Page 71 of Rancher's Return

Her mom’s voice softened. “I know. I really want to see you too. It won’t feel like Christmas if we aren’t together.”

Lily was expecting a knock at the door, but there wasn’t one. Instead, the handle turned. The door opened, and her heart dropped into her toes.

Because of course her whole family was stuck. Of course her whole family couldn’t get here.

Except for Colton Carson.

The bane of her existence, the love of her life.

Her stepbrother.

Chapter Two

Colton felt tension migrate up his spine the minute he walked in and saw Lily.

He should be over it.

He wouldneverget over it.

Because the thing about Colton Carson was, he didn’t let go of a damn thing. He kept careful record of every transgression that had ever been committed against him. By somebody in the system, by anyone he had met when he had spent time on the ranch for troubled youths, where he had first met his adoptive father, Buck.

By any kid who had ever been mean to him at school.

Yeah. He kept track of that shit.

He never let themknowit. It wasn’t his style. But he didn’t forgive, and he didn’t forget.

His stepsister, Lily Rivers, was at the top of the list of people who had transgressed against him.

The way she had broken up with him the night of their fall dance senior year had fucking devastated him.

Not because he didn’t have real problems in life. He sure as hell had known enough suffering by seventeen to make grown men cry.

But that was the problem.

He had thought he’d finally found everything he’d ever wanted.

A girl who really saw who he was. Who thought he was worth whatever trouble he came with.

But she had bailed the minute things had gotten complicated. And the worst thing was, he still had to see her. The worst thing was, he had to smile at her, and he had to pretend that everything was all good when it was actually all bad.

It was just that he was very, very good at pretending.

He hadn’t shown her how badly she had hurt him, not the moment she had broken up with him, not ever.

He was good at that. He was good at it from years of being bounced around the system. He was good at it from years of having people treat him like garbage to be taken out to the curb and picked up and dumped at the next waste site. That was foster care, at least that was his experience of it. It was a shit show. And he had gotten real good at being the ringmaster.

He acted unbothered. He acted like he didn’t care.

It made you believe your own bullshit sometimes. Made you buy into the idea that maybe you didn’t care. And that made things a hell of a lot easier.

So he smiled. Because he knew it would confound her. Because it always did. “Lily. Great to see you. No one else is here yet?”

“No,” she said. “Actually, no one else is coming.”

He stopped. He had had dreams like this. Fuck. Those dreams were not anything he needed to think about right now. Those dreams were X-rated. And he tried very hard to never telegraph that he had an X-rated thought about his stepsister... Ever.

Sadly, he did have those thoughts, all the time.

---