Becca dreamed about Hank that night. Dreamed that he was at the airport, Libby in his arms, and he wanted to talk to her but she ignored him. He went to Alaska, but in her dream, his plane never made it there.

She woke up in a cold sweat, sobbing and miserable.

This wasn’t working. She needed to talk to Hank. She loved him, and she thought he was growing to care for her, too. Maybe they could figure something out. Maybe he could visit her on holidays. Something. Anything. There had to be a way for them to meet in the middle, or she had to at least try.

If she didn’t, she’d regret it forever.

So that morning, she took extra time with her appearance. She gave her hair a blowout, making sure it was full and as luxurious and shiny as she could make it. Her makeup looked fantastic, and she wore a sundress with tiny spaghetti straps and a suggestive back, even though the early morning was a little chilly. She wore strappy sandals that made her legs look longer, and she put Alaska on her leash and headed out to the Swinging C Ranch.

Or she started to. The moment she hit the edge of town, she turned around and went back to the bakery. She walked out five minutes later with an enormous box of doughnuts, her face burning. The woman behind the counter—Geraldine—had smirked when she’d put her order in, and soon she’d call Hannah and let her know that desperate Becca Loftis was bringing doughnuts back to the ranch in the mornings again. Well, it was too late to worry about that now. She didn’t care about her reputation if this worked.

If it didn’t, well, it’d just be another humiliating broken relationship failure tossed into her face, and she was getting awfully used to that.

She was nervous the entire drive out to the ranch, her hands sweating. When she got to the house, she knocked on the front door and there was no answer. Okay, she hadn’t expected that. Of course, it was later than her usual early mornings, and the sun had been up for a few hours now. She headed down to Doc’s office at the far end of the building, but when she saw a man waiting there with his bulldog, she quickly left again. Doc was obviously busy.

Frustrated, she headed back out to her car and noticed that Hank’s truck was parked in its normal spot. He was there. Either he was out on the range or he was in the barn. She headed out to the barn, picking her way in her high-heeled sandals and regretting her shoe choice.