Laney tried not to drink in the tall, dark, handsome sight of Graham Whittaker. She’d spent entirely too many days of her life doing exactly that.

“I did not abandon you,” he said in a calm, clear voice. “I had a crazy week in—Look. It doesn’t matter. I’m still as committed to this as ever.” He gestured between the two of them, and Laney had to admit she liked the way the words sounded.

“This has nothing to do with you going to New York,” she said.

Confusion crossed Graham’s face, and his nose and cheeks were pink from the cold. She wondered how long he’d been outside, if he’d wandered around the ranch looking for her. She’d never told him she was coming to the cabin.

“Then what’s it about?” he asked.

“I’m…I’m not ready for a relationship.”

An edge entered his eye that spoke of suspicion. “I don’t believe that.”

“You can believe what you want.” But her voice wavered a little, and he heard it. Graham wasn’t stupid, that much was certain.

“Laney.”

She loathed how he said her name with that note of condescension, as if she were being unreasonable.

“No,” she said, the word exploding out of her mouth. “No. You don’t get to ‘Laney’ me.” She drew herself up tall and determined to say what she should’ve told Mike all those years ago. What she should’ve done with Graham from the beginning. Bailey would probably cry for days and stop talking to Laney, but she pushed those thoughts away. She couldn’t make huge life decisions based on what her six-year-old thought about the handsome cowboy.

“I am worth your attention,” she said. “I deserve to be your first priority. I know you can’t give that. I know it’s probably selfish and unfair of me to want it.” Her emotions clogged her throat, but she pushed her voice past them anyway.

“But I do want it. And I’m tired of making excuses for you and everyone else for putting me second, or third, or last.” Her chest shook; her stomach quaked. She was going to cry—again.

“I deserve explanations when I ask questions, not when you have time to give them. Bailey and I deserve someone who’d going to love us, take care of us, and put us first.” She shook her head and swiped angrily at her eyes. “So this has nothing to do with you physically going to New York. This has to do with you not being able to make a phone call when you said you would.”

“I’ll make the phone calls,” Graham said, his voice as broken as Laney felt inside.

She looked right into those dreamy eyes and wished she could erase his pain. “I don’t need them now, Graham. I can take care of myself and Bailey. And while I was hoping for a partner, a friend, to lean on, I don’t need it. I can do it myself.”

And she could. She would.

Graham stood there, and Laney really couldn’t afford to heat the wilds of Wyoming. “Goodbye, Graham.” She slowly closed the door, the click of it when it latched one of the most horrifying sounds she’d ever heard.

She expected the beast in Graham to pound on the door again, call something through the wood, insist she listen to him.

Nothing happened, and when Laney finally got the nerve to peer through the window, she found him trudging down the lane, his shoulders slumped and his head bent.

She embraced her old friend misery, stumbled into the kitchen to retrieve a couple of cookies from the freezer, and collapsed onto the couch to stare at the TV without really seeing.

The next morning, Jake was waiting in his truck near the barn when Laney arrived. He was fifteen minutes early, and Laney lifted her hand in greeting, a bit of trepidation tugging through her. She probably should’ve told someone that she’d hired the ex-con.

Her list was short, and had gotten shorter with the departure of Graham from her life. Sadness filled her. Even when she couldn’t kiss Graham, she could still talk to him. Joke with him. Talk about the past with him.

Now, it felt like she’d lost a lifelong friend and her boyfriend.

“Morning, Laney,” Jake said, coming toward her with an eager smile on his face. “Thank you so much for hiring me. I won’t let you down.” He shook her hand, his bright blue eyes reminding her so much of Bailey’s.

A rush of relief spread through her, and she nodded toward the barn. “You’ll mostly work in here. I have thirteen horses that need fed. Two barn cats and two barn dogs. They can run around while you work in the stables. But they have to be put back in before you go. It’s too cold for them outside.”

Jake nodded, his cowboy hat old and torn along one side. He asked questions and nodded as she gave directions. She worked side-by-side with him, told him about the cattle and how he’d go out and check them every other day. She used a four-wheeler for that, and the corrals weren’t that far away.

“I’ll check them on the other days,” she said. “We watch for sickness. I’ll give you something to read. Is that okay?”

“Sure, I can read.”

She cocked her head at him. “Of course you can. I just wondered if you’d have time with your other job.”

“I’ll have my dad help me.” Jake gave her a friendly smile, and Laney moved on to the chickens.

“These are Bailey’s favorite animals,” she said. “They hardly lay any eggs in the winter, but every once in a while you’ll find one. They should be checked so they don’t get nesting sores.”

Laney finished the tour and the chore list, gave Jake the booklet on cattle diseases and sicknesses that were common in the winter, and headed back to the cabin. Her mother had been there to get Bailey for school, as the girl and her backpack were gone and a loaf of still-warm banana bread sat on the kitchen counter.

Laney touched it with reverence, knowing it was a symbol of her mother’s insomnia that had struck particularly bad since the death of her husband. It would make great French toast tomorrow when Laney would be home with Bailey in the morning. She could make breakfast and drive her own daughter to school, and the thought made Laney smile with true joy, something she hadn’t done in a while.

She cleaned out the fridge, gathered all the dirty laundry, and went into town to get errands done. She visited the Laundromat first, then the grocery store, then the bank.

When she walked through the doors, she realized she should’ve made the bank her first stop, because she wasn’t sure she could keep her emotions in check while she begged for money.

It’s not begging, she thought, glancing around. She hadn’t been inside the bank for a few years, not since she’d had the deed for the ranch redone to have her name only and all the mortgage documents had been reprocessed.

“Do you need help?” A man approached, wearing a dark suit and his hair swept to the side with quite a lot of gel.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I’m wondering about a loan.”

“I can help you with that.” He extended his hand for her to shake. “My name’s Chris. What do you need a loan for?” He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, walking back toward a big desk that seemed entirely too impressive for a simple loan application.

“I own Echo Ridge Ranch,” she said as he gestured to a chair. “And I need money for a new furnace and for payroll for my only employee.”

“Small business loan,” he said, taking a seat behind the ginormous desk. He bent and opened a drawer, pulling out a few sheets of paper. “We do small business loans for improvements, expenses, all of it.” He pushed the papers toward her, and she could’ve sworn he had a manicure. She’d never seen a man with such clean, crisp hands.

She stretched across the desk and collected the papers. “Should I take these with me, and bring them back?” She could do it in the morning when she brought Bailey to school. Maybe spend an hour with her mom before the bank opened. Laney couldn’t imagine such luxury, and while she still had plenty to do around the ranch, having someone take four hours of work in the morning had relieved a massive burden from her shoulders.

Maybe with Jake’s help, she could get more crops planted, put up more hay, and still be able to sleep and mother.

Hope filled her chest, and she reached for a pen. She was going to fill this application out right now and get things started. She could pick something up for dinner to save time, and enlist Bailey’s help with the evening chores, and maybe she’d be able to get actual rest tonight when she slept.

Forty-five minutes later, Chris had answered all her questions, had her forms, and had promised to call her the moment her application had been processed. “Twenty-four to forty-eight hours,” he said as he shook her hand again.

Laney went home and unpacked everything, folded laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, and promptly went back into town to pick up Bailey.

Every time she drove by the lodge, Laney couldn’t help looking at it. Couldn’t help imagining what Graham might be doing behind the decorative double doors, and what Celia might have cooked up for dinner.

This afternoon, three cars sat in the lot that hadn’t been there earlier. Probably his housekeeper, his chef, and his interior decorator. A flash of jealousy made her throat tight and her foot heavier on the accelerator.

She couldn’t change Graham. He’d always done what he wanted to do, and she couldn’t expect him to change for her.

“Too bad you fell in love with him before you figured that out.” Laney had never admitted it to herself, but it hadn’t taken long for him to nestle into the soft places of her heart, what with socks on Christmas Eve, and incredible hospitality, and a family spirit she longed for in her life.

Mike hadn’t ever provided a strong inclination toward family life, and Laney had changed every diaper and given Bailey every bath. But Graham wanted children, and she could imagine him as a caring, attentive father.

“When he’s not working,” she muttered, putting Whiskey Mountain Lodge in her rear-view mirror. She’d get over Graham. She had once before. But as she waited outside the school for Bailey to come out, she thought she might be in too deep with Graham to ever truly get over him.

She couldn’t stop thinking about him and all the things he’d promised they’d do. Snowshoeing, horseback riding, swimming in the pool at the lodge. For a few days there, maybe a week, perhaps two, she’d thought her life could change. She’d thought she and Graham could have a real shot at a future together, a life of happiness, a family with a mom and a dad.

Sometimes her fantasies could get away from her.

“But not anymore,” she told herself as she saw Bailey skipping toward her. She sat up straighter and put a smile on her face for her daughter. She’d keep grinning until it became genuine. Until she’d caught up and then gotten ahead on her financial obligations. Until her heart stopped hurting.