Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 55305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
As Janey hands out the muffins and chats softly about how the sunrise looked from the porch, I meet Brookes’s eyes over her head.
We’re not done with this conversation, but for now, with Janey standing here between us, acting as though she belongs, I let it rest.
For now.
Chapter 21
Brookes
Storm’s gait is easy beneath me as Mason and I ride the final stretch toward the house after a long day beneath the sun.
Dust lifts softly beneath the hooves, and the whole ranch seems to exhale around us. The smell of hay and earth and home fades beneath the rich, savory scent of slow-cooked meat drifting from the kitchen. Beef stew, probably.
Janey mentioned wanting to make it that morning, standing barefoot in the kitchen with her hair falling loose over one shoulder, one hand resting absently on her belly while she pretended not to notice both Mason and me watching her like fools.
My chest tightens at the memory.
There are moments lately when I almost let myself believe we can have this. All of it. Janey in our kitchen, her laughter in the halls, and her body curled warm between us at night. Her help with the animals and maybe starting a business serving other local ranches. A baby coming into a home already overflowing with love and hope.
Moment I try to force out of my mind because thinking them hurts already, and may hurt more at some point in the future. I turn to Mason, ready to remind him not to put any pressure on Janey tonight, when I notice the silver sedan slowly approaching the house. A sedan I don’t recognize.
I pull Storm to a stop so sharply the reins creak in my hands.
Mason comes up beside me on Bandit, his hat brim shadowing his face. “We expecting company?”
“No.”
The car looks wrong against the ranch house. Too clean. Too polished. Too expensive for the dust settling over its hood and windshield.
My gut twists.
The front door opens before either of us dismounts.
Janey steps onto the porch wearing thick socks, and an oversized flannel shirt hanging nearly to her thighs. Her hair is twisted into a loose knot that looks like it has been done in a hurry. One hand grips the doorframe. The other hovers near her stomach then drops as if she catches herself at the last second.
Her face is pale, her expression pained.
Mason swings down first. I follow, my boots hitting the packed dirt hard. We tie the horses quickly to the rail beside the steps, neither of us taking our eyes off the sedan.
The driver’s door opens and a middle-aged man climbs out, tall and carefully dressed in a pressed button-down that already looks uncomfortable in the ranch heat. His gaze moves from the house to Janey, then to us. Worry tugs at his mouth, but he remains tightlipped.
Then the passenger door opens.
The woman who steps out is elegant in a way that feels sharpened to a point: tailored pants, a silk blouse and jewelry tasteful enough to be expensive. Her hair is smooth, her posture perfect, and her expression already pinched with judgment. She looks around at the ranch with a sneer. Then she looks at Janey.
And I know.
Same nose. Same cheekbones. Same delicate shape of the mouth, but none of Janey’s warmth. None of her softness. None of the sweetness that makes a man want to take on every burden to have her by his side.
“Shit,” I mutter.
Mason’s jaw tightens. “That them?”
“Her parents.”
“You sure?”
I stare at Janey’s mother. “Positive.”
Janey takes one small step forward on the porch. “Mom,” she says, her voice already trembling. “Dad. What are you doing here?”
Her father shuts the car door carefully. “Honey, your mother was worried.”
“I called Joelle,” her mother says, cutting across him.
Janey’s body goes rigid. Her mother comes around the front of the sedan, heels sinking slightly into the dirt. Her eyes sweep over Janey’s bare legs, the flannel shirt, the porch, then flick to Mason and me with open contempt.
“You told me you were staying with Joelle,” she says.
“Mom. I’m a grown woman.”
“Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to call to speak to my daughter and realize that her friend is lying? Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to resort to following a phone tracker to find my own daughter, hiding out on some God-forsaken ranch?”
Mason moves beside me, slowly shifting his weight in a way that tells me he’s holding himself back by a thread.
I step toward the bottom porch step but don’t climb it yet. Janey is above us, framed in the doorway, looking down at her parents standing in the yard between the sedan and the porch.
Our queen.
“You tracked me? You have a tracker on my phone?”
“Of course. I’m your mother.”
“Oh my God.” Janey’s hand covers her mouth as though this is the realization that has shocked her above all others. “I’m a grown woman. Not a child.”