Grady would rather redecorate the cabin for Easter than talk with Burl about this ache in his chest as wide and desolate as the field he was staring at. “Nope.”

“Son, you know from old, bottling things up doesn’t work.”

“Answer’s still no.”

“Okay,” Burl said cheerfully, making his way to the top step and sitting down. “I’ll go first.”

“Burl.”

“I think you’re in love with Suzanne St. Michelle.”

Grady shut his eyes as Burl dragged the giant fucking elephant in the room right into the light. No shit, Sherlock. But he didn’t want to love Suzy. He didn’t want to love anybody. And when she’d left, he told himself he was relieved. That he could get on with his life. That it was for the best.

It was just that…everything was so fucking quiet.

“You want me to go again?” Burl asked, breaking into Grady’s silence. “Okay. I think you’re running scared because you’re in love with her. Because in seventeen years you’ve not let a single person get too close to you—including Cora and me—and you don’t know what to do because despite your best efforts to keep her out, she’s snuck in anyway. How am I doin’?”

“Bite me, Burl,” Grady growled.

His uncle laughed, and Grady remembered how it had always been Burl, not Cora, who’d been able to distill Grady’s emotions. He was really fucking irritating like that.

“It doesn’t matter,” Grady finally said, his heart weighing a ton in his chest.

“What doesn’t?”

“Loving her.” Although this knot of feelings inside him didn’t feel like love. Like the fresh, first love he’d felt for Bethany. It was twisted and messy. And so fucking deep, he doubted he’d ever find the bottom of it.

“Oh yeah. How you figure that?”

“She’s not cut out for this kind of life. She’s a New Yorker. It was one of the first damn things she said to me. She’s used to art galleries and a pizza place on every corner. She doesn’t understand ranch life. She sleeps late and paints all night. She waits up for me and gets mad if I don’t answer a text. She doesn’t realize a ranch is twenty-four-seven, including Christmas. That it takes over your life.”

“Well, sure.” Burl shrugged. “It’d be a learning curve. But that should be her decision, don’t you think? Cora worked in a lab in Denver when I first met her. You think she knew anything about ranching?”

Grady blinked. “She did?” He knew his aunt was from near Denver, but he’d always assumed she’d come off the land.