A hand-carved wooden frame sat atop the chest of drawers, holding a photo of Levi and me on either side of Firestarter. He’d already been old and weathered by then, his cowboy hat hiding a mostly bald head with a single ring of gray hair. His visible skin was a deep tan, the color of dirt, even though his feet were as white as cotton balls the few times I’d seen him without his boots. I was only fourteen in the picture—the same age as Fallon, I realized with a start—and yet, I’d thought I knew everything there was to know about breaking and training horses. My hair was a mop, the shape of my cowboy hat embedded into it, with my hat thrown to the ground. I was smiling so large you could almost see my tonsils, full of pride and joy because we’d finally gotten the saddle on the stallion. The giant roan had given us a run for our money. It had taken every trick and both our steady hands to finally break him. And even then, he’d been sneaky and independent. But he’d been a hell of a horse.
It had been twenty-one years since that picture was taken. Sometimes, it felt like I’d barely blinked since then, and in other ways, it felt like I’d lived an eternity. I’d certainly lived a completely different life than the one that teenaged boy had thought he’d have.
What would Levi think of what I’d built?
He’d been around for four years after I’d left, and two years after Dad had passed. He’d asked me repeatedly when I was going to get my head out of my ass and come home, and I’d told him I didn’t have a home anymore.
Those words had wounded him far more than they’d ever wounded Dad.
Our father had invested his time and energy into his oldest son from the day my brother was born. Spencer was his legacy. He’d been just fine with me spending my days with Levi, learning a trade that was good for the Harrington name, but it had been Spencer he’d imparted his personal wisdom to. Maybe it was as much my fault as my dad’s that we’d barely tolerated each other. I’d always been more focused on the horses than the entirety of what needed to be done to make the ranch successful. I hadn’t cared about the cattle or the hay fields. On the other hand, maybe I’d had no interest in them simply because Dad had no interest in me. Was it the chicken or the egg that had come first? I’d never know.
I shifted my jaw side to side and pressed my fingers into the tightness at the joint, attempting to ease the clench sending spikes of pain into my temples. I wasn’t the teenager from that photo anymore. Nor was I the stupid young man who’d knocked up Lauren with pride, thinking I could keep her. I wasn’t even the angry, betrayed brother who’d stormed at Spence when he’d come back to the ranch from Vegas with a ring on the finger of the woman carrying my child.
I’d left all three of those versions of myself in my past. Buried them, just as I’d buried Dad and Levi.
But maybe you could never truly bury the versions of yourself that lived inside you. Maybe you had to meld them together rather than cast them out. Maybe fate was forcing me to do just that, face all my pieces so I could no longer lock them behind a door labeledWarning—Enter at Your Own Risk.
I stepped into the tiny bathroom. A stained white porcelain tub took up a good portion of the room with the shower curtain freshly replaced since I’d stayed here last. The pedestal sink was cracked, and the pull-handle toilet was barely functional. It could have been retro-cozy if it didn’t look so abused.
I dropped my clothes and stepped into the shower, trying to rinse away the day. The memories. The loss and heartache that threatened to rip me to shreds. The desire that still thundered from being so close to Sadie Fucking Hatley.
I had to duck to fit under the showerhead.
The water was cold and smelled of rust and ill-use.
It smelled of the farm.
I turned the water off and stepped out with demons chasing me. I pulled on a pair of boxer briefs and then landed on my back on the bed with my feet hanging over the footboard. When I’d stayed here for the funeral, I’d had a good chuckle at the realization of how short the man I’d looked up to had to have been to sleep without complaint in the little bed. As a kid, I’d thought he was the size of a mountain, and he’d turned out to be just a hill—one that had shaped me, but still a hill.
My phone rang, and I groaned but rolled out of bed to dig it out of my suit jacket. Steele’s number flashed along the screen.
“What?” I asked.
“The man following Sadie Hatley is Nero Lancaster. He has a long rap sheet of possible crimes but nothing that’s stuck. Almost did some time for a protection racket in Eastside LA before he moved to Vegas in the early 2000s. Technically, he owns an investigative firm—not sure how he got his license with his past, but he did. I’ll do more digging to see if Puzo is a client, but I doubt either of them have left behind a record of their business.”
“Where is he now?”
Steele hesitated. “I’d have to tap into some resources you don’t like me using to find that out.”
Meaning we’d have to illegally find the GPS on his phone or on his car, if the man even had any of it turned on. If he worked for Puzo as a muscle-for-hire, he’d know how to hide his tracks. And regardless, Steele knew I wasn’t in favor of bending the law.
“According to Adam, Puzo has land up here in Rivers,” I told him. “He’s beenhelpingthe local businesses. I want to know what that’s about.”
“Well. Damn. I’ll see what I can dig up that’s public record. One more thing. I couldn’t find a flight for Sadie Hatley that left yesterday.”
The warring parts of my body reacted at her name. “She’s here. At the ranch.”
It took him a beat to respond—and it took a lot to surprise Steele. “What? She’s there? Why the hell would she be there?”
I explained what Lauren and Adam had told me about the dude ranch exchange of information, as well as what Sadie had told me about her great-grandmother and the Puzos.
“Do you believe any of it?” Steele clearly didn’t.
I thought about Sadie’s face in the moonlight as she’d told me she didn’t believe in coincidences, but that was what this was. I thought of the way she tasted when I’d had my tongue tangled with hers. I thought of the feel of her body, and the way she’d all but run from me after I’d backed off, and the astonishment coasting her face when I’d suggested we spend a few nights twined together. She was either a hell of an actress, or she was telling me the truth. Or at least as much of it as she was willing to share at this time. She’d held something back. Her eyes had darted away before she’d told me about her great-grandmother.
“I do.”
“You think she doesn’t know the truth about Puzo?”