Grady had said he’d try and be here and, for what it was worth, she’d believed him even though she couldn’t blame him for wanting to avoid her for as long as possible.

Why did she have to be so sexually attracted to her fake rancher boyfriend?

“Darling.”

Suzanne’s chest filled with a rush of love as her mom emerged from the vehicle, the blunt edge of her signature silvery bob sitting, as always, perfectly square with her jaw. She may have wanted to get away from her parents this December, and she’d only been gone for twelve days, but knowing they were going through a rough patch, that they were hurting, intensified the love she felt for these two people who had shaped and formed and loved her all her life.

After running down the stairs, she jogged to her mom and gave her a huge hug, a lump as thick as her mother’s puffy jacket lodged in her throat.

“I love you, Mom,” she whispered.

“I love you, too,” she whispered back.

Her father appeared around the side of the vehicle, pushing his wild curly hair now heavily streaked with silver back off his face. He was tall and slender with round wire-framed glasses that gave him the air of a college professor. “Hey, honey.”

“Hey, Dad, how are you?”

He gave her a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Same old, same old,” he said in an almost resigned way that rocketed Suzanne’s concerns way off the charts, and she hugged him probably a little too hard.

“This really is the middle of nowhere, isn’t it?” her mom said as she scanned the winter fields, the barren tree branches adding to the starkness of the landscape. “How does anyone even live out here?”

“It’s not like home, that’s for sure,” Suzanne said, fixing the smile back on her face. “But Grady loves it.”

At least that wasn’t a lie. It was clear he did love this ranch, and Suzanne was happy to utter the truth whenever she could to counterbalance the deception.

“So where is this mysterious rancher boyfriend you kept so quiet?” her father asked, slipping his arm around his daughter’s shoulders.

“Yes, darling. I thought he’d be here?”

“He’s not far away,” Suzanne assured, although she had no idea if that was actually the case or not. “It’s a full-time job managing the ranch, so he’s usually gone all day.”

At least that’s what she assumed anyway. She’d met a couple of Grady’s hands, and she’d seen their vehicles come and go, so she knew he had help, but he wasn’t exactly idle, either.

“Come inside out of the cold, and I’ll show you around, then take you across to the cottage so you can settle in.”

And hopefully, Grady would make an appearance soon.