Page 8 of Rancher's Return

Finally, they pulled up to a very nice-looking, newly constructed ranch house backed by the mountains and pine trees.

“Well,” she said.

And that was it. Because she didn’t want to compliment the kid.

There was a gorgeous, brand-new truck sitting in the driveway too. So he was a rich kid. Likely why he thought he was entitled to whatever he wanted.

She felt no small amount of irritation regarding that.

She and Colton got out of the car, leaving Lily in the back seat, and Marigold walked up to the front door, Colton slowly trailing behind her.

“You can go ahead and knock,” she said to him.

He did, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. She felt right then like her mom powers must be functioning at a really high level, because truly, this kid hadn’t had to do a single thing she said, and he didn’t especially look like he wanted to, and yet he was obeying.

She appreciated that she incited this level of fear.

She heard heavy footsteps on the other side of the door, and then it jerked open.

And her heart tumbled down all the way into her toes. Because she knew this man. This man standing in front of her with a tight black T-shirt, a cowboy hat and an expression too grim to be real. He was still outrageously handsome, but he had settled into his looks. No longer a smooth-faced, cocky teenage boy, he was weathered now. He was...

He was gorgeous.

He was also the man who had nearly torn her family apart. The man who had been the source of her unfettered teenage hatred.

Buck Carson.

The man who had killed her brother.

Chapter Three

Well it wasn’t every day that a man ran into a living, breathing, potentialmea culpa. But he supposed it was more common when one had committed sins on the level that he had, and when one had returned home, back to the scene of those sins, after twenty years.

It almost felt like poetry to see Marigold Rivers standing on his doorstep. What he didn’t understand was why she looked shocked to see him, and why she was standing beside Colton.

“Can I help you with something?”

She was sputtering, like a fish that had been hauled out of the river by an angler’s hook and flipped up onto the banks.

“I... I didn’t expect to see you.”

“I didn’t expect to see you either, Marigold.”

Her cheeks turned a very particular shade of crimson. The last time he had seen her cheeks lit up in red, she had been shouting at him. Full-throated, on the street. The angriest teenage girl he had ever seen, yelling at him about how he was responsible for her brother’s death. It had felt good in a way. Because she had said what he felt was the truth when everybody else was dancing around it. She had finally taken the knife and twisted it, and he had exulted in the pain. Because it had been exactly what he needed. A good scouring, a flagellation much harder than the one he had been giving himself.

It had been the catalyst to him deciding to leave. Because his poor mother had also been standing by his side, because she had been through enough, and he knew she felt like the family she had worked so hard to rebuild after the death of her daughter was fracturing.

And it was his fault.

He hated himself for it. And so, after that scene, he had hauled his ass right out of town.

In many ways, he had found a certain kind of salvation thanks to Marigold.

He doubted she would want to hear that.

“I didn’t know you were back in town.”

“Really?” He frowned. “I’ve been back about a month. I would have thought the rumor mill would’ve been going pretty strong.”

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