Dale Buckman’s truck slid smoothly down the highway on the way to Oklahoma City airport. Dale wasn’t one to flash his money around needlessly, so it was a working truck a few years old, but mechanically it was in perfect shape.

Beau stared out the window, clutching the container of cookies on his lap. After an hour or so, Dale reached over and shut off the radio. Beau turned to look at his dad.

“Son, what in the world is bothering you? I haven’t seen you so down since…since…” He frowned. “Well, I’ve never seen you this down.”

Beau shrugged. Then rolled his eyes at himself. He was almost thirty and he was acting worse than Fiona. His parents didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. “I’m sorry. Just got a lot on my mind.”

“Hmm.” His father opened a pack of gum, took one out, and then held the pack out to Beau. He took one out of habit. Ever since his father had quit smoking, he’d been a big gum chewer.

“Not that we’re not thrilled to see you. Heck, I wished you’d come home for good, but you know that. I know we don’t talk much, and that’s my fault.”

What? “No. Dad. I’m shit at keeping in touch. Always have been. I guess I just never learned how.”

“I don’t know, sometimes I think I should have fought harder to keep you home. There are fine schools in the States. At least you could have come home more often.”

“You didn’t want me to go overseas?” This was news to Beau.

Dale shrugged, taking both hands off the wheel to do it. “Why would I want my only son to live an ocean away? But you had your heart set on it. And your mother was so excited. I never could say no when you ganged up on me.”

“You missed me?” Sure, his father told Beau he missed him every time he came home. But Beau always came to him. “You never even visited me.”

“Yeah, well.” Dale rubbed the back of his neck, dislodging the cowboy hat Beau couldn’t remember seeing him without. Beau had never been able to get the hang of wearing them in the truck. They always knocked against the headrest.

Dale stared out the windshield. Was that a blush? Was his father embarrassed about something? “Did you like it?” he asked. “Boarding school?”

Beau heard the underlying question. Did I do the right thing?

“I loved it, Dad. I’m grateful I had the opportunity. But I missed you. Why didn’t you come visit me?” Beau held his breath waiting for the answer.

Dale muttered something.

“What?”

He sighed. “I said, I’m afraid to fly.”

“What?” Beau’s brain was stuck. It was all he could say.

“D’you ever see me get on a plane, Beau-boy?” Dale asked.

Now that Beau thought about it, no. He had never known his father to fly anywhere. “I thought you just liked to drive a lot.”

Dale shook his head sorrowfully. “I can’t fly. I hate planes. Terrified of them. Been to a half-dozen therapists and a couple of hypnotherapists. None of them did any good. Your mother thinks I have some past life issues. Says maybe I died in a plane crash last time around.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was embarrassed. You were a great flyer from birth. You loved traveling.”

Beau was having trouble thinking. “I thought…I thought you didn’t…” And speaking apparently.

“Ah, damn it, son. I’m sorry. You seemed so happy. And you were such a private kid. So hard to get to know. I thought you knew. I love you. I missed you all the time. I’m sorry I never told you.”

Beau felt like he’d been kicked in the chest by a horse. “What about mom? Why didn’t she come to my hockey games in school?

“She did when you were little.” It was Dale’s turn to look confused. “She’d go over before Christmas break to catch the games and then you and her would go gallivanting around Europe. You must remember that.”

Oh. Beau searched his memory. “Oh. I do remember that kind of. Mostly I remember being so excited to see her and go somewhere fun. But she stopped as I got older.”

“Beau, Maggie can’t be jetting off to Europe every week to watch you play a game. You knew that.”

“We have the money.” Beau knew he was sounding like a brat again, knew he was trying to find any reason to hold on to the decade-long resentment he’d build up.

For the first time, Dale looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “We have the money because we run a business. A business your mother is a vital part of. A business she loves. Not more than she loves you, of course.”

He shifted lanes to get around an Oldsmobile doing ten miles under the speed limit.

“College?” Beau asked. “That was in the States. Not right around the corner, granted, but closer than Switzerland.”

Again the look. “You flat-out told her not to come after the first season. Said you wouldn’t be playing much because you were on the fourth line or some such thing. Truthfully, it didn’t seem like you cared much about it. We were surprised when you kept at it after college.”

“I love hockey,” Beau said automatically. It’s what he’d been telling himself for years. It’s why he had sacrificed a chance at a normal life for a game, wasn’t it? Or could there be another reason?

His dad raised his eyebrows, his hat drifting up with the motion. “Could have fooled me. I know what people are like when they love something. They can’t shut up about it. Every time your cousin Charlie is around lately all he talks about is Argentinian cattle.” His dad gave him a strange look, his eyes dropping down to the plastic tub Beau was clutching so tightly, his fingers had red lines in them from the lid.

“Kind of like I know more about the kids that made those cookies for you and their brother—who is apparently some kind of a cross between Mother Theresa, Chuck Norris, and, I don’t know? Who does your mother think is good looking? That Thor guy. Chris something? I swear to God they’re all named Chris these days.” He muttered that last part to himself. “Whoever it is, you’ve talked about them more than any of your friends. Ever.”

Beau was beginning to wonder if he had fallen into Wonderland the day he walked through Connor Casey’s door after all. Nothing had been the same since. Everything he’d thought he’d known had been turned upside down.

His father loved him, had missed him, and wanted to spend time with him.

He was good enough to be in the AHL if he worked at it.

He had never loved anyone before. Not enough to want to stay.

He was the dick here. Not his father. Not the other people he’d left behind. Not Connor for not asking him to stay.

Just him. Being selfish. Thinking that what he wanted was the most important thing.

His parents had been thrilled to see him. His father had even cleared his schedule, moving some meetings around so he could drive Beau to the airport himself.

They’d been so excited for Beau. They hadn’t mentioned him moving back once, and his father had even asked his opinion on several aspects of the business.

And Beau had pouted like a sullen teen. “I should be thrilled about being traded to Seattle, shouldn’t I?”

“One would think so, yes.”

“But I’m not.”

“You don’t appear to be, no.”

“I don’t love hockey.” Wow. That was weird to say. But it settled in his chest like the truth. He liked hockey, loved playing it, but he didn’t want to make it his life. He just hadn’t known what else to do. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he must have always known that, and that’s why he hadn’t been able to give it his all. “I don’t love hockey,” he repeated.

“Not the way you love this man, and his family.”

“I don’t love—”

Dale stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Son, you’ve never been a liar. Don’t start now.” He looked over at Beau. “Huh. Maybe I was wrong. Except I think the only one you lie to is yourself. Let me give you some fatherly wisdom. No one gets this broke up over leaving a place or a job. Only leaving people you love puts that look on your face.”

Beau’s face twisted as he held back tears. “Dad, why are you always bugging me to come home and work with you?”

“Well, besides the fact that you are my only child, I wanted you to know you’ll always have a place here. You seem so hell-bent on making it through this world all alone. It’s not good for a man. Sometimes I think you must be the loneliest guy I ever knew.”

Beau burst into tears.

He felt his father looking over at him not with alarm, but with concern. The Hopper-Buckmans were not a demonstrative family. Beau hadn’t cried in front of his father since he was Benji’s age.

Dale took the next exit, pulling into the truck stop dominating the landscape. He parked in the back, away from the mass of cars, gas pumps, and bright lights. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to get us some coffee. You want anything else?”

Beau wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt and shook his head. “No, thank you.”

Dale hopped down from the truck, and Beau watched him in the mirror as he walked across the parking lot. He moved like a man twenty years younger than his almost sixty. Under his worn jeans and dark brown sports coat, Dale was still trim and fit. His hair was as blond as Beau’s was under the blue dye. Decades in the sun had done some damage to his skin, despite the wide-brimmed hats. Crows’ feet edged his eyes and deep wrinkles crossed his forehead, but he was still a good-looking man.

As Beau watched, he held the door for a young woman and her children, tipping his hat as they passed by. A real class act, his dad. He could learn a lot from him.

He needed some fresh air. He slid slowly from the truck, feeling as if the time his father had cheated had somehow found him. Everything ached. Knees, hips, feet. The life of a hockey player, you almost didn’t feel it after a while.

The sun was sinking over the scraggly fields. Beau leaned on the fence and watched the big-rigs coming and going in the truck parking lot. Behind him, doors slammed as families piled out of their over-packed cars to get some fuel for the next stretch. One little boy reminded him so much of Benji, he almost felt like crying again.

His chest ached. Wincing, he rubbed it as if he could soothe his heart from the outside. His father’s words echoed in his ears. I think you must be the loneliest guy I’ve ever known.

He was. God, he was so lonely, and he had been for so long. And it wasn’t until someone had come to fill that aching hollow in his chest that he’d thought was just part of his nature. Part of the thing that kept him running from one place to the next.

But the thing was, he had always been alone. How could he know he was missing something he’d never had? All those years on the road no one had ever missed him, and he hadn’t missed anyone. Until now.

“Here you go,” Dale said, handing him a large cardboard cup. “And this.” He dug in his coat pocket and pulled out a Three Musketeers bar. “I remember you like these,” he said.

“Thank you.” He took it with a smile, tearing the silver wrapper. Dale had missed him. The possibilities that little fact opened up for him. Who knew? Maybe some other people had missed him. Maybe he should stop being a dick, and reach out to all those people who had told him to keep in touch.

His dad leaned against the fence next to him, sipping his coffee. “I didn’t know what kind you liked, so I got milk and sugar. Figured everyone likes it that way.”

“After a thousand road trips with a bunch of jocks, I’ll drink any coffee anywhere.”

A livestock hauler full of cattle pulled in, thumping over the uneven dirt. “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?”

“Of course not, Beau. You’re brilliant.” But Dale didn’t laugh at him or brush off his question. He sipped his coffee, thinking. “You’re just a little lost, is all. I thought you’d settle down by now. It’s not all your fault. I guess in a way not having to scrape and fight to get by makes it too easy for us to stay kids too long.”

“You didn’t.” His father was the most solid man Beau knew. He’d probably started working in the office at twelve.

Dale snorted. “Tell that your grandfather. He was all over me to settle down and get married. ‘Grow up, Dale. Learn the business.’ All I wanted to do was play cowboy. I would have lived in the bunkhouse if he let me.”

“I never knew that. So what happened? What changed?”

Dale turned, putting his back against the fence, foot up on the bottom rail. Beau mirrored him, noticing for the first time how similar they were in build and mannerisms. It made him feel closer to his father than he could remember.

“I met your mom,” Dale said. “And I wanted to give her the world. I wanted to be the man she thought I was.”

Beau leaned his elbows on the fence. “God, I wish I was half the man those kids thought I was. If you’d seen the way they looked at me sometimes. And then the way they looked at me when I told them I was leaving.” He peeled the paper rim of his coffee cup into strips, then curling the strips into balls and shoving them into his jeans pocket.

“What about Connor?” Dale asked.

Hearing his dad say Connor’s name was jarring. It was as if he had kept his life with Connor and the kids separate from everything else. He’d put them in a bubble, blocking out the real world and playing house in a world that was very real to them.

“What about him?” Beau asked. “He’s always known what kind of man I really am. One who leaves,” he said bitterly.

Dale turned sideways to Beau. “Did he ask you to stay?”

Beau replayed every conversation they had ever had. “No. The kids did. A lot. All Connor talked about was how I couldn’t turn down this chance. That I would always wonder what if if I didn’t at least try.”

“Huh.”

“What?” Beau didn’t like the sound of that, but he found he was desperate for his father’s insight.

“Your Connor sounds like a smart man. I’d like to meet him one day. You said he was a Marine?”

“Yes,” Beau answered absently. Something important hovered on the edge of his awareness. “You know, he never said what he wanted. How he felt about me leaving. Not directly. Never asked me to stay.”

“Not once?”

Beau chewed the candy bar slowly as he thought about their last night together. The desperation they had both felt, and the way they had fought sleep as long as they could in order to spend every second together they could.

“Not in so many words. He wouldn’t,” Beau said, realizing it was true the moment he did. “Connor never asks for anything. It’s as if he doesn’t think he’s allowed to want things for himself. He lives for those kids.”

Beau felt like he’d been hit in the head. Had he ever heard Connor ask for anything? The last chicken leg? The last beer? Not that he could recall. All he remembered was Connor trying to give him money for the stupid shit Beau liked to buy the kids. He gave generously, constantly, but accepting things? It was almost impossible.

He wouldn’t have even let Beau help with the house if it hadn’t been for the state threatening his family. “I think he’s trying to make up for what he sees as disappointing his stepfather.” Beau laughed harshly. “Feeling like you’ve disappointed your father is a tough thing. I know.”

“I’ve never been disappointed in you, Beau. Not once.” Dale laid his hand on Beau’s back. “Concerned, maybe. I want the world for you, too. I want you to be happy, and you’ve never really seemed happy. So Connor never asked you to stay. Did you ask him if he wanted you to stay?”

“No,” Beau answered slowly.

“Why not?”

“I was afraid he would say no.” Even as he said the words, Beau knew that was the bone-deep truth. He was a coward and he’d been lying to himself his whole life. He shoved the rest of the candy bar into his mouth like it was responsible for his stupidity.

“Does he know you love him?” Dale asked gently.

“I don’t know,” said through a mouthful of fluffy nougat.

Dale shook his head fondly and tried not to grin. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume you never told him.”

Beau shook his head. “I’m an idiot, aren’t I?”

His dad smiled and held up his fingers about an inch apart. “Little bit, son. Little bit.” He turned back to look over the fence. “You’d think all those private schools…not to mention Harvard,” he muttered just loud enough for Beau to hear.

Beau surprised himself by laughing out loud. What the hell was he doing? He was an idiot. He took a deep breath and exhaled.

Dale pushed off from the fence. “That is the sound of a man who's come to some kind of decision. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I don’t want to go to Argentina. And I don’t want to come back to the ranch. Not right now.” Out of habit, he braced for his father’s disappointment.

“You don’t have to come back to the ranch. You’re free to do what you want.” Dale pushed his hat back at looked up into the rapidly darkening sky. “A man has to do what his heart tells him to do. Women, too, I suppose,” he said winking at Beau. “Don’t tell your mother I said that. I’ve been waiting all this time for you to find your passion. All these years and there’s never been anyplace or anything or anyone you’ve been sad to see in your rearview mirror.”

Beau laughed and shook his head. “Turning that corner, losing sight of them was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”

Dale shook the car keys. “So, should we turn this truck around? Head home?”

Beau shook his head. “No. Let’s go to the airport. I need to go to Seattle.”

“You sure?”

“Sure as I’ve ever been about anything. Not that it’s a very high bar.”

Dale lifted his hat, smoothed his hair back, and tugged his jacket straight. “Okay, then. Get back in the truck. We’ve got to hurry if you’re gonna make that flight.”

Beau hurried, reach for his phone out as soon as he clicked the seatbelt. Frowning, he pulled up his email. He had some phone calls to make.