In Gold Valley, Oregon, love might be hiding in plain sight…

Some things are too perfect to mess with. Bennett Dodge’s relationship with Kaylee Capshaw is one of them. They work together at their veterinary clinic and have been best friends for years. When Bennett’s world is rocked by the appearance of a son he didn’t know he had, he needs Kaylee more than ever. And he doesn’t want anything else to change. But then Kaylee kisses him, and nothing will ever be the same…

Kaylee’s done her best to keep her feelings for the man she’s loved since high school hidden away, but one unguarded moment changes everything, and now there’s no more denying the chemistry that burns between them. But the explosion of desire changes all the rules, and what’s left could destroy their bond—or bring them to a love that’s deeper than she ever imagined…

Also includes a bonus Gold Valley novella, Mail Order Cowboy!

Also By Maisey Yates

Welcome to Gold Valley, Oregon, where the cowboys are tough to tame, until they meet the women who can lasso their hearts:

Cowboy Christmas Blues (ebook novella)

Smooth-Talking Cowboy

Mail Order Cowboy (ebook novella)

Untamed Cowboy

In Copper Ridge, Oregon, lasting love with a cowboy is only a happily-ever-after away. Don’t miss any of Maisey Yates’s Copper Ridge tales, available now!

Shoulda Been a Cowboy (prequel novella)

Part Time Cowboy

Brokedown Cowboy

Bad News Cowboy

A Copper Ridge Christmas (ebook novella)

The Cowboy Way

Hometown Heartbreaker (ebook novella)

One Night Charmer

Tough Luck Hero

Last Chance Rebel

Slow Burn Cowboy

Down Home Cowboy

Wild Ride Cowboy

Christmastime Cowboy

Take Me, Cowboy

Hold Me, Cowboy

Seduce Me, Cowboy

Claim Me, Cowboy

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

UNTAMED COWBOY

Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08346-1

UNTAMED COWBOY

© 2018 Maisey Yates

Untamed Cowboy © 2018 Maisey Yates Mail Order Cowboy © 2018 Maisey Yates

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Praise for New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates

“Yates’ new Gold Valley series begins with a sassy, romantic and sexy story about two characters whose chemistry is off the charts.”

—RT Book Reviews on Smooth-Talking Cowboy (Top Pick)

“Fans of Robyn Carr and RaeAnne Thayne will enjoy [Yates’s] small-town romance.”

—Booklist on Part Time Cowboy

“Passionate, energetic and jam-packed with personality.”

—USATODAY.com’s Happy Ever After blog on Part Time Cowboy

“[A] story with emotional depth, intense heartache and love that is hard fought for and eventually won.... This is a book readers will be telling their friends about.”

—RT Book Reviews on Brokedown Cowboy

“Yates’s thrilling seventh Copper Ridge contemporary proves that friendship can evolve into scintillating romance.... This is a surefire winner not to be missed.”

—Publishers Weekly on Slow Burn Cowboy (starred review)

“This fast-paced, sensual novel will leave readers believing in the healing power of love.”

—Publishers Weekly on Down Home Cowboy

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dear Reader

Untamed Cowboy

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

Mail Order Cowboy

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

About the Publisher

Dear Reader,

I’m so happy to welcome you back to the town of Gold Valley for another story about hot cowboys and true love.

It’s true that the best-laid plans often go awry. But that doesn’t stop us from trying to make them anyway.

That’s exactly what Bennett Dodge, the hero in Untamed Cowboy, is doing. But his relationship with the woman he thought would be perfect for him has dissolved, and now she’s fallen in love with someone else. And to top it all off, when he gets home one night, he finds a fifteen-year-old surprise waiting on his front porch.

About the only thing in his life that has remained the same is his friendship with Kaylee Capshaw. But with one kiss, that’s about to change, too.

I loved writing Bennett and Kaylee’s relationship. They were first introduced in Christmastime Cowboy, a book that’s part of the Copper Ridge series, and I knew immediately that I was going to have to write their story. And even though Bennett was with another woman then, I knew that ultimately Kaylee was the right one for him.

Bennett just has to realize that the plans he had for his life weren’t the best thing for him. And what he really needed was right within reach all along.

Happy reading!

Maisey

Untamed Cowboy

Maisey Yates

Haven, this book is for you. In the past nine years you’ve gotten a lot of them, but that’s how it should be. You’re the one who taught me that friendship is the perfect foundation for true love.

CHAPTER ONE

KAYLEE CAPSHAW NEEDED a new life. Which was why she was steadfastly avoiding the sound of her phone vibrating in her purse while the man across from her at the beautifully appointed dinner table continued to talk, oblivious to the internal war raging inside of her.

Do not look at your phone.

The stern internal admonishment didn’t help. Everything in her was still seized up with adrenaline and anxiety over the fact that she had texts she wasn’t looking at.

Not because of her job. Any and all veterinary emergencies were being covered by her new assistant at the clinic, Laura, so that she could have this date with Michael, the perfectly nice man she was now blanking while she warred within herself to not look down at her phone.

No. It wasn’t work texts she was itching to look at.

But what if it was Bennett?

Laura knew that she wasn’t supposed to interrupt Kaylee tonight, because Kaylee was on a date, but she had conveniently not told Bennett. Because she didn’t want to talk to Bennett about her dating anyone.

Mostly because she didn’t want to hear if Bennett was dating anyone. If the woman lasted, Kaylee would inevitably know all about her. So there was no reason—in her mind—to rush into all of that.

She wasn’t going to look at her phone.

“Going over the statistical data for the last quarter was really very interesting. It’s fascinating how the holidays inform consumers.”

Kaylee blinked. “What?”

“Sorry. I’m probably boring you. The corporate side of retail at Christmas is probably only interesting to people who work in the industry.”

“Not at all,” she said. Except, she wasn’t interested. But she was trying to be. “How exactly did you get involved in this job living here?”

“Well, I can do most of it online. Otherwise, I travel to Portland, which is where the corporate office is.” Michael worked for a world-famous brand of sports gear, and he did something with the sales. Or data.

Her immediate attraction to him had been his dachshund, Clarence, who she had seen for a tooth abscess a couple of weeks earlier. Then, on a follow-up visit, he had asked if Kaylee would like to go out, and she had honestly not been able to think of one good reason she shouldn’t. Except for Bennett Dodge. Her best friend since junior high, and the obsessive focus of her hormones since she’d discovered what men and women did together in the dark.

Which meant she absolutely needed to go out with Michael.

Bennett couldn’t be the excuse. Not anymore.

She had fallen into a terrible rut over the last couple of years while she and Bennett had gotten their clinic up and running. Work and her social life revolved around him. Social gatherings were all linked to him and to his family.

She’d lived in Gold Valley since junior high, and the friendships she’d made here had mostly faded since then. She’d made friends when she’d gone to school for veterinary medicine, but she and Bennett had gone together, and those friends were mostly mutual friends.

If they ever came to town to visit, it included Bennett. If she took a trip to visit them, it often included Bennett.

The man was up in absolutely everything and the effects of it had been magnified recently as her world had narrowed thanks to their mutually demanding work schedule.

That amount of intense, focused time with him never failed to put her in a somewhat pathetic emotional space.

Hence the very necessary date.

Then, her phone started vibrating because it was ringing, and she couldn’t ignore that. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Excuse me.”

It was Bennett. Her heart slammed into her throat. She should not answer it. She really shouldn’t. She thought that even while she was pressing the green accept button.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Calving drama. I have a breech one. I need some help.”

Bennett sounded clipped and stressed. And he didn’t stress easily. He delivered countless calves over the course of the season, but a breech birth was never good. If the rancher didn’t call him in time, there was rarely anything that could be done.

And if Bennett needed some assistance then the situation was probably extreme.

“Where are you?” she asked, darting a quick look over to Michael and feeling like a terrible human for being marginally relieved by this interruption.

“Out of town at Dave Miller’s place. Follow the driveway out back behind the house.”

“See you soon.” She hung up the phone and looked down at her half-finished dinner. “I am so sorry,” she said, forcing herself to look at Michael’s face. “There’s a veterinary emergency. I have to go.”

She stood up, collecting her purse and her jacket. “I really am sorry. I tried to cover everything. But my partner... It’s a barnyard thing. He needs help.”

Michael looked... Well, he looked understanding. And Kaylee almost wished that he wouldn’t. That he would be mad, so she would have an excuse to storm off and never have dinner with him again. That he would be unreasonable in some fashion so that she could call the date experiment a loss and go back to making no attempts at a romantic life whatsoever.

But he didn’t. “Of course,” he said. “You can’t let something happen to an animal just because you’re on a dinner date.”

“I really can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

She reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. She put it on the table and offered an apologetic smile before turning and leaving. Before he didn’t accept her contribution to the dinner.

She was not going to make him pay for the entire meal on top of everything.

“Have a good evening,” the hostess said as Kaylee walked toward the front door of the restaurant. “Please dine with us again soon.”

Kaylee muttered something and headed outside, stumbling a little bit when her kitten heel caught in a crack in the sidewalk. That was the highest heel she ever wore, since she was nearly six feet tall in flats, and towering over one’s date was not the best first impression.

But she was used to cowgirl boots, and not these spindly, fiddly things that hung up on every imperfection. They were impractical. And how any woman walked around in stilettos was beyond her.

The breeze kicked up, reminding her that March could not be counted on for warm spring weather, as the wind stung her bare legs. The cost of wearing a dress. Which also had her feeling pretty stupid right about now.

She always felt weird in dresses, owing that to her stick figure and excessive height. She’d had to be tough from an early age. With parents who ultimately ended up ignoring her existence, she’d had to be self-sufficient.

It had suited her to be a tomboy because spending time outdoors, running around barefoot and climbing trees, far away from the fight scenes her parents continually staged in their house, was better than sitting at home.

Better to pretend she didn’t like lace and frills, since her bedroom consisted of a twin mattress on the floor and a threadbare afghan.

She’d had a friend when she was little, way before they’d moved to Gold Valley, who’d had the prettiest princess room on earth. Lace bedding, a canopy. Pink walls with flower stencils. She’d been so envious of it. She’d felt nearly sick with it.

But she’d just said she hated girly things. And never invited that friend over ever.

And hey, she’d been built for it. Broad shoulders and stuff.

Sadly, she wasn’t built for pretty dresses.

But she needed strength more anyway.

She was thankful she had driven her own truck, which was parked not far down the street against the curb. First date rule for her. Drive your own vehicle. In case you had to make a hasty getaway.

And apparently she had needed to make a hasty getaway, just not because Michael was a weirdo or anything.

No, he had been distressingly nice.

She mused on that as she got into the driver’s seat and started up the engine. She pulled away from the curb and headed out of town. Yes, he had been perfectly nice. Really, there had been nothing wrong with him. And she was a professional at finding things wrong with the men she went on dates with. A professional at finding excuses for why a second date couldn’t possibly happen.

She was ashamed to realize now that she was hoping he would consider this an excuse not to make a second date with her.

That she had taken a phone call in the middle of dinner, and then had run off.

A lot of people had trouble dating. But often it was for deep reasons they had trouble identifying.

Kaylee knew exactly why she had trouble dating.

She was in love with her best friend. Bennett Dodge. And he was not in love with her.

She gritted her teeth.

She wasn’t in love with Bennett. No. She wouldn’t allow that. She had lustful feelings for Bennett, and she cared deeply about him. But she wasn’t in love with him. She refused to let it be that. Not anymore.

That thought carried her over the gravel drive that led to the ranch, back behind the house, just as Bennett had instructed. The doors to the barn were flung open, the lights on inside, and she recognized Bennett’s truck parked right outside.

She killed the engine and got out, moving into the barn as quickly as possible.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Dave Miller was standing there, his arms crossed over his chest, standing back against the wall. Bennett had his hand on the cow’s back. He turned to look at her, the overhead light in the barn seeming to shine a halo around his cowboy hat. That chiseled face that she knew so well but never failed to make her stomach go tight. He stroked the cow, his large capable hands drawing her attention, as well as the muscles in his forearm. He was wearing a tight T-shirt that showed off the play of those muscles to perfection, his large biceps, and the scars on his skin from various on-the-job injuries, and he had a stethoscope draped over his shoulders. Something about that combination—rough-and-ready cowboy meshed with concerned veterinarian—was her very particular catnip.

“I need to get the calf out as quickly as possible, and I need to do it at the right moment. Too quickly and we’re likely to crush baby’s ribs.” She had a feeling he said that part for the benefit of the nervous-looking rancher standing off to the side.

Dave Miller was relatively new to town, moving up from California a couple of years ago with fantasies of rural living. A small ranch for his and his wife’s retirement had grown to a medium-sized one over the past year or so. And while the older man had a reputation for taking great care of his animals, he wasn’t experienced at this.

“Where do you want me?” she asked, moving over to where Bennett was standing.

“I’m going to need you to suction the hell out of this thing as soon as I get her out.” He appraised her. “Where were you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You’re wearing a dress.”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t at home.”

He frowned. “Were you out?”

This was not the time for Bennett to go overly concerned big brother on her. It wasn’t charming on a normal day, but it was even less charming when she’d just abandoned her date to help deliver a calf. “If I wasn’t at home I was out. Better put your hand up the cow, Bennett,” she said, feeling testy.

Bennett did just that, checking to see that the cow was dilated enough for him to extract the calf. Delivering a breech animal like this was tricky business. They were going to have to pull the baby out, likely with the aid of a chain or a winch, but not too soon, which would injure the mother. And not too quickly, which would injure them both.

But if they went too slow, the baby cow would end up completely cut off from its oxygen supply. If that happened it was likely to never recover.

“Ready,” he said. “I need chains.”

She spotted the chains lying on the ground, picked them up and handed them over. He grunted and pulled, producing the first hint of the calf’s hooves. Then he lashed the chain around them. He began to pull, his muscles straining against the fabric of his black T-shirt, flexing as he tugged hard.

She had been a vet long enough that she was inured to things like this, from a gross-out perspective. But still, checking a guy out in the midst of all of this was probably a little imbalanced. Of course, that was the nature of how things were with Bennett.

They’d met when she’d moved to Gold Valley at thirteen—all long limbs, anger and adolescent awkwardness. And somehow, they’d fit. He’d lost his mother when he was young, and his family was limping along. Her own home life was hard, and she’d been desperate for escape from her parents’ neglect and drunken rages at each other.

She never had him over. She didn’t want to be at her house. She never wanted him, or any other friend, to see the way her family lived.

To see her sad mattress on the floor and her peeling nightstand.

Instead, they’d spent time at the Dodge ranch. His family had become hers, in many ways. They weren’t perfect, but there was more love in their broken pieces than Kaylee’s home had ever had.

He taught her to ride horses, let her play with the barn cats and the dogs that lived on the ranch. Together, the two of them saved a baby squirrel that had fallen out of his nest, nursing him back to health slowly in a little shoebox.

Kaylee had blossomed because of Bennett. Had discovered her love of animals. And had discovered she had the power to fix some of the broken things in the world.

The two of them had decided to become veterinarians together after they’d successfully saved the squirrel. And Bennett had never wavered.

He was a constant. A sure and steady port in the storm of life.

And when her feelings for him had started to shift and turn into more, she’d done her best to push them down because he was her whole world, and she didn’t want to risk that by introducing anything as volatile as romance.

She’d seen how that went. Her parents’ marriage was a reminder of just how badly all that could sour. It wasn’t enough to make her swear off men, but it was enough to make her want to keep her relationship with Bennett as it was.

But that didn’t stop the attraction.

If it were as simple as deciding not to want him, she would have done it a long time ago. And if it were as simple as being with another man, that would have worked back in high school when she had committed to finding herself a prom date and losing her virginity so she could get over Bennett Dodge already.

It had not worked. And the sex had been disappointing.

So here she was, fixating on his muscles while he helped an animal give birth.

Maybe there wasn’t a direct line between those two things, but sometimes it felt like it. If all other men could just...not be so disappointing in comparison to Bennett Dodge, things would be much easier.

She looked away from him, making herself useful. Gathering syringes, and anything she would need to clear the calf of mucus that might be blocking its airway. Bennett hadn’t said anything, likely for Dave’s benefit, but she had a feeling he was worried about the health of the heifer. That was why he needed her to see to the calf as quickly as possible, because he was afraid he would be giving treatment to its mother.

She spread a blanket out that was balled up and stuffed in the corner—unnecessary, but it was something to do. Bennett strained and gave one final pull and brought the calf down as gently as possible onto the barn floor.

“There he is,” Bennett said, breathing heavily. “There he is.”

His voice was filled with that rush of adrenaline that always came when they worked jobs like this.

She and Bennett ran the practice together, but she typically held down the fort at the clinic and saw smaller domestic animals like birds, dogs, cats and the occasional ferret.

Bennett did large animals, cows, horses, goats and sometimes llamas. They had a mobile unit for things like this.

But when push came to shove, they helped each other out.

And when push came to pulling a calf out of its mother they definitely helped.

Bennett took care of the cord and then turned his focus back to the mother.

Kaylee moved to the calf, who was glassy-eyed, and not looking very good. But she knew from her limited experience with this kind of delivery that just because they came out like this didn’t mean they wouldn’t pull through.

She checked his airway, brushing away any remaining mucus that was in the way. She put her hand back over his midsection and tried to get a feel on his heartbeat. “Bennett,” she said, “stethoscope?”

“Here,” he said, taking it from around his neck and flinging it her direction. She caught it and slipped the ear tips in, pressing the diaphragm against the calf, trying to get a sense of what was happening in there.

His heartbeat sounded strong, which gave her hope.

His breathing was still weak. She looked around at the various tools, trying to see something she might be able to use. “Dave,” she said to the man standing back against the wall. “I need a straw.”

“A straw?”

“Yes. I’ve never tried this before, but I hear it works.”

She had read that sticking a straw up a calf’s nose irritated the system enough that it jolted them into breathing. And she hoped that was the case.

Dave returned quickly with the item that she had requested, and Kaylee moved the straw into position. Not gently, since that would defeat the purpose.

You had to love animals to be in her line of work. And unfortunately, loving them sometimes meant hurting them.

The calf startled, then heaved, its chest rising and falling deeply, before it started to breathe quickly.

Kaylee pulled the straw out and lifted her hands. “Thank God.”

Bennett turned around, shifting his focus to the calf for the first time and away from the mother. “Breathing?”

“Breathing.”

He nodded, wiping his forearm over his forehead. “Good.” His chest pitched upward sharply. “I think Mom is going to be okay too.”

They stood watching for a moment as the calf stood up on shaky limbs, taking its first few tentative steps. It was all a good sign, but they had both seen enough to know that there was no such thing as out of the woods.

“Give me a call,” Bennett said to Dave. “If you need anything, anytime of night, give me a call.”

“I will. I’m going to set up in here tonight.”

“Good. If he makes it through the night... Well, the odds will be pretty good from here.”

Dave shook his head. “I didn’t know how stressful all this was.”

“I know people don’t understand,” Bennett said. “How you can care so much about animals you raised for food. But I know. They’re your livelihood, and your whole life on top of it.”

Dave nodded. “They are.”

He shook Bennett’s hand, then turned and shook Kaylee’s too. As his hand close over hers she realized what a mess she was. She looked down and saw that her skin was streaked with the aftereffects of touching the recently birthed cow. A fine accessory to go with her flirty date dress.

They collected their gear, and Kaylee followed Bennett outside.

They both looked...well, a little bit ragged.

“You’re wearing a dress,” he said again.

Yes, she supposed that bore paying attention to, considering her typical uniform was plaid button-up shirts and worn jeans. If she was feeling really fancy maybe a belt with some rhinestones on it.

“I was on a date, Bennett,” she said, articulating the Ts a bit more sharply than necessary.

“Were you?” he asked, crossing his arms over his broad chest and leaning against the truck.

She pushed her now-completely-tangled red hair off her face. “I was.”

“Anyone I know?” he asked, his tone overly casual.

He was asking so he could cast aspersions. It was what he did. And it rankled. He was never going to be her boyfriend. And yet he took great delight in judging every single one she’d ever had and finding them unworthy.

“Depends,” she said, keeping her tone sweet. “Do you know Clarence the dachshund?”

He arched a brow. “I do not.”

“Well, I had a date with Clarence’s owner. And since you don’t know Clarence that doesn’t mean anything to you.”

“I didn’t think we dated the owners of patients,” he said, frowning.

“Well, that’s much easier for you, Bennett. If I eliminated every man in town with a pet then I would never be able to date.” She pretty much didn’t. And actually, tonight was the first time she’d been on a date in over a year.

Bennett let out a very masculine-sounding sigh, and she ignored the slight shock wave it sent through her. “Do you want to come over and have a beer?”

She really, really needed to say no. She was supposed to be on a date with another man, she was definitely not supposed to end the night platonically hanging out at Bennett’s house again. It was her default. She did it too often.

She had done it all throughout his dating Olivia Logan, feeling so pointlessly jealous of everything the cute, petite woman was. Certainly everything that Kaylee wasn’t. Refined. Fine-boned. Short. Definitely able to wear giant heels around any man without towering over them. Not that she would tower over Bennett in heels.

At six-four he was definitely tall enough to stand next to her in most shoes. Which had made his association with Olivia even more irritating, since the woman was barely five foot three. That was how that always worked. Tall men with tiny women. Irritating for women like her.

But he and Olivia had broken up a few months ago when Bennett had failed to propose quickly enough for Olivia’s liking, and then, much to everyone’s shock, Olivia had gone and fallen in love with Luke Hollister, who was her polar opposite.

She was from the town’s most prominent family. She was prim. Luke was...not.

She hadn’t really been able to gauge how Bennett felt about it, and selfishly, she hadn’t really wanted to either. She was just relieved. Relieved he hadn’t married her, because even though she didn’t harbor hopes of marrying him herself, if Bennett did get married, things would change.

She didn’t want that.

“I...”

Bennett’s phone rang, and he fished it out of his pocket and answered it. “Hello?” He frowned.

Kaylee took a moment to take stock of her appearance. Her dress was rumpled now, and she was...well, she was a mess. And Bennett still wanted to have a beer with her. Well, because she was like a guy to him, really.

He would invite a guy over to have a beer even if he was dirty.

“Really?” Bennett sounded suddenly irritated. Or maybe, irritated wasn’t quite right. Intense. “Really,” he repeated. “We’ll talk about it later. I’m out dealing with a calf.”

He hung up the phone, and looked at Kaylee. “That was Wyatt.” Wyatt Dodge was Bennett’s oldest brother, and the boss at Get Out of Dodge Dude Ranch.

“Really?” She unconsciously parroted Bennett. “What did he say?”

“Luke called him. Apparently, he and Olivia are having a baby.”

CHAPTER TWO

BENNETT COULDN’T BEGIN to untangle the whole mess of feelings rioting around inside him like coiled-up snakes. He wasn’t in love with Olivia. He never had been. But she had been his girlfriend for a year, and he had been planning on marrying her. They’d had an arrangement that had suited them both.

It hadn’t been a love match in a conventional sense. Her father had asked for him to take care of her after a health scare, and Bennett had thought...

He’d thought she was damned near perfect. He didn’t want a passionate love affair, he wanted stability. Wanted the kind of life he could plan. Put in careful order. And Olivia had seemed to want that too.

But right toward the end, he’d been putting off proposing. He’d known what she wanted and he just...

There was part of him that worried she wanted more than he was giving. At first he’d thought she wasn’t any more in love with him than he was with her. Hell, they’d never gone past second base, at her insistence. And she’d never seemed tempted to go further. He’d respected it, respected her. Hadn’t touched anyone else the whole time they were together, because he was a man of his word.

Then, she had broken up with him over the fact he was dragging his feet, and she had gone and slept with Luke Hollister. Who Bennett would have said was about the worst bet in the entire world. If asked, Luke would probably have agreed he was a bad bet too.

But apparently, not when it came to Olivia. Because that bastard had proposed to her in record time. And apparently had gotten right on starting a family with her too.

It was what Olivia wanted. He knew. Well, not to be pregnant out of wedlock. That would bother her. He had a feeling the wedding was about to get moved way the hell up.

But a family. That was what Olivia wanted. Domestic bliss and all that.

“Are you all right?”

Kaylee was looking at him with wide amber-colored eyes.

At the moment she made a pretty comical sight. Wearing a dress a hell of a lot fancier than he was used to seeing on her, the delicate floral material swirling around her long, pale legs.

And her arms were streaked with afterbirth.

Her red hair was disheveled, a smudge of something across her cheek. But she was also wearing makeup.

Frankly, the dress and the makeup were a lot more out of place than the afterbirth.

Kaylee wasn’t a girly girl. She never had been. Kaylee had run with the boys from junior high on. She had been one of his best friends ever since then. The kind of friend that he called if he needed someone to help at two in the morning. The kind of friend who would leave a date—apparently—to come and help him birth a calf.

The kind of friend who knew everything about him.

Almost everything.

“I’m fine,” he said, lying.

But he couldn’t exactly articulate all the things this was bringing up. Because it wasn’t just Olivia. There was something else churning deep beneath the surface and he didn’t want to get into that. He knew what it was. Whenever pain pushed up against that locked door down in his soul, he knew what that pain was. Loss.

All that loss in his life.

And mistakes. Regrets. A time in his life when he hadn’t planned a damn thing, when he had lacked for control and decency, and had paid the consequences of that behavior. Consequences no one, not his family or Kaylee, knew about.

He was different now.

But that didn’t erase the past.

“Do you still want that beer?”

“Maybe let’s take a rain check,” he said. “You’re covered in...”

Kaylee looked down her arms and grimaced. “I can shower at your place.” The suggestion was casual, and there was no reason it wouldn’t be. He and Kaylee had known each other forever. Had showered in each other’s homes more than once.

For some strange reason, probably because it was late, he was tired, and feeling like his world had been thrown slightly off its axis, he had a momentary blip in his brain, just one bright pop of an image. Pale skin and water sluicing over slight curves.

He blinked heavily in the darkness. He did not think about Kaylee like that. Ever.

She wasn’t a woman. She was his friend. His business partner.

And he had more control than that.

“Yeah, I think... I think I might go over to Wyatt’s.”

Kaylee was clearly somewhat irritated by the fact he was rescinding his invite, but she would deal. They had spent so much time in each other’s company over the years that it was inevitable they sometimes irritated each other.

Anyway, Kaylee was great if you wanted to talk. That was one of the perks of having a woman for a friend, even one who wasn’t especially...stereotypical. She got into deeper topics and longer conversations than his brothers did. Than any of his guy friends.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk now. He wanted to drink. And Kaylee would want to know what he was feeling about Olivia. She liked to pick that particular scab. He wasn’t sure why. But it was something that she hadn’t been able to let go since he and Olivia had broken up.

He shouldn’t care at all about this news. Olivia deserved a man who loved her. She deserved to be in love. That kind of thing wasn’t in the cards for Bennett. It wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a well-ordered life. He wanted one without complications, without big highs and lows. Because God knew he’d had enough.

The whole situation was tangled up, but his heart wasn’t broken. And Luke Hollister was like a brother to him. Even given the circumstances. The man was always going to be part of the Dodge family. So having to deal with Olivia was unavoidable.

“Okay,” Kaylee said, taking a step away from him. “We’ll talk tomorrow I guess.”

“Thank you,” he said, meaning now and for the birth. “If you hadn’t been here... The baby probably wouldn’t have made it. I would’ve lost one of them.”

“Hey,” Kaylee said. “What’s a date compared to the life of a baby cow? And that’s not sarcasm. I can go out with Michael again anytime. He was very understanding.”

“Michael, huh?”

He didn’t know Michael, and he hadn’t been able to place him when Kaylee had started talking about Clarence the dog either. He didn’t know why he couldn’t picture the guy. Gold Valley was small enough that he felt like he should know men about their age that Kaylee might date, particularly ones that owned pets and sometimes came into the clinic.

But no, he was drawing a blank.

“You want to go drink,” Kaylee said, waving a hand. “Interrogate me some other time.”

“Good night,” he said, getting into the truck that served as a mobile veterinary unit. He might go ahead and crash at Get Out of Dodge tonight, he mused as he pulled onto the highway, putting Kaylee and her date out of his mind.

He could get hammered and sleep in one of the cabins that were currently unoccupied on the dude ranch. They were gearing up for their grand reopening, but it hadn’t happened yet.

Wyatt was working tirelessly—and working the rest of them to the bone when they were doing their real jobs—getting it ready.

Although, his brother Grant officially didn’t have a real job anymore. His real job was the ranch. Jamie, the only girl, and youngest in the family was in the same boat as Grant and Wyatt. Bennett was the only one that hadn’t thrown himself wallet and soul into the place.

But it wasn’t as simple as that for him. Veterinary medicine was his passion. He hadn’t gone to school for all those years so that he could quit when his brother decided on a whim to stop flinging himself around on the back of angry bulls and focus on the homestead for the first time in fifteen years.

For as long as Bennett could remember, he’d liked to fix things. That need had only grown stronger after the death of his mother.

And stronger still later on.

He could have been a doctor, but he truly hadn’t been able to face the idea of working on people and losing them. He lost enough people in his life. But having such a comprehensive veterinary practice in Logan County kept himself and Kaylee fully occupied. Being able to go into business with his best friend was a privilege.

The two of them had talked about doing that from the time they were kids. Usually when you made a pact with dirt and spit and a handshake underneath an oak tree when you were thirteen years old you didn’t keep it.

But he and Kaylee Capshaw had.

She was the truest and most constant person in his world. His friend, his partner. Always. From the moment he’d met her when they’d been in seventh grade. She was new to school, and looked lost, but defiant right along with it. And he couldn’t help but be intrigued by the redhead with a thousand freckles who didn’t talk to anyone for the first half of the day.

Something in her reminded him of his own losses. The way it felt to feel like you were walking through a room of people all alone.

So at lunch he’d sat down and introduced himself.

She hadn’t been friendly at all. Not until he’d asked if she liked horses, and if she’d like to come over to his ranch sometime and see them.

That had made her smile. And something about her smile had felt so damned good. He’d wanted to keep on making her smile.

She hadn’t been smiling when she’d left the ranch just now.

He pushed away the guilt at not having her come over as he turned into the driveway that led up to his brother’s ranch. Well, the family ranch, really. Bennett was part owner in the place, even if he wasn’t working on it full-time. He had thrown a good lot of his money into it, but then, that was another thing about him staying in veterinary medicine. He made enough money to help Wyatt with this crazy scheme. Bennett was mostly a financial backer when it came right down to it.

Although, Wyatt had made a decent amount of money on the rodeo circuit. Bennett had no idea how much, because Wyatt preferred to be a mystery.

He shook his head and parked his truck, getting out and slamming the door.

He walked up the familiar steps, steps he had walked on thousands of times, and up to the door. He just opened it up and walked in, because he wasn’t going to knock on the door of his childhood home. He might not live there anymore, but it still felt like home in many ways.

“Hey,” he called out.

“Drinking in the kitchen,” shouted Wyatt.

Bennett moved through the entryway and into the kitchen, where his brother Wyatt, his other brother Grant, and their sister, Jamie, were all sitting around the high counter on barstools, clutching various alcohols of choice.

“That’s nice,” Bennett said, “are you all having a drink for me?”

“Wash your hands,” Jamie said, wrinkling her nose, her brown hair pulled back in a loose braid that had likely started the day tight, but had ended askew, a testament to the activities of the day. Knowing his sister those activities had been riding horses like hellhounds were biting at her heels.

Jamie didn’t know caution, not on the back of a horse.

“All right,” he said, looking down and seeing that while he had been wearing gloves for a good portion of the procedure he had not escaped unscathed.

He started to scrub up in the sink, very aware of the fact that all of his siblings were watching him. “Did any of you have a comment to make?” He gestured broadly.

“Olivia is pregnant.” Jamie leaned forward, resting her chin on the lip of her beer bottle. “How do you feel about that?”

“I didn’t know Jamie was going to be here,” he said to Wyatt.

“Where else would she be? Anyway, you didn’t ask.”

“I just came over for a drink,” he said pointedly, “not a talk. If I had wanted to talk, I would have had Kaylee come over.”

“You should have had Kaylee come over here,” Jamie said.

Jamie wasn’t a whole lot more of a girl’s girl than Kaylee was, and the two of them got along pretty well now that Jamie wasn’t a kid. Though, at twenty-three she still seemed a lot like a kid to Bennett.

“She was tired. She had to leave a date to come help me deliver a calf. It was breech.”

“Did you save it?” Grant asked.

“Yeah,” he responded. “Hopefully it makes it through the night. But at this point I don’t see why it wouldn’t. Everything was good when we left.”

“She left a date to come and help you deliver a calf,” Wyatt said, his eyebrows raised.

“It was a life-and-death situation,” Bennett said. “It’s more important than dinner.”

“Sure,” Wyatt said, “but couldn’t you have called someone else?”

“No,” Bennett said. “She’s the only person I can count on in a situation like that. And anyway, I didn’t know she was on a date.” Though, he probably still would have called her. Kaylee was always there when he needed her.

It wasn’t like he’d needed help choosing a tie. He was trying to save a life.

“Careful,” Wyatt said, “or she likely won’t be at some point. Not if you keep taking advantage of her.”

“I don’t take advantage of her. First of all, we run our business together. So, she benefits from the extra time I put in and in the middle of the night. Second of all, she’s my friend. And I would do the same for her, and she knows it.”

“Still,” Jamie said, her tone sly, “you have a history of losing women now, Bennett.”

For one blinding second Bennett wished that he were still fifteen. Because if he were, he would have yanked on Jamie’s braid until she apologized for that.

“I do not have a history of that,” he said. “One girlfriend broke up with me.”

“And now she’s having Luke’s baby,” Grant pointed out. “Which I feel like is why you’re here, even though you don’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Bennett returned.

“That’s fine,” Wyatt said. “We do have more important things to discuss than your lack of a love life.”

Of course, Bennett hadn’t had a love life when he was with Olivia, not that his family knew that. Olivia had said she wanted to wait until they were engaged to have sex, and he had honored that. It just wasn’t the kind of thing that you discussed with your older brothers. Well, it wasn’t the kind of thing you discussed with anyone, first of all, because he wouldn’t go talking about Olivia’s business like that. But second of all, because he had no desire to get harassed. Not that Grant was in any position to harass anyone on that subject.

Since the death of Grant’s wife eight years ago, Grant’s love life had been in the deep freeze. Grant hadn’t even gotten close to having another woman in his bed, let alone in his life. At least, that was the impression that Grant gave to his family.

They tried to get him to go out when they could, hoping to do something to heal that hollowed-out look in his eyes. But nothing ever did.

Though, that likely explained why his siblings enjoyed giving Bennett such a hard time about the situation with Olivia. It wasn’t fatal. Not even close. It was just one of those things.

“Much more interesting,” Wyatt supplied, “is the fact that we got our first few bookings online today.”

“That is great,” Jamie said, almost shimmering with glee.

His younger sister wanted this business to take off almost more than anyone. Because the opportunity to ride horses for a living didn’t present itself often, and this was her chance to do exactly what she loved to do. He respected that. Understood it. Because this might not be his dream, but he certainly wanted his family to work it all out. And anyway, he had his work dream. So he wanted them to have theirs too.

“We’re set to open with a big barbecue by June. Kind of a grand opening with tours and all of that, and then afterward, it looks like we’re already halfway full.”

“Fantastic,” Jamie said.

Grant nodded. Grant didn’t do much in the way of enthusiasm.

“You seem thrilled,” Wyatt said, directing that comment at Bennett.

“I am,” Bennett said. “But my primary focus is still my veterinary practice. You know I support this, but I have other things on my plate.”

“I never said you didn’t,” Wyatt said. “But you do have a stake in Get Out of Dodge. I figure you don’t want to lose all your money.”

“I’m fine,” Bennett said.

“Right. So you’re fine if I take a stack of your cash and light it on fire? And you’re fine with Olivia being pregnant?”

He really wasn’t fine with any of that. But since Wyatt wasn’t going to burn a stack of his cash, and Olivia was going to remain pregnant regardless of his feelings on the matter, he didn’t see the point in rising to Wyatt’s bait.

“Doesn’t worry me,” he said, grabbing a beer out of the fridge. He had every intention of drinking more heavily here. But he didn’t want to expose the fact that he was bothered by all of this. He really should have stayed with Kaylee, who would have imagined that he was heartbroken or wounded in some way. He wondered if that was what his brother thought too. That Olivia had broken his heart. She hadn’t. It was dredging up a past he didn’t like to think of.

He wondered if it would be like this if he ever had his own children.

That was a strange thought. Because of course he had been planning on having children with Olivia. But it had seemed an easy thing. Part of that normal life he was planning for.

He hadn’t anticipated that it would make him think of his first girlfriend and the baby that they had lost all that time ago. The baby that nobody knew about.

Nobody but Cole Logan—Olivia’s father and Quinn Dodge’s best friend. He’d been like an uncle to Bennett, and far enough removed from the situation for Bennett to feel like he could go to him for help without being terrified of being seen as a disappointment.

Not even Kaylee knew.

There was no point talking about something that had never become anyone else’s problem. He had intended on bringing the issue forward with his family when it had become something they couldn’t deny. But he’d been sixteen, and he’d been an idiot. He’d been caught up in feelings, and he sure as hell hadn’t been thinking.

The acrid, burning shame of failure still sat in his gut all these years later. For that loss of control.

He had never acted like that ever again.

He had gotten caught up in passion, and he hadn’t taken care of Marnie. Hadn’t protected either of them.

And after all the emotional turmoil of going over what they were going to do, of deciding that he was going to put all of his dreams, his life on hold, so that he could do the right thing and marry her and make a home with her, she had lost the baby. Then she had broken up with him and left town, unable to handle the pain of what had happened.

He hadn’t heard much about her since. She didn’t stay in touch with her parents. He’d heard once through the grapevine she’d been arrested.

She hadn’t been that person before. Not when they’d been together.

He blamed himself, in part. For the fact that what had happened seemed to have damaged her in ways she couldn’t come back from.

So of course when Olivia said she didn’t want to have sex until they were engaged he had honored that easily. He would never, ever pressure a woman into doing something she didn’t want to.

And he would never act out of control again in his life. The consequence for that kind of thing were too grave.

But nobody knew about that. They would all think he was acting weird because his ex was pregnant. They had no idea he’d nearly been a father once. And that this made him think of the baby he would have had fifteen years ago. That it made him wonder about what that might have been like. What that life might have been.

It hadn’t even been a life he had wanted. It had just been the life he was coping with.

But it was hovering there now. And he couldn’t even explain it to anyone.

“Well, maybe at the barbecue I can set up a free vet check booth,” he said drily.

“Yeah, not sure we want you doing any of that near the food.”

“Like having hayrides near a barbecue is any less problematic? I don’t think it is.”

Jamie sniffed. “Horses are not dirty.”

“Just because you love horses more than you love most people doesn’t mean other people love them near their burgers.”

“Well, then, they’re not people I want to know anyway,” his sister said.

Sometimes Bennett wondered if Jamie had suffered the most from losing their mother at a young age. Jamie had been a newborn when their mom had died, and their dad had done his best with her—with all of them—but he’d had four kids, a working ranch and a shedload of grief to contend with.

Ultimately Jamie had been left to go a little bit wild, running around outside and doing her best to keep up with her brothers from the time she was barely knee-high to a grasshopper. But then, Jamie was happy. Normal shouldn’t matter.

But it did to him. That was the problem.

It clearly did, because his entire set of goals had centered around having some version of a normal life. The house, the job, the wife, the kids.

And it had all crumbled down around him and he didn’t know how he felt about it.

But then, when push came to shove he hadn’t proposed to Olivia.

Now that her pregnancy news was rolling over him slowly, and he was dealing with various ghosts from the past, he wondered if that was why.

If, in the end, his past was part of what had held him back. The fact that he had known marrying Olivia and making a family with her was going to dredge up things he didn’t want to think about.

But when it came to Jamie, he only cared about her happiness. And that much was easy. When it came to himself, it was a lot different.

Sometimes he wondered if he deserved to be happy.

Whatever, he had to quit sitting here feeling sorry for himself. He needed to go home. Now that he had given up on the idea of getting blind stinking drunk, he needed to get his ass in bed so that when tomorrow morning’s wake-up call came it didn’t feel like such an assault.

“Well,” he said, “thanks for the... This little version of support that you all are able to give.” He tilted his half-consumed beer bottle upward. “I think I’m going to call it a night.”

“You’re not too drunk to drive,” Grant said, his tone dry, “are you?”

“I don’t know how you’re ever not too drunk to drive,” Bennett returned.

“I might not be,” Grant said. “But, seeing as I live here, it doesn’t really matter.”

A couple of years ago Grant had sold his house in town and moved back onto the ranch. There were so many outbuildings and dwellings on the property that it was easy for them to all cohabit there and not see each other.

Bennett preferred to have his own space.

“Fair enough. Now you can just stagger across the property.”

At least Grant wasn’t drinking alone. He wasn’t going to say that, but he was grateful for that. They all worried about Grant. They had thought that in a year, two years, five years, he would have done something in the way of recovering from Lindsay’s death. But Lindsay had been his high school sweetheart, his first and only love, and the fact that he had married her even knowing their marriage wouldn’t be a long one, knowing that eventually her terminal illness would take her, had made them a kind of tragic love story for the ages in Gold Valley.

And unfortunately, Grant, it turned out, excelled at existing in tragedy.

“I’m sure I’ll see y’all tomorrow,” he said. “If you end up needing any help on anything specific let me know.”

He stood up and went back outside, feeling a little bit like an unsettled boomerang not sure what target he was hoping to return to.

His hand itched, and he wanted to reach for his phone to call Kaylee.

But it was late now, and she had probably gone to sleep.

He had already interrupted her date, he didn’t need to wake her up too.

Part of him wondered if she had called her date back, if they were resuming activities now. At her home. In her bed.

He gritted his teeth. What the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t think about Kaylee and sex. He didn’t think about Kaylee showering. Didn’t imagine pale skin and her curves. Never.

He blamed this whole thing on Olivia because he didn’t think of Olivia as being the mother of someone else’s children either.

She was supposed to be the mother of his.

And whether or not he had a broken heart, he felt...

Well, thwarted plans were never fun.

Having built an entire life in his head that was now permanently crumbled around him was not fun.

He had encouraged Luke to go after Olivia, when the man had shown up at the ranch looking brokenhearted and generally hangdog. Because Bennett hadn’t felt that broken when Olivia had left him. And he knew that Olivia deserved a man who did. When push came to shove, he felt like he had done the right thing.

But he kind of wished that he hadn’t now. And in this moment, by himself, he was going to go ahead and feel petty.

Yeah, and he was going to take that home by himself. All of his anger, all of his unsettled feelings. All of the weird thoughts he had about his best friend tonight.

Tomorrow would be a new day. And he would start making a new plan. There wasn’t another option.

CHAPTER THREE

BEFORE TEN O’CLOCK Kaylee had already dealt with a parakeet that had a fever, a ferret with a bad skin condition and an old dog that had gotten into some foxtails.

Business was never slow at Valley Veterinary, which was a good thing in many ways.

But at the moment Kaylee would kill for another cup of coffee and a moment to sit down.

And that was when Bennett walked in, looking like her salvation with his strong hands wrapped around two cups of coffee from Sugar Cup.

“Thank God you’re here,” she said, stretching her arm out.

“That’s quite the greeting.”

“I didn’t mean you. I meant coffee. Hand it over, Dodge. I’m dying.”

“Well, we can’t have that, Kay.” He thrust the cup into her hand, and she took it greedily, taking a cautious sip. It was scalding hot. Just the way she liked it.

She looked up at the clock, and then looked at the schedule sitting on the desk. Unless there was another emergency, she was clear for the day.

“Have you been out to check on the calf?”

“Yep,” he said, “first thing I did this morning. Everything looks good. But it’s just the start of busy season for me.”

“Right,” Kaylee responded. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year. The time of year where you spend half your time shoulder deep in cows.”

He chuckled and lifted his coffee cup to his lips. “It’s a living.”

“Indeed. Not jealous of you, just FYI. I prefer the small and fuzzy to the large and smelly.”

Usually, she didn’t have to assist with many births. Occasionally there were some breed-specific issues, and she would have to do something like give a bulldog a C-section, but that wasn’t very common around here.

“Did you end up finishing your date last night?” Bennett asked.

It was a weird question, and there was something weighted in his voice.

“Did I end up...finishing my date?” She blinked. “I didn’t go back to the restaurant at 9:30, if that’s what you’re asking. My steak would’ve been cold.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

Heat flew into her cheeks, her heart slamming against her breastbone. “Bennett, are you asking if I brought the man home?”

His expression was overly bland. Overly casual. “Just out of curiosity.”

“I have never asked you such question in my life,” she pointed out.

“Well, no. And you probably never would.”

Because the idea of Bennett with another woman burned her with jealousy, and she would have maybe had a blackout and stabbed him with the nearest medical instrument, but she wasn’t going to say that.

Bennett was not asking out of the burning jealousy of his heart. Not even a little.

In fact, that Bennett was asking at all proved how much the thought of her being with someone else didn’t matter to him.

She blamed Olivia Logan for all of this. Yes, him being with her had hurt. Knowing that he was probably going to marry her had hurt. But she had also seen...the end.

If Bennett were married then there really wouldn’t be a them. Not like part of her stupid heart had hoped there would be since junior high. If he married another woman then it really wasn’t going to happen between them. So yes, it had been indescribably painful to know that was finally coming.

But it had been a relief in some strange ways. A relief because it would finally kill her hope dead.

And then the golden couple of Gold Valley had broken up.

Bennett being single forced her to ponder all the what-ifs again.

Which was why she had gone out on that date.

She hadn’t been on a date in forever—it had been even longer since she had been with anyone, and she had just been...tired of that. Tired of the fact that her emotions, her body, seemed to be completely held hostage by a man who didn’t want them.

“Normally I wouldn’t,” he said, “but the whole thing with Olivia has me thinking.”

Everything inside Kaylee drew in tight, the breath in her lungs, her stomach, even her pulse seemed to narrow down to the tip of the pen, stabbing at her with each beat.

She swallowed hard. “You mean, you’re looking for someone else to marry?”

She had survived the selection process of Olivia. Had survived that relationship and near-marriage. She wasn’t sure if she was going to survive it again.

The corner of Bennett’s mouth tipped upward, the expression on his face turning wicked, which was not an expression normally present on Bennett’s face. “Or maybe I just need to hook up.”

Their eyes clashed and held over the tops of their coffee cups, and something seemed to spark the air, to catch and hold. They both took a sip of their coffee, as if to prolong the moment or let it settle, she wasn’t sure. But it was something. Something to do. But she didn’t look away from him. She felt like she couldn’t. Like there was a magnet holding her gaze to his, and she couldn’t fight it. Didn’t want to.

The door to the clinic opened, and they both looked over quickly. A rush of breath left Kaylee’s body, a strange dizziness washing over her as the tension broke.

It was Beatrix Leighton. Her sister-in-law Sabrina Parker ran the tasting room for Grassroots Winery in the neighboring town of Copper Ridge, and Bea lived on the winery property, which was owned by her other sister-in-law, Lindy. Both Sabrina and Lindy were polished and immaculate. Beatrix was...not.

She had a tangle of carrot-colored curls that always seemed to move independently of the rest of her, her cheeks often pink from the sun, her nose peeling because she had spent too much time outdoors. Kaylee had the vague idea that Beatrix was in her early twenties, but her slightly feral nature made it difficult to say.

In Beatrix’s arms was a box. And in that box was what looked to be a mass of blankets.

“Can I help you?” Laura the receptionist asked Beatrix, who looked from her to Kaylee and then to Bennett.

“I found him this morning on the side of the road,” she said, her eyes looking incredibly round and dewy.

“Found what?” Kaylee asked.

“Him,” Beatrix said, setting the box on the counter and revealing the contents.

A tiny baby raccoon nestled down beneath the pale blue blanket, his little claws wrapped tightly around the woolen fabric like it was his safety.

“His mother was dead,” Beatrix said. “And another baby. Hit by a car. But he was all right. I thought I saw movement, so I pulled the car over and got out. I think he might be injured, so I thought I should bring him to you.”

Beatrix had dropped by the clinic often over the past few years for just this very thing. She was a chronic rescuer of wild animals. And Kaylee could never bring herself to charge for the service of helping the younger woman rescue them. Anyway, usually Beatrix ended up doing most of the work, as long as Kaylee could provide an antibiotic or set a broken limb.

She shot Laura a glance. “Your schedule is clear right now.”

Kaylee looked at the mournful little creature, and then back at Beatrix. “Let’s get a look at him.”

Bennett was watching the entire thing with a kind of bemused expression on his face. Bennett was a veterinarian who cared deeply about saving animals. But Bennett was also a rancher from a long line of ranching stock, and when it came to offering medical aid to varmints, his opinion on the subject was more neutral than that it was a necessity.

Kaylee had spent a lot of her life feeling helpless. Useless. She hadn’t had resources to control or help anyone or anything when she’d been growing up. And now that she could? She could no more turn down the raccoon than she could Beatrix.

“Let’s take him into an exam room,” she said, picking up the box and leading the way back to one of the enclosed patient rooms.

Beatrix followed, and Bennett followed slowly behind her.

Now his presence was just starting to irritate her. That weird moment from earlier was making a mess of her insides, combined with the fact that she had it in her head now that Bennett wanted to...hook up. With some woman. Any woman but her, clearly. That always seemed to be the case.

What’s the alternative? He hooks up with you and then what? He’s going to marry you? What will happen to your friendship?

All those typical questions came tumbling down on her head. The questions that she always asked herself when she got into a Bennett loop.

But she didn’t just have a wayward heart and an overly excitable body. She had a brain.

And her brain knew a few things about Bennett Dodge. The first being that if he wanted her at all, he would have made a move. He was decisive. Honest. Not the type to sit and stew about hidden feelings.

The second being that she didn’t really know how to have a long-term relationship. Her attempts so far had been unsuccessful.

A recipe for disaster.

And anyway, they had made the decision years ago to go into business together, which further complicated...everything.

Bennett was deeply ingrained in her life. Her friend, her business partner and a staple in the community.

They were tangled around each other. And untangling even one portion of it had the potential to unravel her entire life.

A good thing to remember whenever she got a little bit too wistful about him.

She had made her choices a long time ago.

What she needed was a man to tangle all up in her personal life.

What she needed was to call Michael because he had left that door open, and she needed to walk through it.

Kaylee got some gloves and carefully ensconced the tiny raccoon in a blanket before lifting it up and examining it. He was in fact a he, as Beatrix had stated upon first entry. Kaylee looked up from the raccoon and at Bennett, who was leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed, his muscles shifting interestingly, displayed nicely by the tight black T-shirt he was wearing. His typical uniform, and one that was really getting to her today.

“If you have commentary on my treatment of a baby raccoon, Bennett, I will thank you to take it in the other room,” she said pointedly.

Beatrix turned to look at him. “You don’t think we should treat the baby raccoon?” Her tone was almost comically accusatory.

Bennett looked somewhat thunderstruck by that. It was the complete lack of guile in Beatrix’s question, the absolute shock that he might not think a raccoon was worthy of saving.

He looked between Beatrix and Kaylee.

“Treat the baby raccoon if you need to,” he said, putting his hands up.

“The baby raccoon needs to be treated,” Beatrix pointed out.

“Yeah, Bennett,” Kaylee said. “The baby raccoon needs it.”

Bennett suppressed what looked to be an eye roll, but continued to stand there and watch as Kaylee conducted an examination on the tiny creature.

“He looks like he’s in decent health,” Kaylee said. “All things considered. Though, I’m sure he’s a little bit shocky. Was he behaving like he was injured when you took him home?”

Beatrix shook her head. “I haven’t taken him home yet. I just pulled him off the road. I keep a blanket and a box in my truck just in case.”

Of course she did.

“Well, I think he can probably go to your house. If you’re up to round-the-clock feedings. I would assume that you could treat a small raccoon like a runt puppy. A little bit of evaporated milk and an eyedropper might help him pull through.”

“That’s reassuring,” Beatrix said.

“Do you want me to give him some vaccinations?”

“Can you?”

“I don’t see why not,” Kaylee said, working her way through her supply. “I’ll just make sure he gets his rabies shot, and then I’ll send you on your way. Hopefully he makes it through.”

“Well, if he does, then I’ll have a rabies-free raccoon as a pet,” Beatrix pointed out. “Lindy may not appreciate a raccoon living at the winery.”

Kaylee suppressed a smile. “That is between you and your sister-in-law. I’m just going to treat the raccoon.”

Kaylee took care of the vaccination under the watchful eye of Beatrix and the overly amused Bennett. Then she bundled up the tiny animal and put him back in his box and handed the box back to its owner.

“Good luck, Beatrix,” she said.

“That was nice of you,” Bennett said once Beatrix had left.

“It wasn’t nice of me,” Kaylee said. “It’s my job.”

“No, your job is to work on people’s pets for profit. You don’t have to patch up every sickly critter that Beatrix Leighton brings in on a whim.”

“Why not? It’s a small thing. But it’s something.”

“I suppose so.”

“I’m very giving,” she said. “The kind of woman who leaves her date to help a baby calf.”

He chuckled. “Yes, you are. And I do owe you a massive thank-you for that.”

“You’re soft too, Bennett Dodge. Maybe not for raccoons. But for other creatures.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I’m less soft toward animals that are going to make themselves nuisances because Beatrix ends up turning them loose once they grow up, and they view people as their natural source of food. If I have to pry that raccoon repeatedly out of my garbage cans I’m going to be irritated.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kaylee said. “First of all, Beatrix is probably going to keep it. Second of all, it will wreak havoc at the winery, not your place.”

“Well, Wyatt will be happy about that.”

“Why would Wyatt care?”

“He has some kind of uneasy alliance with Lindy. Funneling business between the places.”

“Uneasy?”

“They do not like each other. But then, Wyatt used to be buddies with Lindy’s ex-husband. He did PR on the rodeo circuit back when Wyatt was still riding. So they used to be friends, and I think Lindy wants to castrate him.”

“I can see where that would cause a rift.”

“Yep.”

“Wyatt wants to drive business to Get Out of Dodge so badly that he’s willing to work with a woman who hates him?”

Bennett chuckled. “My brother used to ride bulls for a living. Drooling, angry, two-ton monsters that wanted to rip his guts out. I think one ragey blonde who wants to gut him doesn’t scare him much.”

“Well, that must be fun to be around.”

“Fortunately,” Bennett said, “I have my own business to keep me busy. And I’m about to go out on a call, so I will see you later.”

“See you later.”

When Bennett walked out of the clinic, her stomach bottomed out, the aftershock of everything that had happened in the past hour moving over her in a wave.

Why was it like this? All the time.

Why were there these moments? Thunder and lightning without the rain. A storm brewing that never seemed to break open. Tension. So much tension and nothing to ease it.

Maybe the tension was only on her side. Because it wasn’t coming from him. And it all felt so big and real and raw to her, and he didn’t seem to feel a thing.

The door opened again and she had to suppress a sigh, until she looked up and saw that it was Michael, holding Clarence in his arms.

“Is Clarence all right?” she asked.

“He is,” Michael said, a smile spreading over his handsome face. “But I’m here to see you.”

Utter resoluteness washed over Kaylee. She was going to take this opportunity. She wasn’t going to let herself back out.

“I’m glad you did,” she said, forcing herself to smile. Hoping that it looked like a smile, and not a tragic grimace.

“Good,” he responded. “I’d like to try dinner again.”

“Me too,” she said quickly. “And this time I’ll make sure that I’m not inadvertently on call.”

“I like that you work,” Michael said. “I feel like a lot of people are so insecure with first date stuff they act out of character. But I think that was really you. And I liked it.”

“Well,” she said, smiling. “Good.”

She really needed to get a new life. Really, really. Not the whole thing. Because there were parts of it that she loved. But she needed something to fill that void her body, mind and heart kept insisting Bennett could fill. He wasn’t ever going to. That couldn’t have been made more apparent by their conversation this morning. He didn’t feel anything asking about whether or not she had slept with Michael. He saw nothing strange in telling her offhandedly that he needed to find a woman to hook up with.

She was in the friend zone, and she should be fine with that. She was the one who’d put herself there, after all. She’d decided forever ago that she wasn’t going to act on her feelings, so she needed to own that choice. Not in that intermittent, half-assed way that she had for more years than she wanted to count. But in a real way. A solid way.

And the only way she was going to do that was to actually try to have a relationship with a guy instead of simply sabotaging every opportunity that came her way.

“Dinner would be perfect,” she said.

And she felt like if she said it enough times to herself over the next few days it might just become true.

* * *

THE LAST THING Bennett expected when he pulled into his driveway that evening was to see a police car parked out in front of his ranch house.

His dogs—traitorous, useless beasts—were lying on the porch, long noses resting on their front paws, their floppy ears draped down in total relaxation. The old horses—retired rodeo animals, former pets that had outlived their usefulness—and his solitary llama were all looking equally unconcerned out in the field.

But Bennett didn’t feel as calm as any of the animals.

He was a rule follower, so there was no way that he had done anything wrong. Forgot to pay a parking ticket? No. Definitely not.

He had been so distracted by the sight of the cruiser that it had taken him a moment to realize that there was another car parked alongside it. An SUV with yellow plates and a gray-green color that those official-looking vehicles seemed to favor.

He frowned and got out of the car, and by the time he did the police officer was already rising up to meet him.

“Are you Bennett Dodge?”

“I suppose that all depends on whether or not I’m getting served.”

“Not getting served,” the officer said.

“Okay.”

If somebody were dead he would have been called already. If somebody had died Wyatt would be here. Unless it was Wyatt who was dead. But then Grant would be here. Or Jamie. And if something had happened to Jamie... Well, Grant and Wyatt would both be here.

In a fraction of a second his brain concocted a thousand different events that might have happened to wipe out every last one of his siblings.

Or maybe it was his dad. Who was currently in New Mexico with his new wife, Freda. Maybe something happened to one of them. An accident with that damned motor home of theirs.

“Just tell me nobody’s dead,” Bennett said.

The officer looked shocked for a moment. “Oh, no one’s dead,” he said. “But we’re here to talk to you about a matter of custody.”

“Custody?”

The only thing he could think that might mean was they needed to take him into custody, but he hadn’t done anything. He was sure he hadn’t. But of course, he found himself cataloging his every action from the past week. Whether or not somebody had seen him get in the car after his half a beer last night.

But that was ridiculous. Mostly.

“You look confused,” the police officer said.

“I am,” Bennett responded.

“It’s about your son, Mr. Dodge.”

Bennett frowned, no immediate emotional reaction bubbling up to the surface. Mostly because the guy was just plain wrong. He had to be.

“I don’t have a son,” Bennett said.

“The paperwork I have says you do. You’re welcome to contest that. But what I have is a kid that’s going to end up in a group home if he can’t stay with his father.”

As if on cue the door to that SUV opened and a woman in a severe-looking outfit got out, followed by a teenage boy. Fifteen years old or so, Bennett figured.

Brown hair, tall, lanky. And he looked up at Bennett with simmering fury in brown eyes that matched Bennett’s perfectly.

“Hi, Dad,” he said. “I guess it’s been a while.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOUR MOTHER IS Marnie Claire?”

Bennett was sitting at the kitchen table across from the boy and the social worker. The police officer was outside. Apparently, he had been required to act as an escort because the social worker wasn’t confident in her ability to keep the boy from running off. The boy. Dallas.

Dallas Dodge.

That was his name. His legal name. Though, Bennett had had no idea of his existence. In fact, Bennett had been told that the pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage. He had lived with it like a weight ever since. Everything he had heard about Marnie, what had happened to her, the kind of life she had fallen into. He had blamed himself. She had been so distraught when she had broken up with him. When she had left and he had been convinced that any dire straits she was in was partly his fault. But if any of this was true, if this was his son... Then she had lied to him. She had lied to him almost sixteen years ago.

And he was a father.

To a teenager.

Dammit to hell.

“That’s right,” the social worker, who was named Grace, answered the question for Dallas.

“How old are you?” Bennett said, addressing the kid straight on. Talking around him was insulting, and even if he did seem like he was a little punk, Bennett wasn’t going to treat him like he was invisible. He knew what that was like.

When his mother had died that was what everyone did. They talked over his head like he was stupid, like he couldn’t possibly understand what was happening. Addressing all manner of sympathy to his father, to his older brothers, and treating Bennett like he had no idea what was happening in his own life. “Fifteen,” the kid said.

“There isn’t a foster family that has been able to cope with him. And he’s extremely lucky that the owner of the last store he robbed didn’t press charges.”

“It wasn’t robbery,” Dallas said. “You make it sound like I had a gun.”

“That’s armed robbery,” Bennett supplied.

“Well,” Dallas continued. “It wasn’t as badass as that. It was shoplifting. Shoplifting would be a pretty pussy thing to go to jail for.”

“But it is something you could have gone to jail for,” the social worker said, clearly well versed in Dallas’s brand of attitude, and pretty damned fed up with it too.

Which was fair enough, he supposed.

“What happened to your mom?” Bennett asked.

“I don’t know.” Dallas shrugged. “She used to come around sometimes, but I haven’t seen her in a few years.”

“His mother lost custody a few years ago,” Grace explained.

Bennett rounded on her. “If this is my kid then why didn’t anyone contact me then?”

“Because we didn’t know,” she said. “There is no father listed on Dallas’s birth certificate. We didn’t know where the last name Dodge came from.”

“How did you find it now?”

“It was in something of my mother’s,” Dallas said. “Something that I kept.”

“He showed it to me when I told him about the group home,” the social worker said.

Bennett just sat there, shock making him numb. And it was probably a damn good thing.

But on some level, this angry, feral-looking kid wanted to be with him. Or at least, he wanted to be with him more than he wanted to be in a group home. But...it was clear he didn’t want to be here that much. And... Bennett couldn’t close the gap that he felt. With the facts in his brain, the words that had been planted there and the feelings in his heart.

This was his son. In all likelihood it was.

Not only did he look quite a bit like a combination of the Dodge brothers, the timing matched up. For Marnie’s pregnancy. The one that she had said she lost.

That had been a lie. Clearly.

“You didn’t know you had a son,” Grace said.

“No,” Bennett responded. “I didn’t know. Do you honestly think that if I knew there was a kid out there that was mine, that had gotten taken from his mother and put in foster care... Do you honestly think I would’ve left him there?”

“I’ve seen everything,” she said, her eyes exceedingly weary. “There is nothing in the whole world that would surprise me at this point. Nothing at all. Actually, what surprises me most of all is finding you here in a house with a career and a semblance of a normal life. Unless you have drug paraphernalia hidden underneath that very nice-looking sectional in the living room, it seems like you might actually be the best thing that could have happened to Dallas.”

“He’s sitting right there,” Bennett said. “Maybe we should talk right to him, instead of just about him.”

“Oh, it doesn’t bother me,” Dallas said, smart-ass grin tipping his lips up. “What’s the point, anyway? You don’t want me to stay here. I didn’t have any idea my dad was living in such a fucking fancy place.”

“It’s not that fancy.” The word dad was echoing in Bennett’s head, and it was making him feel a little bit dizzy.

“Fancier than where I’ve been, believe me.”

“You’ve been with some nice families,” Grace said.

“Yeah,” Dallas snorted. “Too nice for me.”

“So let me get this straight,” Bennett said, resolutely keeping his focus on Dallas, almost unable to keep his eyes off him. This kid that looked like a mirror image of him nearly sixteen years ago. This kid who was a year younger than Bennett had been when he’d gotten his girlfriend pregnant and had thought he had to face up to becoming a father.

It hadn’t happened. Then.

But it had all come home to roost in a really strange way.

“You’ve been in trouble with the law.”

“Just a little.” Dallas smirked.

“Yes,” Grace confirmed.

“What else? Why won’t they keep you in the houses?”

“I run away. I cuss a lot. I was with a church family a few months ago and I taught one of the little kids the F word.”

“That was a dick move,” Bennett pointed out.

Dallas grinned. “Yeah.”

“What else?”

Dallas shrugged. “Nothing really. I mean, they want to control me, or turn me into what they think a good kid is, so that they can prove that they made an impact, or whatever bullshit reason they have for taking in foster kids in the first place. I had a mom. I don’t need another one. And as for the fathers... They all sucked. I haven’t seen any evidence that dads don’t.”

“Mine doesn’t,” Bennett said, his voice rough.

“Well, so far mine kinda does.”

Bennett couldn’t argue with that.

“Did you ever hurt anyone?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Dallas said, looking down.

Bennett’s stomach tightened. “What happened?”

“Just a fistfight. One of the older kids was saying shit to one of the girls. I didn’t like it.”

Instantly, that tightening healed. Because if Dallas had that much of a barometer inside of him for what was right, for what needed to be defended...he wasn’t all that bad of a kid.

And then Bennett realized it didn’t really matter if he was. If Dallas was the one who had been punched because he had said something objectionable to a girl, Bennett would still have to take him on. If this was his son, then it didn’t matter if he was the worst little troll on the face of the planet, Bennett had to take care of him.

They were all sitting around this table like there was a choice. But there wasn’t a choice. No way in hell. There was no real choice here.

“What’s the procedure for this?” Bennett asked.

“We can do a paternity test,” Grace said.

“And that...does what? Makes it all official in the court?”

“Yes,” she said. “Then there will be a family court date to grant you official custody. It’s not an adoption if you’re his biological father.”

“Then we’ll do all that.”

“I have paperwork ready for you to be granted temporary custody in the meantime,” Grace said. “He doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“He has this place. It’s fine.”

Nothing was fine. Bennett had a feeling that he was existing in some strange plane where nothing seemed real as a precaution against the reality of it all. A reality that was a bit too harsh, a bit too sharp for him to cope with just yet.

“I don’t...” Bennett looked around his house, which was spotless because he had a cleaner that came in once a week and took care of everything. Spotless because he didn’t spend all that much time at home. “I don’t have anything for a kid.”

“I have a bag,” Dallas said.

Again, Bennett couldn’t quite tell if Dallas was being dragged here on sufferance, or if he wanted to be here. He was wondering those things because wondering was a lot easier than feeling at the moment.

“Okay,” Bennett responded.

“I’ll go get it.” The boy stood up.

Grace eyed him speculatively. Dallas put his hands up in a defensive gesture. “That cop is still outside. It’s not like I’m going to run for it. Anyway, I don’t exactly have the equipment to go live in the mountains. You drove me out to the middle of nowhere. Where am I going to go?”

He walked out of the room, and Bennett winced when the front door slammed.

“You didn’t know?” The woman leveled her dark eyes on him.

“I had no clue,” he said, keeping his words as firm as he could. “My girlfriend told me she lost the baby.”

Grace looked suddenly sympathetic. “Oh.”

“I believed her. She left. Said she couldn’t stand to be around me after all that. That was the last I heard of her. We were dumb kids.”

Grace raised her eyebrows. “You must have been. I was surprised by how young you were.”

Bennett had aged about ten years in the last forty minutes, so that statement seemed especially funny right at the moment. But he couldn’t laugh.

“What happened to him?” Bennett asked, his voice rough. “What happened to her?”

Grace sighed, long and slow. “I haven’t been working with Dallas that long. But from what I understand his mother had drug issues. He was neglected and eventually had to be removed from her custody. He went back and forth for a while, but as he said...not recently. He’s been moving between foster homes for couple of years now.”

“And no one keeps him?”

“He’s difficult,” Grace said, folding her hands together. “I’m not going to lie to you about that.”

A difficult kid who’d had more than a difficult life, and there had been no reason for that. No reason at all. Bennett had been here the whole time. And if he’d known...

“It’s okay if he’s difficult,” Bennett said, firming up his jaw. “He’s my difficult.”

She nodded slowly, and something that looked like it might at least be a neighbor of respect flashed in her eyes. “I suppose he is.”

Dallas came back into the room then, dragging a black garbage bag behind him. “Quick packing,” he said, indicating what passed as his luggage.

For a moment, Bennett felt like he was staring into a black hole of rage. Despair. Denial.

And yet here was this kid who looked almost just like him. This kid standing there clutching a garbage bag.

Bennett had experienced loss in his life. He hadn’t grown up with a mother. But he’d had stability. He’d had a father and a home. He’d never wanted for anything, and he had certainly never had to put all of his worldly possessions into a single bag and get carted to a place he’d never been before. Over and over again.

This was his son, and he would do the tests, or whatever they wanted him to do, but he didn’t think there was a scenario in which it would turn out that Dallas didn’t belong to him. In which it would turn out that this kid, this kid that had been abandoned and shuffled around, wasn’t his.

But right then, with that reality crashing it, it hit him that Dallas was also a stranger. A stranger that was going to live in his house.

Bennett could not have picked a more surreal moment off a list. He couldn’t imagine anything more bizarre than staring down a stranger that you were blood-related to. A stranger who was your child.

Bennett didn’t feel like a father. He was thirty-two years old. He didn’t feel old enough to have a fifteen-year-old son. That was for damn sure.

But he didn’t feel nothing. There was something inside of him that burned for this angry boy standing in front of him. Guilt, mostly. Guilt that Dallas had gone through all of that when Bennett had been going on with his life, making something of himself. When he had been living in this big, comfortable house all this time. With a housecleaner, no less, and this kid had been bouncing back and forth between homes.

“I have a bit of a drive to get back to Portland,” Grace said. “So, this is where I leave you. But of course you can have my number. And we will be checking in.”

“So you can just...leave him with me?” Panic made his throat tight, made it hard for him to breathe. He’d stuck his hand up inside animals and faced down wounded, enraged creatures that were bent on killing him before they let him help them. His brother might have ridden bulls for a living, but Bennett had vaccinated them. None of that came close to the kind of fear he felt here.

“You are his father,” she said. “His father with no criminal record or any reason that he shouldn’t have him. That’s simple enough.”

Simple and complicated in ways that Bennett couldn’t work out even within himself.

Grace paused and put her hand on Dallas’s shoulder. “You can use my number too. I hope you know that. Goodbye, Dallas. I’ll be checking in with you.”

Then she left. Left him standing there with this kid who was a stranger. Who was his son.

The clock on the wall ticked, marking the torturous seconds where he couldn’t think of a thing to say. Where he couldn’t even move.

“I have a guest room,” Bennett said slowly.

“Right,” Dallas said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to sleep in a barn?”

“No.”

“You don’t have a wife or anything?” the kid asked.

“No,” Bennett said.

“Girlfriend?”

“Do you?” Bennett asked.

Dallas shrugged. “Hard to hang on to one when you’re moving all the time.”

“Sure.”

More seconds ticked off.

“I bet if you touch any of the girls here their dads run you off the property with a shotgun, right?” he asked.

“I don’t know about them, but I might chase you with a shotgun.”

Dallas snorted. “That’s funny. Especially because I know my mom is from here, and I know that you knocked her up.”

“I did,” Dallas said. “She told me she had a miscarriage.”

Dallas looked shocked at that, and Bennett wondered if he should have said that. But honestly, there was no point letting the kid cast him as any more of a bad guy than he already had. Marnie wasn’t here. Marnie was off mired in drug addiction somewhere. And any sympathy that he had felt for her situation was rapidly disintegrating. He would have helped her. He would have stayed with her. She didn’t need to run away. He had no clue why in hell she had done that. No clue what had possessed her. If she hadn’t wanted the baby, he would have taken the baby. He would never understand this.

“She didn’t tell me that,” Dallas said.

“I don’t know what she told you. But I’ll tell you, honestly, I found out she was pregnant, I was going to propose to her. She told me she had a miscarriage, and then she told me she was leaving town. She broke up with me. We were young and we were stupid.”

“I’m younger than you were,” Dallas pointed out.

“Yes. And you’re young and stupid. Because when you’re fifteen you’re stupid. And when you’re sixteen you’re not much better. We were stupid. But I didn’t know... I didn’t know. You don’t have to believe me right now. I don’t know that I can really believe any of this. I feel like I’m going to blink and you’re going to disappear. I’m going to wake up and it’s gonna be some kind of weird dream. But as long as you’re standing there... I didn’t know about you. I’m going to be honest with you. That’s what I’m going to do.” Bennett made a decision then, and he decided to go with it. “Whatever else, I’m going to tell you the truth. I’m going to be really bad at this. I don’t have any experience with kids.”

“Not really a kid,” Dallas said, shrugging.

“You’re not,” Bennett said, his heart clenching tight. Because the boy in front of him was really more of a young man, and the first fifteen years of his life were lost to Bennett. There was nothing he could do about it. That hurt like a son of gun.

“But you are,” he continued. “And you need somebody. I’m going to be that person. And I’m going to be honest with you. Even if it’s hard. So, that’s my first bit of honesty.”

“That doesn’t mean I believe you,” Dallas said. “Just because you told me to.”

“That’s fine. It’s going to take a while for you to believe that, I know.” He swallowed hard, and the sound of his heartbeat blended into more seconds ticking by.

“Do you have an Xbox or anything?” Dallas asked, breaking the silence.

“No,” Bennett responded.

“Really? What the hell do you do?”

“I have animals,” Bennett responded. “They’re time-consuming.”

Dallas frowned. “What the hell do you do for work?”

“I’m a veterinarian,” Bennett responded. “Big animals. Cows. Horses. Llamas.”

“Llamas?”

“Llamas get sick too.”

“What do you do around here for fun? Did you...go cow tipping?”

Bennett crossed his arms and looked at Dallas. “Well, I got my girlfriend pregnant when we were sixteen, so I think that answers your question about what we do for fun around here.”

Dallas blinked, and then huffed a reluctant laugh. “Great. But you just told me to stay away from the girls.”

“I didn’t say I recommended that kind of behavior,” Bennett said. “I mean, I got my girlfriend pregnant. And now I’m standing here with you.”

“Condoms, dude.”

Bennett shook his head. “Okay. Too much honesty. Way too much honesty. I’ll get you an Xbox.”

Bennett was a terrible parent already. He was making deals and bargains and buying Xboxes. And he hadn’t even told his brothers yet. Or his sister. Or Kaylee.

Dammit. Kaylee.

She was going to be so mad at him.

“Where’s that bedroom at?” Dallas asked, looking around.

For just a moment a crack in the kid’s bravado seemed to break. Right around the moment when Bennett felt his own beginning to crumble.

“I’ll show you.” He walked him down the hall and opened the door to a room that was fully furnished, and definitely not the kind of thing a teenage boy would find interesting at all. Because it was done up for guests he had never had. Hypothetical ones that he thought someday when he and Olivia had married they might have.

There was a plaid bedspread and a full-size bed with headboard. Art with Oregon landscapes framed on the walls.

Dallas looked around and dropped his trash bag next to his feet. “It works.” He turned to Bennett. “Don’t worry. I probably won’t kill you in your sleep.”

Bennett lifted a brow. “Probably?”

“I’ve lived with a lot of families. I only did that once.”

Bennett had to laugh at that, a forced, short chuckle, because of course the thought had crossed his mind. And of course this kid was calling it out. Because he was just that kind of kid. Hard and direct and more than willing to put himself at odds with Bennett in the interest of not showing any vulnerability.

But it was there.

The very fact that the kid was standing here, and not running off in the woods was evidence of that.

“Can I take a shower?”

“Yeah,” Bennett said. “Bathroom is across the hall.”

“Cool.”

He stood there for a moment, and then looked over at Bennett. “Is there any point in me unpacking this?” He gestured down to the plastic bag.

“Yeah,” Bennett said. “Unpack it. Throw it away.”

He’d get him a new bag. But not now. Not when it would just look like he was giving him nicer luggage for a nomadic existence. No. He’d make sure he didn’t need a bag for a good while.

“I’m just checking. Because if you really didn’t know about me, and you’re really as surprised as you say you are, I figure it’s going to take a little while for reality to set in. And when it does, you probably won’t want me here.”

“I’m going to have you here,” Bennett said.

That was the truth. He was giving him the truth. Want was... He didn’t even know what that word meant right now.

But he had been prepared sixteen years ago to upend his life to raise a child. To put everything aside for the baby he had made with Marnie, accident or not. That it was all happening sixteen years later didn’t matter.

The kid was still his responsibility. And Bennett was still going to lay it all down for him.

Because outside of what he felt, Bennett knew what was right. And even if he couldn’t feel it all, he could still do what needed to be done.

“You’re staying,” Bennett said decisively, resolutely. “Unpack the damn bag.”

CHAPTER FIVE

KAYLEE WAS IN her pajamas when her phone rang. She’d just come inside after riding her horse, Flicka, around the trail behind her house and getting her put away, and was currently sprawled on the couch with her cat, Albus, lying across her chest.

Her heart kicked a little bit when she looked at the screen and saw that it was Bennett.

“Are you having more cow drama?” she asked. “Because I’m getting ready for bed.”

“No, not exactly.”

“What’s going on?”

He sounded...he sounded weird. Not like himself. Bennett was cool and in control, always. He was the kind of guy you wanted to have around in a crisis, and he professionally handled animal crises on an almost daily basis. He was not the kind of guy who ever sounded... Well, whatever it was he sounded now. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Only that it wasn’t him.

“It’s hard to explain. Can you come over?”

Thoughts chased each other around her head like rabid foxes. He was ill. He had some kind of terrible disease. He was quitting the business and leaving her.

“I’ll be right over.”

She hung up and started hunting for something to wear. She put on a pair of ripped jeans and a gray T-shirt that had a logo for the veterinary clinic on it. By the time she had gone to her truck, she had thought of at least three new scenarios, each one more upsetting than the last, for why Bennett had sounded so grave.

Olivia wanted him back. Olivia, who was pregnant with another man’s baby, wanted him back because Luke had abandoned her. Yes, that was it. Luke had abandoned her, and she was asking Bennett to raise another man’s child.

Bennett was a good man. He was a good and faithful man, and he was going to do it.

She was going to tell him not to do it.

Kaylee was completely worked up in a lather by the time she was halfway to Bennett’s place. Ready to fight him over his chivalrous nature. He was not marrying a woman and raising another man’s child as his own. He wasn’t doing it.

She couldn’t imagine anything more terrible.

At least when they had been together at first she had thought Olivia was exactly the kind of woman he should be with. And yes, that had burned. Because Olivia was so different from everything that Kaylee was. And having to acknowledge that Olivia was going to fill a place in his life that he clearly didn’t think Kaylee could fill was painful. Painful all the way through her bones in a way that forced her to clench her teeth to make them stop aching.

But nonetheless, it had been bearable. Bearable because she had thought that Olivia would make him happy.

But this wouldn’t make him happy. This was outrageous.

She pulled her truck up to the front of his house and turned the engine off quickly, hopping down out of the cabin and slamming the door, only to stop once she’d climbed the front steps.

She was just about to raise her hand to knock when the door opened, and she was met by a shell-shocked-looking Bennett.

“It’s Olivia, isn’t it?”

It occurred to her just then that Olivia might have lost the baby. That she wanted to marry him now that she wasn’t tied to Luke. That would be a lot harder to talk him out of. Especially if Olivia was upset and Bennett wanted to fix it.

“Don’t do it,” she repeated. “Don’t take her back.”

“What?”

She blinked.

Right. He hadn’t actually said anything about Olivia. He hadn’t said anything about anything. It was just that all of those scenarios had seemed so possible, and she had latched on to that one so tightly, and turned it over about fifty different times on the drive over.

“Never mind. What’s happening?”

He stepped outside, closing the door softly behind him. “I don’t know how to explain this to you,” he said, his words rough.

“What?” He looked... He didn’t look good at all. His eyes looked like they’d been punched, dark shadows spreading beneath them. “Bennett, you are freaking me out.”

He shook his head and walked down the front steps past her, his boots making a hollow sound on the wood, then crunching on the gravel.

He sighed slowly, heavily, looking upward. She followed his gaze, staring at the inky sky, with the stars bursting through like a candle in punched tin.

“You’re the first person I called,” he said, sounding as if the realization of that was dawning over him slowly. “I’m going to have to talk to Wyatt. And Grant. Jamie. My dad. I’m going to have to explain some things to a lot of people.”

“What? Do you have some kind of terrible disease? Do you have gambling debt? Have you lost the ranch?” She frowned. “Did you lose our business?”

He shook his head. “No. Kaylee... You remember Marnie Claire?”

“Yes,” Kaylee said, and an instant spike of loathing burst hot and insistent through her chest. Yes, she knew Marnie Claire. Bennett’s first girlfriend. Kaylee hadn’t liked her, not at all. Not because there was anything wrong with her specifically, but because Bennett had been so obsessed with her. She’d seen less of him over the months he’d dated Marnie than she ever had since they’d become friends.

He’d told Kaylee before they’d had sex for the first time, a shy grin on his face as he’d confessed it was going to happen that night. And Kaylee had wanted to die. It was the moment that had forced her to realize that she was...jealous. That she wished it were her.

She’d decided very quickly after, sometime during his very messy breakup with Marnie, in fact, that she didn’t want that. She didn’t want to be his girlfriend for a little while. She wanted to be his friend forever. To become veterinarians like they’d promised each other, and work together.

To be something more, better, than a husband and wife. Her parents’ marriage hadn’t made the institution seem all that aspirational.

“There’s something you don’t know,” he said.

“What?” He sounded so very, very grave. Grave enough she was starting to wonder if she was going to have to prove that she was a friend who’d help hide the body.

He lowered his head. “When we were sixteen Marnie got pregnant.”

Kaylee felt like the ground tilted underneath her feet. “What?”

“Marnie was pregnant in high school.”

“Whose baby was it?” The words felt numb and ridiculous. But they fell out of her mouth naturally. Because if it were Bennett’s... It couldn’t have been.

“Mine.”

She was...stunned. She couldn’t even process it. Because there had never been a baby. So how could Marnie have been pregnant?

“Marnie left. She moved away,” Kaylee said.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “After she lost the baby.”

Kaylee’s breath rushed from her body, like it was trying to flee the scene of this very difficult conversation. “Bennett, how did you never tell me any of this?”

“I didn’t tell anyone,” he said. He closed his eyes. “I told one person. I told Cole Logan.”

“Olivia’s dad. He’s the one that knew.” There were implications to that, and she knew it. But she couldn’t sort them out, not right then.

“I was scared,” Bennett said. “I was stupid and I didn’t want my dad to know that I made such a big mistake. I didn’t want him to be disappointed in me. At that point Wyatt was gone, off riding in the rodeo. Grant was getting married, and Dad really wished he wouldn’t. He was still coping with Jamie being a little kid, being a single dad. I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted to be something easy for him. Not something hard. So I talked to Cole.”

“And not me?” she asked.

How weird that a secret kept from that many years ago could hurt. But they’d talked about everything back then. He’d told her when he’d gotten a note from a girl in math class asking him if he liked her, and to check Yes or No. She’d told him about the time she’d taken a cigarette some older kids had offered her, and she’d hated it.

She hadn’t talked about her family, but that was different. The day-to-day things. School, friends, growing up. Hopes, dreams, fears. First kisses and first times. They’d shared that stuff. The parts of her life she cared about, she’d shared with him.

She’d thought he’d shared it all with her.

“I was scared, Kay. Scared of what you’d think of me. I went to Cole because he was the closest thing to an uncle I had. And I was terrified of telling my dad.”

“But wait, why...” It was like the other shoe had dropped straight out of that starry sky and crash-landed between them. “What’s happening now?”

“She didn’t lose the baby,” Bennett said, his voice raw. “She didn’t lose the baby. She lied to me.”

“Why?” She blinked. “How do you know that?”

“Because the baby is a damned fifteen-year-old boy and he is in my guest room.”

Kaylee exhaled. “Dammit to hell.”

“That’s what I said. Well, that’s what I thought.”

“How do you know he’s yours?”

“He looks just like me. He’s the right age. She would have had to go and get pregnant again pretty damn quick for all to match up like this. And with someone who resembled me.”

“Possible,” Kaylee said, “I mean, if she had a type.”

“She lied to me,” Bennett said. “She lied to me, and she lost custody of our son at some point because of drug addiction.”

“Bennett... I don’t even know...”

“Me either. You were the first person that I called. Kaylee, I need you.”

And there he was, standing out under a romantic, expansive Oregon sky, professing to need her, his dark eyes illuminated by the moon, the sincerity in them deep enough to steal her breath. He needed her. But not for what she had always hoped he might. He needed her because his life was falling apart. He needed her because everything was falling apart and he knew that she would help pick up the pieces, no matter how big or heavy they were. Because it was what she did. It was what they did.

He had called her. He needed her.

And yes, she’d just been in the process of trying to fix her narrowed, Bennett-focused world, but she didn’t know how she could turn away from him now. How she could possibly spend less time with him when this was happening.

Dates with nice men who had nicer dogs were important. She needed to go on them because she needed to figure out a way to find some healthier balance inside of herself.

But not now.

Her best friend had just found out that he was a father. A father to a fifteen-year-old, and that child was sitting in his house.

The very fact was like a slap.

Bennett had just found out he was a father.

He was her friend. She needed to get over herself for just a few minutes and deal with the reality of that.

“Where is he now?” she asked, feeling numb.

“He’s in his room. Asleep I think. Or maybe plotting my death, I don’t know. It’s tough to say.”

“Are you okay?” It was a stupid question. She wasn’t okay, how could he be okay?

“I’m not okay,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what to do. I feel like I would be hard-pressed to find a paternal bone in my body if you handed off a baby to me. Much less handing me a fifteen-year-old and telling me he’s my kid.” He let out a long, heavy breath. “I don’t know what to feel. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know what to do with the kid. Much less a kid that’s half a man and all trouble. I don’t know... I don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t have to know right this second,” she said.

She knew he felt like he did. Like he needed to regroup and come up with a plan of attack in five minutes flat without taking more than a second to panic.

It hit her then that his version of that had been calling her.

That she was the one person he’d been able to call when he’d been mired in the feeling of not knowing what the hell was happening in his life.

That mattered to her. That she could be that person for him.

That she was important.

“I kind of do,” he said. “He’s in there. And I have to...parent.”

What would Bennett’s son look like? Her heart stuck then, a dull ache spreading out through her throat. She would know the answer to that question soon.

But Bennett had said that the kid was asleep. Still, suddenly, she was overwhelmed by curiosity. Kind of a morbid curiosity because the idea of seeing a child that Bennett had made with somebody else walking around felt like it would be painful in many ways. But also...amazing in others.

Her throat tightened, emotion expanding in her chest. “I doubt he expects you to just...magically be perfect. He doesn’t know how to be your son any more than you know how to be his father. You’re going to have to...feel it out together.”

“I told him he was staying,” Bennett said. “He’s staying. I don’t know much of anything except that. I know that I want to...fix things somehow. But I don’t know how. I’ve never felt more like I needed to do something and less certain of what that something was ever in my whole life.”

She had no idea what to say to that. “Well, I don’t know what the hell to do with a kid either. But I know that we can figure this out together. I’ll help you with your family. I’ll help you with him.” She didn’t know the kid’s name. He hadn’t said. “What’s his name?”

“Dallas,” Bennett said.

The name was very not Bennett. Not traditional enough. And Bennett had never been to Texas so there was no personal connection to it at all. “I guess it’s too late to change it now.”

He laughed. “Just a little bit.”

Kaylee wanted to be what he needed. But she didn’t know how to be. So she would just be there with him. That she could do. “Can I...can I come in for a little while?”

“For a little while.” Bennett turned away from her and she went after him, following him toward the house on unsteady legs, her heart throbbing at the base of her neck.

Bennett pushed the door open and she followed him in, looking around the clean, well-organized home, which didn’t look at all as if it had been disturbed today, much less like it had taken on a new occupant. Everything was in order, everything in its place, just as Bennett always kept it. Bennett liked to be in control of his world, and she’d always understood the compulsion. Her own home life had been chaotic, and her method of coping had been to close the door on it and pretend it wasn’t happening. Bennett had lost his mother when he was a little boy, and she imagined his carefully ordered life was designed to give him control after feeling so powerless then.

They’d both gotten into veterinary medicine because they wanted to fix. To heal. To help. A small bit of control in a world that offered very little, in reality.

A teenager showing up and moving in was...anything but controlled and orderly.

“I’ll take a drink.”

“Well, I want about ten. Can you drink when there’s a minor in the house?” he asked.

“Pretty sure you can. If not, my parents would have lost custody of me at some point.” She hadn’t meant to make that comment. She purposefully avoided mentions of her parents. Bennett had asked a few times why she didn’t go visit them at holidays, after they’d moved out of town. She’d always been vague. That they drank too much. That they just didn’t get along.

He’d pushed a few times, but she’d always shut down the conversation, and he’d backed off.

“Bring on the alcohol, then,” Bennett said, jerking the fridge open and getting a bottle. He handed one to Kaylee, then took one for himself. Then he frowned. “I’m probably going to have to hide this,” he said.

“You think?”

“Trust me,” Bennett said, “he seems like the type to steal beer out of the fridge.”

“Oh, really?”

“He’s here because he’s been in trouble with the law. Because nobody can handle him. I think underage drinking is probably in his repertoire.”

“So is eavesdropping,” came a rather sullen-sounding voice from the hallway.

Kaylee looked up, and her heart choked before tumbling down into her stomach. He looked just like Bennett. His build was more slight, his hair a bit lighter, but he had the same eyes. And, having known Bennett since he was about that age, it was just like looking at him. Like a carbon copy. She didn’t see any of Marnie in him, and she really didn’t want to, so that felt like a strange and selfish blessing. But he was Bennett’s son. She would be more shocked to find out he wasn’t. If she had passed him on the street she would have thought the same thing.

“Dallas,” Bennett said, keeping his tone even. “This is my friend, Kaylee.”

“Friend?” He looked her up and down. “Just so you know, I’m not in the market for a new mommy.”

Kaylee felt the sting of those words like the crack of an open palm across her face. “Well, no danger of that,” she said, her tone stiff. “I’m just his friend.”

“She friend-zoned you?” the kid asked, directing the question at Bennett.

Kaylee wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. Of course, in spite of her feelings, she kind of had. The only scenario where she could imagine her and Bennett becoming more than friends involved him confessing undying love for her and a desire to get married immediately. The alternative was way too risky.

Well, the real gut punch was that even that insane fantasy felt too risky.

“She’s someone you’ll see around,” Bennett said, choosing to ignore the dig. “Kaylee and I run a veterinary practice together.”

“Okay,” Dallas said, feigning disinterest.

“Nice to meet you too,” Kaylee said.

“Did he really not know about me?” Dallas asked, leveling that angry brown stare at her.

“Well, I didn’t know about you until five minutes ago,” Kaylee said. “And he told me he didn’t either. I’ve known him for a long time. He’s a terrible liar. On that you can trust me. He’s actually kind of a goody-goody. If he tells you something, I would be inclined to believe it.”

“Well, you’re his friend, so you’re biased.”

“It’s true,” Kaylee said, nodding. “But if I thought he was being a dumbass I wouldn’t protect him. Count on that. That’s real friends. Weak-ass friends just tell you what you want to hear. Real friends call you out when you need it. I’m a real friend.”

There was something about the vulnerability that flashed through Dallas’s eyes just then that hit Kaylee in a place she would rather not acknowledge. She didn’t want to relate to this kid, but suddenly she did. Yeah, she had both parents at home, but she knew all about uncertainty. She knew all about what it was like to spend your life walking on eggshells and hoping that you didn’t land on someone’s bad side.

She knew what it was like to live on a system of earning affection. Earning your place. Earning the right to get through the day without getting slapped upside the head.

Not even Bennett knew that about her. But she wondered in that moment if his son might have guessed just by looking at her. Like she had found common ground with him the moment their eyes had met. And suddenly, all that hurt she had felt a moment before over Marnie seemed ridiculous. The kid wasn’t a hypothetical anymore. He was real, and he was standing right in front of her.

A teenager who needed assurance. Who needed to know that he deserved to feel safe. That he deserved to have someone take care of him.

“He’s a good guy,” she said, tilting her head toward Bennett. “You can trust him.”

“Well, this random woman that I don’t know says I can trust you,” Dallas said, his eyes going flat as he looked up at Bennett.

But Kaylee didn’t care. Because he needed to hear it. She didn’t know anything about kids. But she knew about the kid she had been. She knew what she would have wanted to hear. Even if she wouldn’t have been able to believe it or receive it. But it would have sat there. If just one person would have told her that she deserved some kind of stability, it could have helped. Bennett had shown her that. As a friend, he had been constant and steady. And even though she had talked about the tumultuous nature of her home life, he had somehow seemed to know exactly what she needed.

He had given her focus. He had made her feel like she deserved to go for her dream of being a veterinarian. He and his father, Quinn, had helped her figure out how to get scholarship so that she could go to school.

Yes, having someone be interested, having someone be adamant that you could do something, that you could have something, mattered.

“If it’s all the same to you,” Dallas said, “I think I’ll head to bed.”

“I thought you already had,” Bennett said.

“Which is why you were talking about me.”

“Yeah,” Bennett said. “I’m going to talk about you sometimes.”

“Is this more of that honesty that you promised me?”

“Yes,” Bennett said. “I plan on being relentless with that until you start believing me when I tell you things.”

“Good luck. I have about fifteen years of people proving they’re useless liars. I would say that in about fifteen more you could maybe undo that. But I doubt we’ll be speaking by then.”

“If we aren’t,” Bennett said, “then it won’t be because of me. It won’t be because I stop talking. Guarantee it.”

Dallas reeled back, a deep crease between his brows. “Why?”

“Because you’re my son. And that’s how that works.”

The fire and intensity in Bennett’s eyes caught Kaylee by the heart and held her fast. She was useless and hopeless. Hopeless for him, and this only introduced a new way for her to be that.

Bennett was gorgeous to her, always. That was part of the problem. Maybe, if she had some kind of quiet, sweet love for him based only on feelings she could have redirected it. But it was more than that. It was a violent, intense visceral attraction that was physical on a deep and very sexual level.

So sexual it was impossible to pretend it was anything else. Feelings she might have been able to squish into another box. That deep, intense ache between her thighs was very difficult to pass off as anything but sexual attraction.

She’d tried.

And she would have never guessed that watching the man deal with fatherhood would have ratcheted that up a notch. She would have said that nothing could. But Lord Almighty, this did. Bennett full of righteous fury staring down his son. Fury at the world for what it had put him through. Uncompromising with a kind of deep intensity, a commitment that no one had ever offered to Kaylee.

It was more than her poor ovaries could bear.

Every little biological thing inside of her was screaming about the suitability of Bennett as a partner. A protector of offspring.

It was ingrained on a hormonal level. She was powerless against it.

That still didn’t make it less disconcerting.

Somewhere in the back of her brain she felt a little itch.

Michael.

Michael was the itch. She had a date with him next week. She had a date with him next week and she was standing here getting hot and bothered over Bennett.

But then, that was kind of the normal state of things. Exacerbated in the moment, but relatively normal nonetheless.

And again, she was mired in her own stuff and she felt like a tool.

Dallas shrugged, as if he was fully unaffected by the proclamation that Bennett had just made. But Kaylee knew otherwise. She just did. Because whether it hit him today or in five years, he was going to realize eventually what Bennett was saying to him. What Bennett was offering.

It would matter then. When he needed it to matter, it would. Someday when a little bit of that anger had subsided, or when he was feeling particularly angry and his body needed a break from it.

She was certain because sometimes having the friend that she’d had in Bennett, having the support she’d had in his family, had been the only thing keeping her grounded, rooted to the possibilities of the future, rather than those old, ugly feelings of inadequacy. Of not deserving.

And that—she knew—was what all that bluff and bluster was.

Feeling undeserving. Unwanted.

“I’m really scoring points all over the place,” Bennett said, when the bedroom door slammed shut.

“You are, actually,” Kaylee said softly. “You just might be saving them up for later. Want to go back outside?”

“Yes,” Bennett said.

They wandered out to the front porch, and Bennett leaned over the railing, lifting the beer bottle to his lips. “He’s real,” Bennett said. “You saw that too.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry I can’t tell you it’s some kind of hallucination.”

“I was actually almost afraid it might be,” Bennett said, his voice rough. “That I was going to take you in there and he was going to be gone.”

She didn’t say anything. She had the feeling that he didn’t want her to.

“I didn’t want him to be,” Bennett said. “As little sense as that makes... Now that he’s here...”

“It makes as much sense as any of this does,” Kaylee said. “If you felt like you wanted him gone in the next five minutes, that would be okay too, because nothing about this is normal. There’s not exactly a guidebook for what to do when the son you didn’t know you had shows up out of nowhere.”

“I guess not,” he said.

“I just can’t believe it,” Kaylee said, shaking her head. “I mean, now that I’ve seen him I can. He looks just like you, Bennett. And I mean in an uncanny way. It’s like looking at you when we were in high school.”

“He doesn’t look that much like me,” Bennett said, kicking against the edge of the porch rail with the toe of his cowboy boot.

“He does,” Kaylee said. “And it’s everything. The way that he stands, the set of his shoulders. He’s just...you through and through, and he’d never even met you before today.” She sighed. “He’s not as happy as you were.”

“Of course not,” Bennett said. “Because he’s had an awful life, and I’m partly to blame for that.”

“You couldn’t force her to tell you. She lied to you, and you had no reason to think that she would do that.”

“My whole...everything since then...this is why I plan like I do. Why I make sure I have everything mapped out in my head, because I know what happens when you don’t do that. When you just...think of the moment and not the future.”

“I thought... I thought it was because of your mom.” She reached out and touched his arm.

“Partly,” he said. “You know things were hard after she died. We missed her, and Dad didn’t do a great job organizing. Not that I blame him. I had to keep my part of the world organized or it would all fall apart.”

Her heart twisted. “I know. I get that.”

“I know you do,” he said. “And then Marnie got pregnant. I knew that I had let us both down. I just wanted... I didn’t ever want anything like that again. I was young, and sex was new, and I didn’t think. I didn’t think, and I put her through loss and pain. I blamed myself for everything that went wrong in her life. And maybe I still own part of that blame. Because I was dumb. Because I didn’t keep control. I thought of my own physical pleasure over anything else.”

Kaylee didn’t like the way this conversation was going. Didn’t like the way it made her feel like there was heat crackling beneath her skin. Didn’t like how off-kilter she felt. Didn’t like imagining Bennett, her steady, staid Bennett, losing control with a woman.

It made her feel hot all over, imagining Bennett making love with intensity.

Hell, she was about to have a hot flash.

“I’ve never felt anything like that,” she said, the words sticking in her throat on the way out.

Bennett whipped his head sharply to the side, his beer bottle frozen midway between the porch rail and his lips. “You... Never...”

“I’ve never felt out of control. In that...situation. That’s all I’m saying.”

Something caught between them in that moment, and it was electric, intense enough that it was undeniable. It rolled over her like a wave, an ultrasonic wave, sharp and shocky and quite unlike anything she had ever felt coming from him before. Yes, there had been some small moments. Little pops of awareness, of both of them suddenly remembering that they were male and female, and not simply two genderless people sharing a friendship.

But not like this. Nothing like this.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat.

“Nothing good comes of it, apparently,” she said, her throat feeling scratchy.

“No,” Bennett said. “And I’ve made sure it never happened to me again.”

“Does that mean...” She shouldn’t be continuing this conversation. She really shouldn’t. “You didn’t feel that way about Olivia?”

“I never slept with Olivia,” he said, his tone rough.

Kaylee felt like she’d been slapped. This was a lot of weird revelations for one night. “You never...you never slept with her?”

“No,” Bennett responded. “I never did. She wanted to wait until we were engaged. And we never got engaged.”

“I thought that you...” She had spent so much time imagining dark-haired, petite Olivia wrapped around Bennett, had made herself sick thinking about it. And he hadn’t done it. “She’s so...beautiful,” she finished lamely.

Olivia was everything Kaylee wasn’t. Petite. Feminine.

“She was safe,” Bennett said. He took another drink of beer. “I wanted safe. I wanted something that I could plan. I wanted to be able to plan my life. And she seemed like a pretty great thing to plan it around. She felt the same way about me. It was never... We were never in love, we were just hoping to make a good life together. And then I lost her, and now I have a kid. So I give up. I give up on sensible. I give up on control.” He shook his head and took another drink.

She had a feeling he did not give up on control at all. That he was going to try to corral and take the reins of this situation, whatever he said now.

“I see,” she said, looking up, her eyes clashing with his.

She hadn’t imagined it. Hadn’t for one moment fabricated that spark between them. It was there. It was there now.

And then he looked down at her lips.

She felt the impact of that shoot down between her thighs. Good Lord Almighty. Bennett Dodge was looking at her mouth.

Bennett Dodge was having a breakdown. And if he did something with her now, it was only going to be for that reason.

That snapped her back to reality. She took a swig of beer, needing for her lips to be busy so that they didn’t decide to occupy their time with him.

“I should go,” she said.

“Do you have to?”

“Yes,” she said, not quite sure if they were talking over the top of the same subtext. She knew what she felt. She knew what she read here, but apparently she didn’t know much of anything. Bennett hadn’t slept with Olivia. He thought she was safe.

It was a totally different relationship to the one she had thought she had been witnessing. The one where he called her princess. Where he treated her like this beautiful, delicate and fragile thing that Kaylee was so certain she could never be.

This wonderful, deserving little creature that Kaylee knew she wasn’t.

But his relationship with Olivia hadn’t been passionate or physical. All that time she’d tortured herself over it and he’d never been with Olivia. She would never have guessed that.

So maybe Bennett was looking at her mouth because he wanted to kiss her, or maybe he was trying to figure out how much beer she was going to drink, or he was just spacing out because everything was weird.

Whatever, she wasn’t in the space to try to figure it out and she needed to stop trying before she did something really foolish.

“I’m going to have to go over to the ranch and talk to my brothers tomorrow. Will you go with me?”

“Of course I will.”

No matter what was wacky and off tonight, she was going to be there for him. There was no question about that. That was the kind of friendship they had. That kind of unconditional support that he had been the first person to show her.

“Thank you,” he said. She shrugged and set the beer on the porch rail, turning to walk down the steps. And then, Bennett spoke again, his voice heavy. “Kaylee... I really need our friendship right now.”

Those words were so weighted down that she knew in that instance he had felt the same thing she had.

That just made her mad. She had spent all this time subsuming her feelings, and there was one moment of mutual electricity and he was making veiled proclamations.

She’d been guarding their friendship for years. She didn’t need him to go talking about the importance of it. She damn well knew.

“Good,” she said, not offering him any indication that she had any clue what he meant. “I’m glad that I can be your friend. Very glad.”

And with that, she turned and stomped her way back to the truck, not quite sure what the hell it said about reality that the earlier scenario where Olivia was pregnant with Luke’s baby and wanted Bennett back was somehow less complicated than the one she found herself in now.

CHAPTER SIX

EARLY THE NEXT morning Bennett found himself embroiled in indecision.

His son—that was still the weirdest thought it was possible to have—was still asleep, and Bennett had to get to work in the next hour.

He went out and slowly, methodically began to feed the animals. Pepper and Cheddar, his Australian shepherds yipping excitedly at his heels as he navigated the morning chores with all the conviction of a robot performing work on an assembly line.

He didn’t know if he could leave Dallas alone. He thought of the business card that the social worker had left for him. Should he call her about that?

Logically he knew that a fifteen-year-old could handle himself for a few hours, but Dallas had only just shown up and Bennett didn’t know if it meant the kid would run away if he was left unattended. Of course, it wasn’t like he could prevent him from leaving if he wanted to, short of tying him up and locking him in a bedroom, and that was probably frowned on.

He didn’t feel comfortable about leaving him, though. Whatever was technically acceptable and wasn’t, he knew he didn’t feel right about it.

He had to talk to his family tonight. He had decided that he wouldn’t do it until then. Until they had all gotten through the workday and could see each other face-to-face.

But until then, he had patients to see.

Dallas could hang out at the clinic, or he could ride in Bennett’s truck all day. That would work well enough.

Bennett couldn’t think of what they would talk about if they ended up trapped in a vehicle together for the entirety of the day.

He supposed that was a stupid, selfish thing to concern himself with.

But he was concerned.

He walked back into the house just as the clock rolled over to six, and he knew that he was going to be tempting a lot of rage waking a teenage boy out of a dead sleep but he had to do something.

He knocked on the bedroom door and got no answer. He knocked again, this time more heavily, and nothing.

What if the kid had run off in the middle of the night? He should have like...slept in front of the door. But then, he could have climbed out the window.

Dammit.

He opened up the door, and his heart slammed hard against his breastbone when he saw the boy lying on his stomach, his face smashed against the pillow, a little bit of drool coming out the corner of his mouth. His arm was draped over the side of the mattress, his hand bent at the wrist, his knuckles pressing against the floor. He was so profoundly out that he looked entirely limp.

A flood of emotions butted up against some dam inside of Bennett he hadn’t known had existed. And he felt it crack.

Dallas made a croaking sound and sniffed. And the dam inside Bennett burst completely.

It was like being caught between two points in time. He could imagine then, what it might have been like to walk into a nursery when Dallas was a baby, to see him asleep like this in a crib.

But he hadn’t. He had never gotten to see him then.

Were there pictures? Was there a video of him taking a first step? How old had he been?

Had his first word been dada, like so many other babies, but with no dad around to feel like his baby was talking to him?

He had missed that. All of that. And he hadn’t even had a choice. He pressed a hand against his chest and staggered backward, suddenly so overwhelmed with the enormity of the situation that he couldn’t breathe.

This boy was fifteen. He took up the length of this entire bed. There had been a point when he had been no larger than a loaf of bread, and dammit, Bennett had had the right to know him then. To hold him then. But he hadn’t. And Dallas had spent all these long years with no one. Being bounced around, no safe place.

But he had slept easily here last night. He had slept deeply.

Whatever happened today, Bennett was going to take some solace in that.

And he was not leaving the kid here by himself.

“Wake up,” Bennett said. “Dallas, wake up.”

“What?” Dallas jerked up, rolling over onto his back and blinking hard. “It’s still fucking dark out,” he moaned.

“Yeah,” Bennett said. “But it won’t be for long. And I have to go to work.”

“So?”

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“I’m not a baby,” Dallas muttered.

Bennett was well aware of that. It had all been driven home just a second ago.

“Yes. I know. But you are my kid. If you weren’t a kid, they would have turned you loose. But you are. That means I’m the adult. And I make the rules. I’m your dad.” He felt a strange, out-of-body sensation when those words fell from his mouth. “And I think that it would be best if today you weren’t here by yourself all day.”

“Afraid I’m going to steal the silver or whatever rich thing people get wound up about?”

Be∆nnett crossed his arms. “Do I look like I have silver?”

Dallas lay back down, his eyes on the ceiling. “I don’t know what the fuck you have.”

“Well, I don’t fucking have silver.”

He turned his head slightly to look at Bennett. “You shouldn’t use that kind of language in front of me. I’m impressionable.”

“Somehow, I don’t think you are.” Bennett made a jerking motion toward the door with his head. “You’ve got ten minutes. Then be out in the kitchen. I’ll get you something to eat.”

“What do you have to eat?”

“You know what? Nothing good. I’ll take you to Sugar Cup if you can be ready in five minutes.”

Dallas squinted. “What’s that?”

“Coffee shop. Bakery. Food.”

That seemed to get the kid’s attention. Bennett gave him some privacy, and went out and paced the length of the kitchen while he waited. Dallas appeared not four minutes later, clearly motivated by offers of baked goods.

“They better have doughnuts,” he muttered.

“They do,” Bennett responded.

Dallas pulled on a hoodie and zipped it up, throwing the hood over his head and shoving his hands down his pockets. “I never get up this early.”

“I always get up this early,” Bennett said.

Dallas’s lip curled. “Why?”

“I have animals to take care of.”

Bennett pushed the door open. Dallas looked at it for a moment, then at Bennett, then walked out ahead of him.

“What animals do you have?”

“Well, there’s the dogs. I know that you saw them. Pepper, she’s the old lady. And Cheddar, the puppy.”

“Those are stupid names.”

“They’re great names. For great dogs. Anyway, you’ll get used to it. So we’ve got the dogs and then there’s the goats, which are kind of rescue animals. All my ranch animals are. Kind of a hazard of being in this business. When there is an animal that someone can’t take care of, I end up with it a lot of the time. Goats that people were finished with after their property was cleared. Three horses, retired from the rodeo. And a llama.”

“Do they have names?” He was trying not to sound interested, Bennett could tell.

Bennett led the way across the gravel drive over to his mobile veterinary truck and unlocked it. “You would just think they’re stupid,” he said.

“Yeah, maybe I would. But it seems better than saying hey, Llama.”

Bennett shrugged. “Get in the truck.”

Dallas complied. Once they were on the road, Bennett started talking again. “Blanche, Sophia, Rose and Dorothy are the goats.”

“That’s weird.”

“They’re named after The Golden Girls.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

Bennett shook his head. “This is what’s wrong with kids today.” In fairness, Kaylee had named the goats. Kaylee was the only reason he’d ever watched that show.

“I don’t even know what to say to that.”

Luckily, he didn’t have to say anything, because that was right about when they got to Sugar Cup.

“The llama is Candace,” Bennett said. “I didn’t name her.”

He killed the engine and the two of them got out of the truck.

“Okay. At least you didn’t name her. And the horses?”

“Shadrach, Meshach and Lucy. She’s the only girl.”

“Well, at least now I know all their names. But I’m probably not going to remember them. And I’m probably not going to do anything with them.”

“Pepper and Cheddar will force interaction, so good luck with that.”

He and Dallas walked down the sidewalk together, along the quaint little storefronts in the redbrick buildings that lined Gold Valley’s Main Street. None of the shops were open yet—it was too early. Only the coffeehouses and the Mustard Seed diner were open this early. Though, it occurred to him just then that people were going to take one look at Dallas and know they were family of some kind. It was undeniable, Kaylee was right about that. The way that Dallas walked reminded Bennett of Grant and Wyatt, which probably meant that really, he walked like Bennett. It was just that Bennett had never observed himself walking down the street.

It made his heart squeeze tight. Made his whole body feel a little bit numb.

“Right here,” he said as they turned a corner. He pushed the door to the coffee shop open and held it, letting Dallas walk on through.

Sugar Cup was busy, even at this early hour, with tables filled with older people reading the paper and drinking their morning coffee, and the line full of people on their way to work. Ranchers, teachers and guys who worked in the mill out of town.

Teachers. The school year was about over, but eventually, Bennett was going to have to figure out school. In fact, Dallas might need some kind of summer school.

“How are you doing in school?” Bennett asked.

Dallas choked out a laugh. “Um. Not great.”

“Why?”

“Could be the moving around. And also the hating it.”

“Is it hard for you?” Bennett pressed.

Dallas shrugged. “It’s boring. Anyway, there’s no point to it. It’s not like I’m going to college.”

Bennett frowned. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because I don’t have any money, dumbass,” Dallas muttered.

“I do,” Bennett pointed out.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with me. I’m not smart enough to get a scholarship. I’m not like a piano prodigy or really good at football or anything like that. So, I would have to get perfect grades, and I already don’t do that. So yeah. What’s the point of school?”

“I wouldn’t... I wouldn’t make you go to college. But know that you could.”

Bennett had money, his family had it. And he was more than able to take out loans if necessary.

Dallas looked stricken by the information, and not really pleased or excited, or anything that could be construed as positive. “You don’t mean that,” he said.

“I do,” Bennett said, the two of them moving up in the line. “I told you, I’m your dad. That means that you’re my responsibility.”

“And I told you we’re not going to be speaking in a couple of years. You know how I know that? Because nobody that was in my life a couple of years ago still talks to me. Except for Grace, and that’s because it’s her job. It’s because she’s assigned to me and she has to. But believe me, the minute she doesn’t have to deal with me anymore? She won’t. I’m not telling you a sad story, I’m not fishing for sympathy. That’s just the way it is.”

“Not anymore,” Bennett said. “We don’t have to talk about this now. But eventually we’re going to have to figure out how to get you caught up in school. Because you’re going to have options. I know you’re not used to that. But I’m going to make sure you have them.”

Dallas didn’t say anything after that. He occupied himself by studying the case full of pastries, and Bennett did the same. At this point in the day eating healthy seemed overrated. He needed something that paired nicely with the emotional turmoil that came with discovering you had a secret son.

He had no idea what the hell that was, but he imagined it contained a lot of butter.

“Good morning.” Kelly, the usual morning shift worker at Sugar Cup, who never gave any indication that she felt like the morning was good at all, addressed Bennett and Dallas. “What can I get for you?”

“Coffee for me,” Bennett said. “And a cinnamon roll.”

He turned to Dallas and waited. “You’re just going to buy me something?” he asked.

“Yes,” Bennett said.

“A mocha. And a chocolate doughnut.”

“Okay.” Kelly gave them the total, and Bennett handed her his card.

They walked over to the part of the counter where the drinks came out, waited for a few moments and then were presented with their pastries and drinks.

While they waited in line he shot a text to Kaylee to check if she was in the clinic today and if she’d mind if Dallas hung out in the break room, in case he didn’t want to drive around with Bennett all day while he saw to his appointments.

She shot back an affirmative text. “Let’s sit for a minute,” Bennett said, gesturing to the tables. They took their breakfast over to a table by the wall. “I have a couple of scheduled appointments today. I have to go out to some of the ranches and vaccinate some baby animals. Horses, mostly. But if you want to you can hang out at the clinic.”

“What clinic?” Dallas asked around a mouthful of doughnut.

“Valley Veterinary. That’s the name of the practice I run with Kaylee, the woman you met last night.”

“Yeah, I remember the one other person besides you I was introduced to yesterday.”

Bennett pressed on as if Dallas hadn’t spoken. “I do a lot of work outside of town. My truck has all my equipment, so it’s easy to travel around. If you want the chance to see some of the area, we can do that. Otherwise, there’s a break room at the clinic. If you want to hang out there Kaylee will be around if you have an emergency.”

“An emergency? Like blood or fire?”

“Is that...a serious concern?”

Dallas shrugged, which was clearly a favored gesture of his. “Maybe. I’m a problem after all.”

“The kind that sets things on fire?” he asked. “No judgment, but I feel like I should know that.”

“I haven’t set anything on fire.”

“Okay. Good.”

“All right.”

“All right to which?” Bennett leaned back in his chair.

“I guess I’ll go sit in the break room. Not really interested in driving around. We just drove all the way here yesterday from Portland.”

“Right.” Bennett couldn’t decide if he was relieved or disappointed that his kid was opting to not spend the day with him. But they’d only been together for about a half hour this morning and Bennett already felt...taxed. Full of emotion he didn’t know how to sort through and weighted down by the idea he had to be something he didn’t know how to be for this kid. “Okay. And then after that we’re going to go over to my brother’s place. Well, it’s actually my brother’s and my other brother’s and my sister’s place.”

Dallas looked stunned by that. “You have all that family?”

“Yeah,” Bennett said. “And they don’t know about you either. Since I didn’t know about you. But they’re your uncles. And your aunt. I’m going to have to call your grandfather.”

His dad was going to have something to say about being a grandfather.

“I have...a grandfather?”

“Yeah, and he’s married. Not to my mom. My mom is dead. But he remarried a great lady a couple of years ago. They’re down in New Mexico with her family right now. But you’ll meet her. Then, for holidays and things like that. He’ll probably want to make a trip up to meet you.”

Dallas looked surprised by that. “They would?”

“Of course. You’re family.”

“That’s never mattered before. My mom never talked to her family. I don’t even know where they are. I just know they aren’t here anymore. She told me that much.”

“That’s true. Her parents moved away after she left. She left home when she was sixteen.”

Dallas nodded. “I know that much. She didn’t want to be trapped in a small town anymore. She said she hated it here.” He took another bite of doughnut. “She wanted to go somewhere more exciting.”

“I didn’t know she hated it here,” Bennett said.

“That’s what she told me. But I don’t know how much of anything she said is true. And it’s not because I trust you,” he clarified quickly. “It’s just because she’s a liar. She always has been. At least, as far back as I can remember. Because that’s how addicts are. She’s not the only addict I know. Every guy she ever dated was one. They’re all liars.”

A sobering thought occurred to him then. “Are you... Do you have any problems with that? I mean, addiction stuff.”

“Hell, no,” Dallas said, taking another bite of doughnut. “I mean, I drink. Not all the time. But I have. I’ve had some weed. But I’m not messing with meth and shit. I get why it’s tempting. Because it makes you forget. But then you forget everything. Including where the hell you left your kid. I just don’t want that. I don’t want to forget who I am. I mean, who I am isn’t anything all that impressive. And it’s not like I have much of anything. But I’m not going to be a meth zombie.”

Bennett swallowed hard. “She wasn’t always like that.”

“Yeah. She wasn’t like that until me, I guess.”

“I don’t know,” Bennett said. “I figured that I screwed up her life.”

“Yeah, she thought you did too. I mean, you definitely got your share of the blame. But I was part of it. When she would get mad and scream and stuff, she blamed both of us.”

“I’m sorry,” Bennett said. “I’m sorry she treated you like that. And I have to believe that in the beginning that isn’t what she wanted. For some reason, she didn’t want to be here with me. Probably because I wanted to marry her. And if she really did hate it here, if she really did want to get out, she probably figured she was going to have to do it without me. She probably thought that her only hope of escaping this life, and being a rancher’s wife, or at least having to share custody with me, was to leave without telling me. Making me think that she lost the baby. I have to believe that she did it for what she thought was a better life. It’s just that she probably got into the other things that come with finding freedom. And she was too young to have that kind of responsibility.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Dallas shifted in his seat, looking a little uncomfortable. “Either way, I’ve seen too much of it to want it,” Dallas said. “There’s not much mystery in drug use. She would have given it to me if I wanted it. I didn’t want to let her poison me. Didn’t want to let her make me as bad she was.”

Those words burned. They hurt, all the way down. The stuff that kid had been through wasn’t fair. It was all new to Bennett, and he was having trouble processing it. But it was Dallas’s life. And he spoke about it in a matter-of-fact way. Way too matter-of-fact for someone his age. The effects of meth shouldn’t be something a fifteen-year-old was so familiar with.

“I’m glad I don’t have to worry about you and drugs anyway,” Bennett said, his voice sounding like gravel.

“Would you really worry?”

The question was presented as something of a challenge.

“Yes,” Bennett said. “I’m not taking responsibility for you because I don’t care. I do care. If I didn’t, why the hell would it matter to me where you were?”

“I can’t answer that question. I don’t know what it’s like to have a parent care what I do.”

“You will,” Bennett said, the words a promise that came from deep inside of him. He wouldn’t be perfect. He was going to make so many mistakes he felt stupid in advance. But he could be there. “You will.”

* * *

WHEN BENNETT SHOWED up with Dallas in tow, the kid went straight into the break room and shut the door.

“Thank you,” Bennett said.

Kaylee cast a worried look at Bennett. “Does he have a phone or anything?”

“Yes,” Bennett said.

At least he’d have something to stay entertained on.

“I don’t know what to do with a teenager all day.”

She sounded petulant, but it was true. She had agreed to let him hang out, but now that he was here she felt a sense of responsibility she wasn’t sure she could live up to. And if she did something stupid with Bennett’s son and he...ran off or something she’d never forgive herself.

Bennett shrugged. “Put him to work. Give him cages to clean out or something.”

“I only have two animals in kennels right now.”

“Maybe Beatrix will bring you a box of orphaned weasels.”

Kaylee snorted. “There are no weasels around here.”

“I feel like that wouldn’t stop Beatrix from finding some.”

“He’s going to be bored,” Kaylee said, ignoring the weasel absurdity.

Bennett shrugged. “He might be. But he’s the one who said he wanted to hang out here. You don’t have to do anything with him. I’m going to come by lunchtime with something for him to eat. Don’t worry about that. I’ll check in.”

He looked stressed, and she wanted to reach up and smooth the lines by his eyes. Wanted to do something to erase the concern on his handsome face. It made her palms feel sweaty. Made her stomach feel like it was tied up in knots.

Her date could not come soon enough.

She was at that critical point in her Bennett cycle. And yes, sadly, she had a very definitive cycle.

Things would begin to build up. Her attraction would begin to become unmanageable. Her feelings so sharp and intense she couldn’t handle them. And she already knew why she couldn’t act on those feelings. She’d made her decisions. So when she reached that point, she knew it was time to find a guy to date. And so she would.

Depending on how long they dated, it could lead to a real relationship. Which meant that there was someone else to focus some of those feelings on. A man that she could go to bed with at night and be physically close to.

But as she had made the silly mistake of admitting to Bennett last night, they were not men who necessarily lit her body on fire. Still, putting effort into a physical relationship with another man did something to help take the edge off the Bennett situation. It gave her a relief from that hyperfocus she began to feel. From that intense edginess she experienced whenever he was around.

But then, invariably, the newness of the relationship would begin to wear off. The general disappointment of the sex would begin to overshadow the fact that there was sex at all, and the buildup to her Bennett feelings would start again.

Then something would happen. Bennett would brush his fingers against hers, lean in especially close to brush a piece of dirt from her cheek, and her body would nearly combust.

That’s when it would all tumble down on her. That feeling of how pointless and ridiculous it was to sleep with a man who made her feel less with his entire body than Bennett Dodge made her feel with the smallest brush of a fingertip against her face.

She’d have to end the relationship at that point. And the cycle would begin anew.

She had been...somewhat frozen in the terrible part of the cycle for the last year and a half. Because there hadn’t been anyone the whole time that Bennett was with Olivia. And at the same time work at the clinic had gotten more intense, which meant they were together more, and her social life—never all that booming outside the Dodge family—had shrunk down.

Rather than going out on fifty-mile endurance rides with Jamie like she often enjoyed doing on weekends, she’d been melting into her couch, keeping her rides on Flicka short and in general reducing her activities to work and an occasional night out drinking with Bennett and his family or Bennett by himself.

And all during that time she had done nothing but fixate. Nothing but marinate. Trying to force herself to accept that he was going to marry this other woman. Trying to figure out how her life would reshape when that happened.

And then the breakup happened, and it had hit her that she needed to do something to get herself out of the loop.

So here she was, trying to deal. Trying to get that separation that she so desperately needed. To get another man in her life so she could focus on him.

She really needed it to work. She needed Michael to be more than a nice guy. Maybe he would finally be a guy who managed to give her an actual orgasm during sex.

Heat swept over her body, and she did her very best not to think about that too much. Because then it forced her to think about the only ways she’d ever been able to have an orgasm. By herself. With her mind inevitably wandering to places it shouldn’t. To fantasies it shouldn’t.

She needed to get a grip. Preferably on Michael.

And she could give Bennett emotional support in the meantime. Could help him out with Dallas.

There was no other option. She had to do that.

Because she was a true friend. Not helping him out because of her regrettable between-the-thighs feelings would only prove that she wasn’t actually a very good friend. And she wasn’t going to do that.

“Fine. I’ll see you at lunch.”

“Okay.”

He seemed relieved to be getting a break, and she really couldn’t blame him. She sighed heavily and looked around the empty office.

Technically, they weren’t open yet. Though, if somebody came to the door she would obviously let them in. But she liked to use the early morning hours to catch up on paperwork and get everything in order for the day.

She sighed heavily, and then charged toward the break room before she could think it through. He’d said she could leave Dallas alone, but she wasn’t going to do that.

She was going to give this kid a task. He was not sitting back there on his phone the whole day. Why she felt that way, she really didn’t know. But it definitely had something to do with that strange sense of connection she had felt toward him when they had first met.

“Good morning,” she said, smiling a little bit when she was treated to a surprised expression from him.

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Dallas asked.

“Because it’s morning.”

“Too early to be good,” he pointed out.

“And yet, here you are. Awake. And Bennett...” She redirected. “Your dad...” Bennett as a dad. Good grief. “Is that weird?”

Dallas straightened slightly, pressing his hand flat on the wooden table. “Yes. It’s weird.”

“Bennett,” she said, resolute. “I’ll call him Bennett then. Because it’s weird for me too. Anyway, he said that you were going to hang out here today.”

“Because he thinks I need a babysitter,” Dallas said. “Which is ridiculous. I’ve spent days by myself. I think I actually spent a week alone in my house when I was about seven.”

He said the words flippantly, speaking of his neglect as if it were something as routine as going back-to-school shopping. But Kaylee wasn’t fooled. Mostly because she knew how deeply that sort of thing touched you. Knew how it felt when your parents barely bothered to look your direction.

“But you’re not alone now,” Kaylee said.

“But it wouldn’t matter if I was.”

“I think it would,” she said. “And not just because you don’t have the resources to take care of yourself. But because we are made to need people.”

“I’ve never had the time to sit around whining about whether or not I needed someone to survive.”

She looked down, picking at her fingernails. “Whether or not you believe it, I actually understand a little bit. I never got taken from my parents and I was never in foster care, but I understand. Once I moved here, though, I had school. Friends. Bennett is one of them. We’ve been friends for years. His family...your family, they’re good people. They supported me. Invited me to backyard barbecues on the Fourth of July, made me feel like I was part of something. And that was when I really understood what was missing from my life growing up. My parents drink. And they fight. And in general don’t have a lot of time for me.”

Her mother had told her once, in a drunken rage, that Kaylee was a Band-Aid that hadn’t fixed a damn thing. That they’d had a baby to try to fix everything. To make life better. But she’d only made things harder. Worse.

She looked down. “I had to get up and get myself ready for school.” This was one of those things she never talked about. One of those struggles she liked to leave behind the closed front door of her family home, every morning when she left for school. “Nobody was going to do it for me. If I relied on my mother or father to wake me up I would never have made it on time. I used to walk. I’d leave forty-five minutes early so that I could walk to school and get there on time. Anyway. I have a feeling that’s something you understand. Having to depend on yourself. But let me tell you, things got better when I let other people be there for me.”

“I’m not letting anyone do anything. I’m a minor. Which means adults interfere when the law says they have to, and for most of my life I’ve been on my own. Age has never meant a damn thing as far as my mom is concerned. Like I said, she just left me alone sometimes. I had to learn to take care of myself. To survive. And then, because some government agency suddenly notices, I have to go from house to house, listening to new bullshit rules everywhere I go. I had stuff worked out. Now, I had to leave Portland to come live here because this is where my sperm donor is?”

“That’s what I’m saying. You’re going to have to let people be there for you. Because you have a routine. Because you do know how to survive. You’re going to have to figure out what else there is. Past survival. That I know something about.”

“What about...” Dallas seemed to struggle for a moment. “Bennett. His family is good?”

“They are. They’re the best. Bennett’s mother died before I ever met him, but she sounds like she was wonderful. And his dad... Quinn. Quinn is your grandpa. He’s the best man I’ve ever known. He’s strong, and he raised four kids on his own. Not only that, he supported kids that weren’t his responsibility at all. You’ll meet Luke Hollister too. He came to work at the ranch when he was a teenager, and Quinn made him part of the family. Just like he did me. Included me in everything. Bennett’s friendship has been a huge part of my life, and Quinn’s support is probably the reason that I ended up trying for scholarships and going to college. Believe me. All this stuff that you think you don’t need, that you’ve convinced yourself you don’t need... Maybe you don’t need it. But it could give you a whole different life than you ever thought you could have.”

Dallas’s expression was carefully blank. “So, did you just come in here to lecture me on how everything is going to be rainbows and puppy dogs from now on?”

“No. I came in to tell you that you’re going to be cleaning some puppy dog cages, though,” Kaylee said, making that decision on the fly. “I don’t have very many dogs in residence at the moment, but they’re going to need their cages cleaned, and Rufus the mutt is probably going to need to be walked. He’s going to be able to go home later today—he just had a minor surgery, so he’s moving a little bit slow, but some exercise would do him good.”

“I don’t like animals,” Dallas said.

“Why?”

“They’re pointless.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Animals are important. Even if you don’t like them as pets, don’t tell me you’ve never eaten a steak. In which case, you definitely appreciate animals in one way at least.”

“I don’t understand pets,” he said.

“There’s nothing to understand. They keep you company. They love you. You love them.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“Well, you can ponder the merit of dogs while you clean cages.”

“And if I don’t?”

Kaylee shrugged. “I can’t make you. I mean, I can turn the Wi-Fi off, but I can’t make you. And I’m not going to. But here’s the thing. I asked you to, Dallas. I think that should mean something. Because someday you might ask me for something, and you’re going to want me to do it, and I will. That’s community. That’s friendship. That’s depending on people.”

“You’re really not my... Bennett’s girlfriend?”

“Really not,” she said, ignoring the slight tug at the center of her chest. “So, I have no special influence over him. I’m never going to be your stepmother. I’m really just someone who wants to get to know you. And wants to help you figure life out. And someone who doesn’t want to clean up dog poop this morning.”

Dallas stood up, the expression on his face strange. As if he couldn’t really understand why he was doing it. “Okay. Show me where the stupid dogs are.”

“I don’t have any stupid dogs,” she said, schooling her expression into one of total seriousness.

“Really?”

“They’re good dogs, Dallas.”

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Do you want me to clean up the dog poop or not?”

“I definitely do. Follow me.”

As they walked out of the break room, Kaylee smiled to herself. Maybe she was a secret teenager whisperer, or something. She didn’t have any experience with kids, so she hadn’t really expected to find a connection with him.

But she was glad to know that she had.

Dallas mattered to Bennett. And that meant he mattered to her too.

She would do anything for Bennett.

She tried to ignore that thought as it tumbled around inside of her brain, repeating itself throughout the day.

It would be better if she wouldn’t do anything for Bennett. She just needed to break the cycle.

Too bad there was a wrench thrown into her gears.

She looked over at Dallas, who was doing his best to wrangle Rufus. Yes. There was most definitely a wrench. But it remained to be seen what effect that was going to have.

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