Page 18 of A Rogue Cowboy's Kiss

She bit her lower lip. The current in the air had changed suddenly. They were outside, but it felt like the air was vibrating with energy, tension, heat. And to her surprise, she liked it. So she raised her brows. “What’s the question?”

“What’s next for you? Brody and you both mentioned you wanted to get away from the ranch. He isn’t sure you’re ever coming back. What’s up?”

She let out her breath. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “When I came out here and met Maddie and her friends, I felt this…longing? I’m not sure. It just made me realize that I’ve been living in this little world on the ranch, and I wanted more.”

He nodded. “I get that. What do you want?”

She held out her hands, palms up. “Empty.”

He studied her hands for a moment, then nodded again. “You have no idea. You just know you’ve been stuck and it’s time to move in a new direction.”

Relief rushed through her. “Yes, exactly.” She sighed. “I was able to help out with the catering last night, and I loved being a part of all those amazing women, but honestly? I didn’t love cooking. I’ve been doing it on the ranch for so long, it felt like more of the same. Different place, different people, but still me in a kitchen.”

He narrowed his eyes. “No cooking then. Lots of women and female bonding.”

She rubbed her chin. “I guess, yes. I mean, don’t we all want friends?”

“We all want belonging,” he agreed. Hence the reason he wanted to move to the Hart ranch and park himself there. The Harts were the only people he had ever fit. Oh, and the Stocktons, the family that the Harts were now also related to by marriage. “You have the Harts and the Stocktons. Lots of women in the Stockton clan these days. Not enough?”

She grimaced. “I’m sure I sound very ungrateful, and I’m not. I do love them. I have this giant family. I guess I just feel like I’ve fallen into it on autopilot. I never really chose this life. I want something in my life to be something I chose for me, because it lights me up. Like purpose work. Have you heard people talk about that?”

He nodded. “It’s your heart purpose. What you came to this life to do.”

“Exactly.” She sat back. “I don’t have a purpose. I just cook for people paying a lot of money for a dude ranch vacation, and then I hang out on a ranch. I mean, I love it. I do. I love my family so much, and I’d do anything for them, but my heart—” She put her hand over it. “It feels like there is more, and I don’t know what it is.”

He rubbed his jaw. “You’re not a bad person for wanting to find what lights you up.”

“Sometimes I feel like it.” She sat back, gazing across the beach. “I want to wake up in the morning, so excited for my day that I can’t even make myself stay in bed. Do you ever feel like that? So excited for life? Feeling like youmatter?”

“No.” He smiled ruefully. “I’ve been on a journey for twenty years, and it ended yesterday. I have no reason to get up anymore. I don’t know what or who I am without it.”

For a moment, Bella was too surprised to respond. Falcon never opened up with her. Ever. He always kept a slight distance between them, but the edge to his tone told her exactly how deeply he’d just let her in. “What journey have you been on?”

He glanced at the ocean, breaking eye contact. “I’ve been hunting a man for twenty years. I finally found him yesterday.”

She blinked. “Hunting?”

“Yep. A moral justice mission. I couldn’t stop until I killed him.”

She stared at Falcon, shocked, but also not at all surprised. There had always been an edge to him. “You killed him yesterday?” To the outsider, that would be a shocking question, but she was a Hart. They all had pasts, and Falcon was no exception.

If Falcon had killed a man, there was a reason. But regardless of the reason, killing a man in cold blood would haunt him forever.

He shook his head. “No. He was dead when I got there.”

She let out her breath. “Oh, thank God.”

“I wanted to kill him.”

“And a part of you was also relieved you didn’t have to.” When Falcon looked over at her, she smiled. “I’ve known you for a long time, Falcon. You have an amazing, beautiful heart full of love. There is no way you really wanted to kill another person, but you would do what it takes to protect those you love. I’m glad you don’t have to live with that.”

He bent his head, looking down at his hands. He didn’t speak for a long time.

As they sat there, she finally understood why he seemed so different. Hewasdifferent. Whatever had happened with that man had ended, and that left him…lost. Like her. “Is that all you’ve done for twenty years? Hunt for him? Is that why you always disappeared for extended periods of time?”

“Yeah.” He was still staring at his hands. He turned them so his palms were up, and he flexed his fingers. “He knew I was hunting him. It was a game to him. He mocked me. And I kept going. I made a promise. I had to finish.”

Bella slid her chair around, then leaned toward him and put her hands over his.

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