Page 59 of A Reckless Memory

When I glanced down at her, I could’ve stopped and lost myself in her luminous eyes. They were bottomless and open. She’d never hid her feelings, not from me. I hadn’t realized how much she’d closed herself off over the years until now. “You mean when you claimed to get snowed into the cabin, and we spent three days in bed?”

She giggled. “I guess I know now why Daddy wasn’t pissed you missed helping move snow.”

“Eliot was spittin’ mad.” We hadn’t been able to trudge through the drifts to get to the main house thanks to the wind that had kicked up for a solid forty-eight hours. Too risky. But while we’d been lazily fucking the snow days away, her brothers had been moving tons of snow and rescuing animals. The house and shop and barns created enough of a windbreak they could actually work.

“Eliot’s always upset about something. I wish he’d find a way to be happy.”

“Working for Barns can do that to a guy.” All of my bosses over the years had been similar to Barns. Gruff, growly, and controlling. I was easygoing enough to handle those personalities. I just realized too late those types of employers wouldn’t give you a hand unless it was on their terms.

I opened the passenger door and helped her in, sliding a hand over her bottom and grinning shamelessly when she lifted a brow. I hopped in the other side, shaking snow off my head and shoulders.

Aggie finished buckling. “It’s not just that. I don’t know. He’s not the same carefree brother who used to climb bales with me. I guess none of them are. I wonder if Mama was afraid to see them all turn into Daddy.”

She hadn’t drunk enough to get morose, but Aggie didn’t do sullen when she was tipsy.

More likely that she didn’t have anyone to talk to about her mama. The woman had died before I’d come along, and Aggie’s brothers got dark and moody whenever she’d been brought up by Barns or the people in town.

“Did your mama change?” I asked as I pulled out of the parking lot, going slow and peering through the wipers. “When she was on her own, was she different than when she lived at home?”

“She never saw the ranch as home.” Aggie rubbed fog off the passenger window. “Meg was a lot like her. Mama wasn’t as snotty, but she had the same distaste for living so far away from a bigger population. She felt stuck, and I think Meg... I think she would’ve either talked Cody into moving, or she’d have left too.”

“It’s not a life for just anyone.”

“I think that’s what we didn’t understand. We wanted that life. The freedom. The horses. The cattle. The challenge.” She drew a little smiley face in the condensation on the passenger window that refused to stay wiped away. “What was freedom for us was walls for Mama. The guys didn’t understand that. I didn’t either until...”

Until she’d been willing to settle for a career I wanted.

She drew curly hair sticking up from the smiley face with her fingernails in the condensation that was turning to frost. “Theo’s a real drip, isn’t he?”

I barked out a laugh, accidentally jerking the wheel, and the pickup felt light as air for a moment. Nothing happened, and the next second, it all was normal again. Scattered fucking ice. I clutched the wheel. “Shit.”

“Aren’t you in four-wheel drive, slick?”

“One, yes.” I pointed at the windshield, where the snow was getting heavier. “The temperature’s dropping. And two, Theo is not who I would’ve pictured someone like Vienne with.”

Her attention burned into me. “Vienne’s a lot like the women you used to date.”

There was no censure in her tone. Only observation. Vienne was attractive in a way that I’d notice but could move on from in a heartbeat. She didn’t capture my attention, and over the years, it’d been harder for women to stay on my mind for longer than our initial conversation. “All except for one, and that’s the one who tied me in knots.”

Aggie clucked her tongue against her teeth. “You are slick.”

“I’m being honest right now, Ags—and you were spying on me for the last ten years.”

“Maybe a little.”

I concentrated on the road, holding in my smug grin, but she wasn’t the only one with a confession. “I did the same.”

“Thanks to Daddy?”

“Barns liked to talk about himself, and I didn’t want to ask him about you and get his gears turning. So I did the checking myself.” I gave her a pointed look. “Penley? Really?”

She winced. “Don’t remind me. Theo made me think of him, but I don’t know whether Theo is ambitious enough to stalk Vienne if—hopefully, when—they break up. I know we’ve only known them for two hours, but I hope she ditches him.”

“Small towns don’t have the biggest dating pool. What happened with Lawson?” Yeah, I’d fucking spied on her. And with the few guys who’d made it into her social media accounts, I’d wondered if she was happy. If the couple I saw in her old photos was genuine. Because she’d seemed posed like the pictures were meant to taunt an ex who regretted his fuckup more each year.

“Lawson called me cold.”

“Unless he’s talking about your hands when you crawl into bed, he’s full of shit.”

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