Page 69 of Rancher's Return

That had been the smart thing to do, all things considered. The responsible thing.

And anyway, she had been so certain they were young, and they would find other people, and that would be that.

It should’ve been that.

That was the problem.

Well, the real problem was that nothing had faded. Time hadn’t pushed the way that Colton made her feel into the recesses of her memory. So every single time she had to gear up to do a big family thing, she felt...

Like she was being skinned alive.

She didn’t need to ponder that now. Not while she was driving on extremely slick and windy roads. It was so cold. Usually the coast was a bit more temperate in Oregon, but it was freezing, and so were the roads. It had started snowing when she was inland, and she’d paused to check the weather in Lone Rock, where her parents were coming from, and had seen that it was snowing there too.

It was a little more festive than she was looking for.

She turned up the radio and started to sing. Trying to drown out the intensity of the feelings rolling through her.

She was twenty-three. She really should be over it by now.

Colton had moved back home after graduation. He had gotten a house in the mountains near his dad and her mom and was working on their ranch.

She had decided to stay in Eugene. She had gotten a job there as a researcher, and it was decent work. She had aspirations of someday reinvigorating the museum in Lone Rock and working as an archivist there, but that was a someday fantasy.

And she would have to contend withhimif she moved home.

Of course, she would be closer to her mom, to her other two stepbrothers and to her little half brother and sister, who had been born during her first and last year of school.

It wasn’t anybody else’s fault that she couldn’t get over him. It was dumb. Because it wasn’t like she was in love. How could you ever call something like that love? It was juvenile. It was...Hewas... She was going to calm down.

She was very chill. Of course she was.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she pulled up to the family beach house, because the road conditions had been slowly twisting her nerves.

The ice. Definitely. The twisting wasnotdue to thinking about Colton.

The house itself was practically a tourist attraction. Strange though it was. But legendary country music star, Tansy Martin, was Lily’s aunt by marriage and had written her breakout hit there. Which happened to be a devastating breakup anthem about Lily’s uncle by marriage. It was a whole weird thing.

The family often went to the house at Christmastime, and this year was no exception, although only her mom, stepdad and stepsiblings and half siblings were coming. Only. Like that wasn’t a massive and significant number of people.

The house was beautiful as ever. A glorious two-story home with stunning views of the Pacific Ocean, the majestic rocky Oregon beach below, the waves against the rocks deafening, even from where she sat in her car.

She could see a tree through the window, twinkling brightly, and Christmas lights going strong all around the outside. Her parents always had the house decorated for their arrival, and it gave her a profound sense of homecoming, even if it wasn’t her home, technically.

It was traditional. And lovely.

She was the first one there, which was somewhat blessed. It gave her a chance to gather her thoughts. To get her emotions together. Sometimes, when she thought about Colton, she imagined her feelings bubbling up, boiling over, and she just needed to turn the heat down on them to get them back in their proper place. She imagined herself doing just that. Turning down the heat on the burner. She took a breath, then another. She got out of the car, and the mist enveloped her, the scent of the sea. She took another breath.

She was regaining control of herself. She was finding her center.

She did not have to think about what it had been like when she used to make out with Colton.Beforehe had been her stepbrother.

Really, it was just bad luck. How many people did that happen to? Meet a guy, get bowled over by your chemistry, have your parents end up falling in love.

She sighed and took all her things out of the trunk of her car, one bag with all her supplies and another with all her presents for her family, and closed the back of the car, heading toward the house. She entered the code and retrieved the key from the lock, letting herself in and taking a breath of the pine-scented air.

It really wasChristmas.

She walked slowly up the stairs and cracked open the door to her bedroom, which was just as she had left it last time they’d been here. Her dark red bedspread, velvet and seasonal, was spread out on the mattress, with round, fat pillows propped up against the headboard.

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