The Bradfords say their goodbyes and move off, blending back into the crowd, but their words stick like burrs in my gut, irritating the places I’ve tried to keep smooth and sure. They didn’t mean any harm. They’re good men and have made a strong business backed by a loving family. Their advice was meant to help rather than harm, but it’s stuck in my craw regardless.
Nash doesn’t say anything right away, watching a pair of heifers shuffle through the gates like we haven’t hadsomeone hold up a mirror to our entire damn plan and call it naive.
“She isn’t like Melanie,” I say eventually, more to myself than him.
“No,” Nash agrees softly, “but that doesn’t mean she can’t be what we need. She might not know the land, but she knows animals, she knows kids, she knows family and how to feed it, and she sure knows her way around the bedroom.”
I grunt but don’t argue.
His hand tightens around the rail. “Nora grew up on a ranch. She didn’t stick around. Where we’re from doesn’t make us stay or go, Conway. It’s what’s in our hearts. Grace has a lot of what we need and more. She’ll bring freshness to our lives. A different perspective. She’s so bright and interesting. I want to talk to her for hours and find out what’s going on in that big brain of hers.”
We stand side by side, watching the auctioneer call out bids in a clipped chant, cattle moving in and out like clockwork. Nash folds his arms across his chest, his posture easy, but his eyes are sharp. He’s thinking like I am. Not only about cattle prices and stolen horses, but about Grace. About whether we should put our hope into a woman who never signed up for any of this. Who thought what we have to offer was something worth writing about for entertainment.
“Colt’s right about one thing,” I mutter. “We can’t build dreams on a maybe.”
Nash turns to me, voice low but firm. “Who says she’s a maybe?”
And damn it if that doesn’t make hope swell, because the truth is, we’ve been betting on a miracle since the day we put that ad out, and if there’s even a sliver of a chance Grace might be it, I can’t walk away without laying my cards on the table and finding out for certain.
29
CORBIN
The scent of yeast and rising bread hangs thick in the air, earthy and comforting. Flour dusts the counter like snowfall, softening the edges of everything it touches. Some of it clings to Grace’s elbows and smudges her cheek. She doesn’t notice, or maybe she does and doesn’t care.
She hums under her breath in time with the soft, twangy old country song playing on the radio. I don’t know how she knows it. Is she a country girl at heart, contained in the pristine shell of a city career girl? The sound blends with the twins’ laughter at the table where they’re squishing colored dough into what looks like rainbow cattle. Beau lies in the corner, chin on his paws, eyes half-lidded but alert.
The world feels right at this moment, like we’ve slipped into a photograph of the life I thought was behind me.
I step closer to Grace, palms bracketing hers as I guide her hands through the dough. Push. Fold. Turn. Repeat. She asked me to teach her, and she’s stronger than she looks, but her movements are hesitant. I let my weight rest gently against her back, curving over her smaller frame, to reassureher she’s doing it right. Her body’s warm and soft in all the right places, and the feel of her curves against me stirs something deep and long-starved.
It isn’t only lust or shallow arousal. It’s something slower and older that’s been sitting buried under grief and guilt for so long that it almost feels like a betrayal to let it breathe.
But it’s not. I want to find life again. Like green shoots forming on bare branches, as winter turns to spring, Grace is warming our world.
Her laugh floats up as the dough springs back under her palms. She tilts her head to look up at me. “Like this?”
“Exactly like that.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to, so I clear my throat. “You’ve got the rhythm.”
She smiles over her shoulder in a pleased way that doesn’t feel smug.
I blink and look away, back at the dough, back at the kitchen that somehow feels full of heart again.
It’s natural, and that’s what hits me hardest. The way she moves around our kitchen. The way she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and talks to the kids like she’s always been a part of their lives. The way she stands beside me, like she’s always had a place here.
I’ll never stop missing my wife. I don’t want to. But the ache changed shape over time. It’s less sharp, less consuming, and in its place is the space for hope to take root.
This isn’t about replacing what has been lost to the past. It’s about living again. At this moment, with Grace’s hands under mine and the smell of fresh bread in the air, I realize I want it. I’m allowed to want it.
The knock that interrupts us is sharp. Three raps with enough force to make us both jump. Before I can call out, the door swings open, and Mark steps into the kitchen like he didn’t vanish after Sadie’s funeral and became a ghost for a year. His eyes sweep the room over the twins at the table, and Grace still bent over the dough. Then they land on me. Hard.
The air shifts.
The kids go quiet and watchful like animals, sensing an earthquake before it takes hold and wracks the earth. Even their colored dough play pauses mid-squish.
Mark’s dressed in smart dark jeans and a button-down with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, always dressed like he’s on his way to something important. His mouth is tight, his lips pressed into a grim, unimpressed line, and when he speaks, the words drop like a boulder into still water.
“This her? The one replacing my sister?”
