expression on his face. Finally, he turned his gaze to Wyatt again. “You’re deaf, Wyatt, not dead from the neck down. That’s no way for a man to live his whole life. You’re a great guy with a lot to offer. You should have a wife, raise a family. When Grandpa passes on, the ranch will go to you. Without kids, you’ll have no one to take over when you get old, kind of like Slade before Vickie came back. He didn’t know he had a son and believed he had nobody to leave the ranch to. Nobody. Remember how sad he was about that?”

Wyatt managed a weary smile. “You’ll have kids. Maybe one of them will love ranching.”

“And maybe one of them won’t. Then what?”

“Even if I had kids, there’d be no guarantee that one of them would want the ranch. Look at Slade’s sister. She hates this place. Besides, falling in love and getting married to raise a family isn’t for everyone.” Wyatt collected his hat, which he’d set on the log beside him. “And as sad as that may seem to you, I’m a guy who just isn’t interested. You have to kiss a lot of girl frogs before you find a princess. Shopping around is too risky for someone like me. I could have done hard time, Kennedy. The only reasons I didn’t were because I had a determined defense attorney and the victimized woman told the absolute truth when she was on the stand.”

“Victimized? The way I see it, you were the victim!”

“No. I orchestrated the entire situation by deciding to pass as a hearing person so I could hook up with women. I didn’t anticipate all the things that could go wrong, and I ended up hurting someone who did nothing to deserve it.”

“You didn’t intend to do anything wrong,” Kennedy insisted.

“No, I didn’t, but I didn’t think of every possibility, either. For a guy like me, the term responsible sex takes on a whole different meaning.”

“So what’s your plan?” Kennedy asked. “To live like a monk all your life? To punish yourself for something you never meant to happen?”

Wyatt thought carefully before he answered. “Being celibate isn’t so bad, really. And to be honest, hitting on women is an unpleasant experience for me.” He gestured limply with one hand. “Dating is hard enough. For me, it’s doubly complicated. I can’t live my life pretending to be something I’m not in order to attract women. Do you agree with me on that?”

“Absolutely.”

“And that leaves me where? Striking out isn’t fun. It wears down the self-confidence. And like it or not, most women run the other way the moment they realize I’m deaf.”