Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77120 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77120 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Now he doesn’t know how to live with it.
Six months ago, Henry Simpson killed a man to save his sister and her fiancé.
His family sees a hero. He sees someone he doesn’t recognize.
Tabitha Haynes isn’t looking for complications. Medical school has taught her discipline and focus. But when she arrives for her best friend’s wedding and encounters Henry, her restraint snaps.
Their chemistry is instant and explosive. Henry wants her with a hunger that’s all heat and no promises. She meets him with an intensity that frightens her. But neither knows how to stop once the line is crossed.
Because some decisions are made in seconds. And some goodbyes arrive without warning
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
Henry
I don’t regret it.
Not for a second.
People think there’s this moment—after you take a life—where you’re supposed to crumble. Fall to your knees. Question everything.
But I don’t.
I remember the look on his face, the way his mouth curled in that half smile like he thought he still had the upper hand.
He thought I wouldn’t do it.
He was wrong.
I pulled the trigger. Simple as that.
My sister was safe. That’s all that mattered.
I believe in what I did. I’d do it again. Hell, I’d do worse if I had to.
But the nightmares don’t know that.
They don’t care.
They come anyway. They rewind the scene, slow it down, and stretch it out until I wake up with my heart racing and my lungs screaming for air.
It’s not guilt. I know guilt.
This is something else. Something meaner. Something quieter.
It’s memory, maybe. Or the cost of doing the right thing.
Because there’s always a price.
And I’m paying it.
One
Tabitha
The road unwinds in front of me as I leave Boulder behind.
I’m a Colorado native, and I’ve made this trip many times, but each time I’m amazed at the splendor of it.
The world seems to shift the farther west I go.
Back in Boulder, everything’s neat and green. Cyclists in packs, electric vehicles driving past organic grocers and yoga studios. The gorgeous Flatirons watching over the town.
But out here…
It’s…wilder somehow.
The foothills give way to the majestic Rockies, and after that the sky opens wider. The air feels cleaner.
I pass through tiny towns. Silos, grain elevators, a few stray cattle grazing. A diner’s neon sign flashes, except it says iner because the D is burned out.
The Rockies shift too. They’re less pine covered, more jagged and exposed. The red and terra-cotta rocks hide figures and faces.
And then the light.
It’s different here. Thinner and sharper. I roll down the window, let the air hit my face. It smells like pine and dust and wildflowers. Nothing like Boulder’s patchouli-scented breeze.
I pass a rusted-out truck half buried in a field and a small herd of black cattle near a split-rail fence. No yoga pants or cold brew in sight.
It’s humbling.
Every time I come out this way, I feel like I’m stepping into another version of Colorado. Remnants of the old west. Of the gold rush. It’s different. More real.
And even though I’ve seen it before, it still catches in my throat.
Like the first time.
Every time.
Especially since I’m headed into the largest ranch in Colorado, Steel Acres.
You don’t forget a place like that. Not after the first time. Probably not after the tenth, either, though I’ve only been here once before. The land just keeps going. It’s not just big. It’s staggering.
I turn onto a narrow road framed by a wooden arch that reads Steel Acres Ranch in wrought-iron letters. Dust kicks up behind my car. The cattle guard rattles under my tires as I cross it, and then it’s just the land.
Fields stretch out in every direction, lush in some spots, dry and sun-cracked in others. Fences run across the hillsides, and I spot a few cattle grazing near a line of cottonwoods. A hawk circles in the distance.
Everything feels slower out here.
I’m not an envious person by nature, but in this moment, I covet Angie Simpson, my bestie at medical school. She grew up in this ethereal place, away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. I grew up in a suburb of Denver, in a suburban house with a suburban middle-class family. I had a grassy yard with a swing set when I was younger, a volleyball net when I was older. My own room in a midsize two-story home, and a dog and a cat. The quintessential American family life.
Nice.
No complaints.
My parents stayed married, and my older sister, Samantha, and I fought like siblings do.
Basic normal.
But this?
Angie and her three siblings, along with myriad cousins, grew up in the most amazing place on earth.
I pass a row of outbuildings—barns, grain silos, a bunkhouse. A ranch hand rides horseback, guiding a few strays toward a far gate. A truck loaded with fencing supplies pulls off toward one of the pastures.
The main house appears, perched on a rise like it’s watching over the entirety of the property. It’s not ostentatious—at least not in the Boulder sense—but it’s commanding. Big wraparound porch, stone chimney, rust ceramic shingles. It’s gorgeous and huge.