He could handle the rude comments. But he’d made it clear he couldn’t handle children. “I didn’t know what to say. I panicked.” He’d never panicked before. When Morgan or Willow cried, he’d always been ready with a goofy face or a funny dance, but this time he’d wanted to offer more. Because as much as he tried to ignore it, this stubborn hope still hid underneath all of his doubts. Maybe someday he could be the kind of man who was worthy of a family. So he’d tried to help, to make things better… and he’d failed.

  “I really appreciate you trying,” Tess said, seeming oblivious to his inner turmoil. “That’s what my girls need. People who try. People who will be there. I can’t do this on my own. All of you are an important part of their lives. Especially since Jace is gone.”

  “I’m happy to try.” Even though he’d likely always fail. “But you should know you really are doing an amazing job with them.” He saw how she loved her daughters, how she always knew what they needed, how she’d given up on anything she wanted for herself to be who they needed her to be. If he’d had a mother like Tess, he might be a different man. He might not be so useless when it came to relationships. He might know something about how to love someone else.

  “Some days I feel like I’m an okay mom.” Her smile weakened. “And some days I feel… well, to put it in Morgan’s terms, stupid. I just hope you won’t be afraid to try again. If you have wisdom to share with her.”

  “I won’t be afraid.” But he wouldn’t be around to share much with Morgan and Willow soon anyway. Last night, he’d talked to his buddy more about the contract gig. They wouldn’t be ready to move on this thing for a month. That should give him plenty of time to fulfill his promise to Tess. After that, he’d be on his way to Afghanistan. The mission would give him the time and space to get his head back on straight. He wasn’t sure how to tell Tess that though. He’d have to find a better time. Right now he had to get to work. “I’d better head over to Kyra’s. Get started on that outbuilding she wants done. I’ll see you around.” He turned to walk away.

  Within a few steps, Tess caught up to him. “Before you go, I wanted to let you know I asked Louie and Minnie if we could hold the town meeting about the shooting situation at the café tomorrow night. They’re happy to host.”

  “Great. I’ll be there.” He parted ways with her and when he glanced back over his shoulder, he caught Tess watching him walk away. Could she tell something was off? Could she tell he had a hard time standing next to her, looking into her eyes? Probably. He’d never been good at pretending. That’s why he’d go back to avoiding her, only spending time with her when other people were around to provide a distraction.

  Silas climbed into his truck and drove away, trying to figure out how to tell Thatch and Aiden about his intention to work for Fletch. It was time.

  When he reached Kyra’s property, Aiden and Thatch were already setting up the tools. The outbuilding’s foundation had been laid by the concrete guys two weeks ago and now they could start the framing. Not his favorite part of the job, but at least they’d be busy when he told them he was leaving.

  “There you are.” Aiden fiddled with an extension cord attached to their generator and plugged in the table saw. “I thought you’d beat us out here this morning since you’ve been so bored and everything.”

  Silas pulled his tool belt out of his truck. “I stopped to see Legacy on my way.” And Tess too. He might not be able to spend time with her, but that didn’t stop him from thinking about her. How beautiful she’d looked in her bright blue coat with the morning sun beaming on her face and making her eyes shine…

  “Or were you having some secret rendezvous with your mystery woman?” Aiden crossed his arms and leaned against his tailgate. “Did she finally call you back or what?”

  Well, hell. And he thought they’d let this go. He should’ve known better. These two loved to give him shit.

  “It was Kyra’s friend from nursing school, wasn’t it?” His friend wore a cocky smirk. “Eliana?”

  “It had to be,” Thatch agreed, walking over to join them. “Come on, bro. Spill it. Did you hook up with her again last night?”

  “It doesn’t matter who I hooked up with at the party.” He’d promised Tess no one would ever find out about them, and there was only one way to get them off the trail. “Because I won’t be sticking around here long enough to start a relationship with any mystery woman.”

  Aiden bolted upright. “I’m sorry. What?”

  There was no easy way to tell them, so he simply put it out there. “Conrad Fletcher got in touch and asked if I could help out on a recon mission next month.”

  Thatch let out a low whistle and Aiden seemed too shocked to speak. They knew Fletch. The ex-SEAL was a legend. Right after an early retirement, he’d started a clandestine freelance business that took on overseas operations that the military couldn’t officially sanction for one diplomatic reason or another.

  “I told him I’m open to it,” he went on when neither of them said anything. “If we can get everything squared away, I’ll be headed to Afghanistan in a month.”

  Thatch exhaled loudly and Aiden marched up to him with a dark scowl. “You mean to tell me you’re going back to that hellhole?”

  He shrugged, downplaying the significance. “I’ll go wherever I can make a difference.” He knew the dangers over there. He also knew he couldn’t stay here.

  “That’s it?” his friend demanded, getting in his face. “You’re just going to up and leave when you have commitments here? What about our company? What about the ranch?”

  Silas crossed his arms, not backing down. “You know as well as I do, Tess doesn’t need us as much anymore. She doesn’t want to need us.” She’d made her quest for independence clear when she’d hired three other ranch hands this spring. “In case you haven’t noticed, she’s hired enough staff now to take on most of the work. And Cowboy Construction isn’t exactly busy either. You two can keep up with the current project load without me.”

  “So you’re saying you want out of the company?” Thatch’s tone struck a calmer note. He seemed surprised, but he wasn’t speaking with the same edge as Aiden.

  “I’m saying that this is what I need to do right now. I won’t be gone for more than a couple of months.” At least that’s what Fletch had thought. “I can remain on here as a silent partner, take a lower percentage. Or you two can decide to continue on without me.” He wouldn’t blame them if they did.

  “I don’t understand.” Aiden threw up his hands. “We fucking lost Jace over there. And now you want to go back? You know how selfish you’re being? I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  Silas withstood his friend’s fury without retreating. If anything, Aiden’s reaction stirred up anger. He’d expected his friends wouldn’t be thrilled, but this was over the top. “Why shouldn’t you be surprised?”

  “Because this is what you do.” His friend glared at him. “You make decisions without even thinking about how they’re going to affect other people. You do whatever the hell you want and don’t consider the consequences.”

  Silas didn’t argue. That’s what had made him so good at his job. He acted. None of them had ever had the luxury of considering consequences in their line of work. “I’m not asking for your permission. I’ve already started the process.” He’d pass the background check no problem. The paperwork was only a formality. “I’ll come back.” But this would get him away for a while. Away from the monotony.

  Away from Tess.

  “I can’t believe this.” Aiden ripped off his tool belt and chucked it into the bed of his truck. “You know what, Silas? Screw you.” He stomped past him and headed into Kyra’s house, giving Silas’s shoulder a hard bump on the way.

  At least he hadn’t sucker punched him.

  Silas watched him go and then turned back to Thatch. “That went well.”

  His other friend seemed to size him up. “We’re both surprised. You have to understand that. Maybe you’ve been thinking about this for a while, but this is the first we’re hearing of it.”

  “Yeah. I get it. Maybe this wasn’t the best way to bring it up.” He’d been trying to get them to lay off on the whole mystery woman thing, but sitting at the café with a couple of beers might’ve been a better venue to broach this subject.

  Thatch came to sit with him on the truck’s tailgate. “You sure you really want to go back to that life?”

  He didn’t know what other life he could ever have. “Not full-time. But I go on one mission. Help out the bigger cause. I have nothing keeping me here.” Except for a woman who considered him a mistake. “I miss having a purpose.”

  Thatch nodded as though he could relate. “You know why Aiden is so pissed off, right?”

  Silas had thought he’d known their friend pretty well, but in his opinion, that reaction had been overkill. Aiden was downright angry with him. Did he really think the three of them would live the rest of their lives in Star Valley Springs working construction jobs? Aiden was moving forward—getting married. Shouldn’t they all be free to live their lives the way they saw fit? “Maybe you should enlighten me.”

  “Because we won’t be there to protect you,” Thatch said, staring out at the mountains. “We were always in it together, Si. The four of us. We always had each other’s backs.”

  “And still we lost Jace,” Silas pointed out. “If something’s gonna happen to me, it’ll happen whether or not you guys are there.”

  “Still… he’s worried about you.” Thatch pushed off the tailgate. “And quite honestly, I am too. This all seems like kind of a rash decision. Does your rush to leave have anything to do with the woman from the party?”

  Silas avoided eye contact. “Stupid question.” He couldn’t get those images of Tess out of his head. He couldn’t live day in, day out, pretending he didn’t want his dead best friend’s wife. “I need to do this. I need more in my life. Come on. You can’t pretend you don’t understand.”

  “No, I do.” Thatch hesitated. “I understand a lot more than Aiden. Kyra changed his whole perspective. Funny how fast you forget what life was like before a woman changed everything.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” But Thatch had had a girl back home when Silas first met him. They’d been pretty serious from what Silas could tell. And then a year later, he quit talking about her altogether. Thatch hadn’t said a word about how the relationship unraveled though. And Silas hadn’t asked. It used to be that they didn’t get too far into each other’s personal business. Until now apparently.

  “Listen, I’m not gonna lecture you.” His friend walked back to the outbuilding’s foundation and started to measure out the chalk lines for the frame. “I’ve actually taken up a new venture myself recently.”

  “Seriously?” Huh. So he wasn’t the only one with a secret. Silas pulled out his tape measure and got to work drawing the lines on the other side of the foundation. “What kind of venture?”

  Thatch paused his work and glanced toward the house like he wanted to make sure no one else would hear. “I’ve been trying my hand at bronc riding. I’m thinking I can compete at the amateur rodeos around the country.”

  Now it was Silas’s turn to be shocked. “Bronc riding.” And Thatch was giving him shit about the dangers of his potential new job?

  “Yeah. I met up with an old bronc-riding legend in Jackson. He’s giving me some training in exchange for work on his house.”

  “So that’s where you’ve been sneaking off to every weekend.” He knew his friend had been busier lately, but he hadn’t gone snooping around to find out what he was up to.

  Thatch hauled over a 2x8 and lined it up. “Like you said, we’re not exactly busy here. I figured it’s time to take up a new hobby.”

  Silas laughed. “A hobby, sure. But I’ve been to those rodeos. Man, you can get busted up pretty good.” He went over to hold the post in place while his friend used the nail gun to secure it.

  Thatch shot him a look. “And you can’t get busted up going back to the Middle East?”

  “Good point.” He dragged another 2x8 into place. It seemed they’d be framing the outbuilding without Aiden’s help today.

  Thatch nailed the board in place. “I want a new challenge too. But I wasn’t gonna say anything until I can actually stay on the bronc’s back for more than a few seconds at a time.”

  Thatch on the back of a bucking bronc? That’d be something to see. “I’ll have to come and watch you sometime.”

  “Not for a while, man. Trust me.” He set the nail gun down on their worktable. “I’ve got a ways to go. But I’m with you. We should all be free to keep moving forward with our lives. Especially now that Tess insists on hiring hands to do most of the work around the ranch.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” It didn’t matter where they went or what they did, the three of them would stay close. They had a bond. If Aiden would forgive him, that was.

  “Aiden’ll come around. Give him some time.” Thatch clapped his shoulder. “We’re great at giving each other shit but not so good at talking about how we really feel.”

  “Yeah.” Feelings had never mattered much to him. He’d kept himself too busy to pay much attention to them. But now… well, ignoring them was difficult to do.

  Thatch picked up the nail gun again and they got back to work. “Hey, I’d appreciate it if you kept my bronc riding on the down-low for the time being,” his friend said.

  “You got it.” Silas held the next board in place.

  “And just make sure you’re doing this for the right reasons.” Thatch shot in a few more nails. “You know? Not because you’re running away from something. Make sure this is what you really want.”

  Silas nodded, but he already knew. He couldn’t have what he really wanted.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Why am I nervous?”

  Tess let out an exasperated sigh and gave Kyra and Lyric a desperate look. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t know everyone in this town.” But for some reason the thought of getting up to speak in front of them all had her stomach tied in knots. She’d thought having a happy hour margarita with her friends before the meeting would settle her nerves, but seeing everyone start to congregate around them made her want to get up and walk out of there.

  “You’ll be great.” Lyric popped a nacho into her mouth, smiling as she chewed. “Trust me. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Easy for her to say. Lyric was a natural public speaker. Her friend did everything with an air of both confidence and elegance.

  “Just pretend we’re all hanging out for a normal night at the café,” Kyra suggested.

  “These are the same people we see every Friday night when we come. You don’t have to impress them. They already think you’re amazing.”

  “But some of them don’t think the wild horses are amazing.” That’s what really had her nervous. She wanted to share what had happened to Legacy, to get everyone riled up about the injustice of an innocent animal being shot, but what if no one cared as much as she did?

  “The people who are against the wild horses don’t matter.” Lyric sipped from her margarita. “We’ll focus on the people who’ll support you and this cause.”

  “Exactly.” Kyra dipped a chip into the salsa. “Stay focused and make sure you include a call to action in your speech.”

  A call to action…

  Tess’s stomach tightened even more. “I hadn’t really thought of a call to action.” What exactly did she hope to accomplish here tonight? “I guess I’d like everyone to be on the lookout. Maybe we could even set up some citizen patrols to monitor the herd so we can prevent this from happening to another horse.” Silas had mentioned a patrol after they’d visited the police station.

  “That’s a great idea.” Kyra’s enthusiastic expression beamed encouragement. “I’m sure plenty of people would love to pitch in and help.”

  Tess nodded while she watched Thatch and Silas file in through the door. When Silas made eye contact, she immediately looked at the table and picked up her margarita. “Where’s Aiden?” she asked Kyra.

  Directing her gaze across the room to where Silas and Thatch were ordering a beer, her friend leaned in. “Something happened between him and Silas. I’m not sure what, but yesterday he came storming back into the house when he was supposed to be helping those two frame my new barn.”

  Panic gripped Tess by the throat. “What happened?” He hadn’t found out she’d spent the night with Silas, had he? Oh dear God. That would be so bad. What would her brother think if he knew she’d fallen into bed with Jace’s best friend? “Why were they fighting?”

  “I have no idea.” Her friend’s mouth pinched in frustration. “He wouldn’t tell me. He only said he didn’t want to be anywhere near Silas right now.”

  That didn’t sound good. Tess unzipped her sweatshirt and slipped it off her shoulders, letting it hang on the seat behind her. She opened her mouth to ask more questions but thought better of it when she saw Thatch and Silas walking toward their table.

  “Evening, ladies.” Thatch tipped his cowboy hat. Not surprisingly, his gaze lingered on Lyric much longer than it did on her and Kyra.

  “Ready for the meeting?” Silas had focused on her.

  Every time their eyes connected, heat clouded her face. “Um. Yeah. Sure.” She darted her gaze back to her margarita and took a sip. Was she looking at him too much? Not enough? Would others notice something awkward between them?

  “Why isn’t Aiden with you?” Tess asked, pretending to study her phone.

  “He’ll be here,” Thatch said quickly. “I think he was finishing up some paperwork at the office.”

  Silas remained quiet but she noticed his frown. Another jolt of panic shot through her. He knew. Her brother knew. What else would get between those two? They were best friends. Always giving each other a hard time but only because they loved each other like brothers.

  More people had started to arrive, some ordering drinks at the bar, others chatting at tables. But she couldn’t focus on the meeting until she knew what was up with her brother.