nicer than you.”
“She is. And she’ll forgive you. Trust me. She’ll probably even hug you. But she’s not going to understand you. I have a feeling you and I were created out of the same end of the gene pool.” She looked at him, her expression expectant. And he wondered if she was waiting for him to pour out his heart. To confess all. To say exactly what he’d been up to for the past seventeen years, and what had sent him running in the first place.
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. Not today.
“How is Dad?” he asked.
“The same. Still in the hospital.”
“I’ve been going over the finances.” He watched her expression closely, and it remained smooth, impassive.
“We’re broke.”
“You aren’t,” he said. “Your business is doing very well. In fact, most everything that centers directly around the ranch, around what you and Sierra do, works very well. It’s just that overall the family is in a lot of debt. And if I want to save the ranch, I have to manage all of that as best I can.”
“Right,” she said. “But I don’t understand why you have to do it. I don’t understand why not Colton, or me. Not Sierra, because she’s about to produce progeny. But the rest of us. Why aren’t we doing it?”
“Because I’m done running. This is my responsibility, and I’m going to see it done.”
She swallowed hard, nodding slowly. “And after that?”
“Well, then I start running again.”
“That particular brand of denial is probably good for your quads, anyway,” Madison said.
“Well, that’s good to know.” He cleared his throat, a strange uncomfortable sensation filtering through his chest. “I’ll walk you out.”
Madison’s pale eyebrows shot upward. “Wow. Direct. I suppose I had better let you get back to all that brooding you seem to be so fond of doing.”
“Do you have anything else to say?”
“I always have something else to say, Gage. It’s best not to leave that door open.” Then, Maddy turned and walked out of the house. He followed after her, standing on the porch and watching her as she walked toward her sporty little car.
“No truck?”
“Do I look like I would drive a truck?” she asked.
“Colton and Sierra do, don’t they?” He recalled that from the hospital when he’d been there visiting his Dad.
“One of these things is not like the others. But I thought that maybe we might be.” She squinted. “I’m not entirely convinced we aren’t.” Then, she got into her car and backed out of the driveway. He watched her until she was gone.
Having his family around was...strange. It did weird things to his mind and his body. Leaving him feeling stretched and brittle.
There was always a vague sense of something pressing at the back of his mind. A part of himself that he had left behind in Copper Ridge. It was inescapable. It had proven to be so in all his years of wandering. It was one reason he was back now. One reason he was so determined to settle everything once and for all.
But this... This was different. Now, his family was real, not just a vague impression of a thing left behind. His siblings were right in front of him, the adults they had grown into and not the children they’d been when he’d gone.
And some jackass had taken advantage of Madison.
That made his chest feel tight, the sensation spreading up to his throat. He hated that. Hated the thought of her feeling alone. Feeling broken because someone had treated her carelessly.
Yeah, he’d always had that sense that part of him was still here in Copper Ridge, but in his head, those parts of him were young and innocent, and still under the protection of his parents. For all their father was flawed, he took care of his children, even if it was only to prevent scandal from spreading.
At least, he took care of his legitimate children.
Even when they didn’t deserve it.
He gritted his teeth, curling his fingers into a fist and slamming the side of it against the support post on the porch.
It didn’t take much to remind him exactly why he had spent so long avoiding this place. It was easy to be a martyr in isolation. To self-flagellate without the consequences of your abandonment staring right at you.
Hell, there was nothing he could do about it now. What was done was done. All he could do now was fix it, and then get the hell out of Dodge.
He looked toward the barn, toward where Rebecca Bear was currently working to pay off debt that in his mind she didn’t have. She didn’t owe him anything. But she was stubborn, and she had pride. He had taken enough from her. He wasn’t going to take that too.
He had left a hell of a mess in this town. He wasn’t sure it was possible to clean it up.
But, if he died trying, at least it wouldn’t be his problem anymore.
SHE HURT EVERYWHERE. There was nothing like a day of manual labor to remind her that she had once shattered her kneecap. And broken her femur. And that doing too much seemed to tighten her muscles up around the bone and make everyplace that had ever been fractured ache.
She had never hated Gage West more than she did in this moment. Actually, that was a lie, she had hated Gage West plenty of times over the years. Too many to list.
But, she could clearly picture him while she hated him now. She hobbled over to the bar, leaning against it, trying to get as much weight as she could off of her leg.
“Beer me, Ace,” she said, pressing her hand to her forehead.
The bar was crowded. It was Sunday night, and no one was looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. So, instead of getting a good night’s sleep, they were obviously out playing darts and riding on the mechanical bull that Ace had installed about a year ago.
Recently, Ace had opened a more upscale place, but he could still often be found here at everyone’s favorite dive. The fact that he wasn’t here some of the time was strange though. Copper Ridge was a constant. A small, slow-moving community that didn’t often see change. But the last few years had brought quite a bit of it. Tourism was beginning to become a major industry, and while she was definitely grateful for that, it was also changing her beloved landscape.
Just a year ago Ace had been single, and flirting with everything that moved. Now, he was married and about to be a father. Not that it bothered her. She had never been interested in Ace that way. It was just... Watching other people, people like him who had never even seemed interested in such a thing moving on with their lives and finding a companion made her feel hollow. Unsatisfied in a way she rarely was.
The
