Kade had envisioned coming home a thousand—no, a hundred thousand—times. Envisioned seeing his mother, yes, maybe taking up the helm and making the Logan ranch a true cattle operation again. Maybe even letting Duke back into his life.

Sometimes, when he dared hope the most, he allowed those dreams to include Haddie. He played out the scenario a thousand different ways. Haddie, single and working her grandfather’s ranch. An RN at the hospital. Most of those dreams included her pining for him.

Never did he consider that she might hate him.

Oh, that wasn’t true, because he knew, deep inside, that had to be the default. And why not? He’d destroyed her plans, her life, her future, all because he couldn’t bear to see her married to his best friend.

Not when Nash didn’t—couldn’t—love her like he did. After all, Nash might not have cheated on her the night before her wedding. But Kade knew better. The guy had so many hookups in Beulah, Kade had his own key for Jay’s place, made a permanent dent in his ratty sofa.

Still, if Kade truly loved Haddie, he happily would have let her walk into Nash’s arms. Because despite his sins, she loved Nash.

Not Kade.

Judging by her posture now in the cab, arms folded, her face stony as she looked out the window, he hadn’t a hope of seeing any one of his happily ending scenarios come true.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, not even knowing where to start. I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for you sooner. I’m sorry I let it get that far. I’m sorry my jealousy wrecked your life.

Haddie drew in a long breath, but said nothing.

Kade turned down the dirt road to the hunting cabin. The terrain had turned rolling, with the mountains edging the horizon. Deep draws, sharp foothills, prime elk and moose territory. Overhead the sun had crested, still high, the sky a pristine blue. Nothing to mar the day, the scent of summer in the air.

He spied the cabin, a one-story, red-roofed log affair with a front porch and pole barn. As he drove up, he slowed, searching.

“I don’t see a car,” Haddie said, sitting up and voicing his thoughts.

He pulled up in front of the porch, and they headed to the front door.

“Locked,” she said, but tried the handle again.

He peered into the window. The place looked unused, maybe for months, a fine layer of prairie dust on the counters. “She’s not here. And it doesn’t look like she has been,” Kade said.

A report sounded in the distance, and he jerked.

Hunters, this time of year—

A shot pinged off a metal chair on the deck.

“Get down!” Kade launched himself at Haddie, wrapping his arms around her even as he took her down onto the deck. He tucked her into the cover of his embrace, his legs over hers, her body tight to his chest.

Another shot barked in the distance, this time shredding wood on the railing that ran the length of the porch.

“Who’s shooting at us?” Haddie squirmed underneath him, but covered her head with her hands.

A third shot—it shattered the front headlight on his truck.

“Get behind the truck!” He leaped to his feet and hauled her up, pushing her toward the shelter of his truck.

“This is crazy!” She crouched on the passenger side, protected by the tires, and for the first time he got a look at her face.

Jaw clenched, her eyes dark as if she’d like to have a weapon of her own. “Is it Cocoran?”

He knelt beside her. “I don’t know. Maybe. But we need to get out of here. I’m going to open the door and we’ll climb in on your side.”

“And then what—we just drive away?”

“Something like that.” He opened the door, staying low, and popped the glove compartment. “This might help.” In his world, every truck should come with a conceal and carry Glock in its dashboard.

“Where did you get that?” She eyed it even as she reached for it.

“Are you kidding me? Do you even know how to shoot?”

“You taught me, you dork, remember?” She took the gun.

“We shot at cans in the backyard.”

“Close enough.” She stood up and squeezed off a couple shots in the direction of the shooter.

“Have you lost your mind?” He threw an arm around her waist and pulled her down. “Wait, okay? I’ll get in, and you can shoot as I drive.”

He opened the door and slid into the truck, keeping low. She climbed in beside him.

A bullet landed in his driver’s door.

Her eyes widened. “They’re trying to kill us!”

“Clearly, Sherlock.” He turned the engine over.

“I thought they were just trying to scare us.”

“You don’t know Cocoran.”

Her voice pitched low. “It’s sort of working.”

He glanced at her, the way she hunkered down on the floorboards, holding the gun with both hands, and the heady sense of their past, the friendship that ran deep between them, rose up with teeth. He grieved that most of all.

He slid down in his seat, just barely able to see over the wheel. “Ready? I’ll drive, you shoot.” As he spoke, he lowered the windows.

Another shot, this time into the bed of his truck. “This is a sixty-thousand-dollar truck!” He slammed the truck into drive. “Shoot!”

Then he floored it.

She leaned over him and squeezed off a barrage of rounds as he looped around the house. He hit the drive on the other side, kicking up so much dirt he left a fog of debris in his wake.

She’d turned, still crouched on the floorboard, and shot through the opposite window.

A few shots hit the other side of his truck as they bounced over the ruts, tearing up the gravel down the road.

Haddie sat back, breathing hard.

“You okay?”

She met his eyes. “Yeah. I remember your driving now.”

A smile tugged at her face.

“Are you kidding me? Stop grinning.”

“It feels like that time when we stole Mr. Gunderson’s 1957 Buick.”

“We never got shot at! Sheesh. Besides, we didn’t steal it—the keys were in it, begging us to take it for a ride.”

“I think that’s still called stealing.” She climbed up onto her seat and buckled in.

“He didn’t even know it was gone.”

“Until morning when he found it in his driveway with a full tank of gas and sixty miles on the odometer.”

“That was your idea, if I remember correctly.” They made it down the drive, back onto the road. He gripped the wheel with whitened hands, sober now.

She shot him a look. “I was kidding! I didn’t expect you to say yes!”

“Seriously? I was trying to keep you out of trouble!”

“Oh, for cryin’—Kade, all you and Nash did was get me in trouble.” But she grinned.

He didn’t. “Yeah. Apparently, we’re still at it. Sorry for dragging you out here.”

“I volunteered, Kade.” But then, “Do you think they were waiting for Erica?”

“Probably. The good news is if they had her, they would have been gone already.”

“Maybe.”

“We need to call Nash and tell him she’s not here.”

“Or...” Haddie glanced at him. “We find her.”

He stilled. “Haddie...no. Listen, I don’t know where she is, and...we were shot at. I’ve gotten you in enough trouble for one day.” He turned onto the highway. “I’m going to get you home safely, and you’re going to go on with your life and forget you saw me. Forget that I dragged you into something that I should have dealt with years ago.”

She was holding the gun, turning it over and over.

“You might want to click the safety on.” He leaned over then and did it for her. Then he opened the glove compartment and took the gun from her and shoved it back into the dash.

She wiped her hands on her pant legs.

“I’m sorry I said you deserved to get punched,” Haddie said.

Oh. Well. “I probably did.”

“No, you didn’t. Because I’m not stupid. I know Nash cheated on me, plenty of times.”

He said nothing.

“And you’re right. He did get too many chances from me. It’s just...” She sighed. “I had my reasons.”

He glanced at her then. She had folded her hands in her lap, staring at them. “You know that night in...at NDSU?”

The night he’d practically launched himself at her? The one where he’d let his heart off its leash and told her just how he felt, at least in action if not words? The night where she’d ordered him out of her room so she could be with Nash?

Yes, maybe he could recall it.

He nodded. But he wasn’t prepared for the way she drew a finger across the well of her eye. “Haddie?”

She sighed. “That night, when Nash came over...he was upset. He didn’t tell me why you and he fought, but...anyway, that night we...” She left off the rest, bit her lip. Shook her head and looked away.

Oh. Her silence tightened his jaw, and a fist found his chest, squeezing. He’d guessed it, sure, but had been content living in the world of maybe not.

Shoot.

“I wasn’t planning on, well, I know it sounds old-fashioned, but I was going to wait until I got married...”

He wanted to swallow, say something, but his heart had lodged in his throat, cutting off sound, breathing.

“But Nash was...he was insistent, and—”

His breath came back in a rush. “Please tell me it wasn’t—that he didn’t force you.” Kade didn’t mean for it to come out in a growl, but everything he’d always feared roared to life, right there before his eyes.

“No—of course not. He wouldn’t do that. It was just...no. I wanted to be with him. It was just sooner than I had...expected. And then after that, well...”

And right then, it clicked—all the disjointed pieces, the confusion, the frustration—they slammed into place. Oh no. He barely stifled a groan.

“That’s why you took him back, over and over. Why you said yes so fast to his proposal. Because you had already...committed yourself to him.”

Silence, and a deep, horrible moan of truth welled in his bones.

Oh, Haddie.

And Kade had never wanted to have another go-round with Nash more than right now.

She still stared out the window, as if unable to look at him. “It’s why I can’t ever marry anyone else, Kade. I made a promise to myself that I would only give myself to one man—my husband. And...well, that man married someone else.”

He clenched his jaw so hard he thought he might break molars, trying to keep his eyes from watering. From slamming his hand on the steering wheel.

From stopping right here on the highway, turning and pulling her into his arms. It doesn’t matter to me.

But it did to Haddie. He stared at the road and tried not to press the gas to the floorboard.

“I know you came back for your mother, Kade,” she said softly, not looking at him. “But it’s good to see you. I’m glad...I’m glad you’re okay.”

Oh. Because he wasn’t okay. Not with her revelation, not with the fact that, well, I came back for you. He wanted to speak the words. But why? So they could stir up the past, walk away freshly wounded?

And you’re right—I don’t want you.

He just nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay. And it’s good to see you, too.”

There was something seriously wrong with her. One minute Haddie wanted to push Kade out of the truck, maybe drive over him, the next moment she found her heart pumping, adrenaline surging, the past stirring up like the wind, catching her into the crazy desire to throw her arms around his strong shoulders.

Forget the past and simply rekindle the friendship that had given her the courage to become the woman she was today.

Kade always made her believe she could be more than the orphan who’d lost everything. She saw it in his eyes, his smile when he found her in a crowd at one of his games or rodeo events. Believed it when he called her Goose, huskily under his breath, especially when she might not hear it.

Frankly, if she were honest, she should thank him for the so-called lie about Nash. Because it’d given her the reason she needed to walk away.

The strength to dive into her nurse’s training, to become more than she’d envisioned for herself.

And she wanted to tell him that as they drove in a deepening silence back toward Dawson.

So, “I got my master’s in nursing, and I have a position waiting for me at the University of Minnesota, trauma department.”

“I guess you didn’t need help with your chemistry after all.” A tiny, sad smile tugged up his face.

“I thought I was helping you with chemistry.”

He gave a small, dark chuckle, void of humor. “No. I didn’t need any help with chemistry.”

Oh.

She shouldn’t have told him about Nash and that night at NDSU. It had simply spilled out, a moment wrought from wanting to set right their past, the old times.

To erase her stupid words. And you’re right—I don’t want you.

Why, oh why had she let her anger spill that out?

His mouth tightened into a grim line, and he looked back at the road. A switch had flipped in him, turned him dark.

Maybe, just as she’d feared, she’d turned ruined in his eyes. No longer the princess on the hill, but just another woman Nash had bedded. Haddie barely blinked back the burn in her eyes, hating the impulse that had made her open up her heart, spill out her secrets to the man who had once been her best friend.

Habits, maybe. Their past tugging at her to rekindle a relationship that no longer existed.

Funny, though, that Kade hadn’t known. That Nash hadn’t bragged about it.

You. Didn’t. Want. Me. His words pulsed in her head.

Maybe Nash did tell him. No wonder Kade had said nothing.

Except, of course, needing to know if Nash had...

Kade’s protective growl when he’d asked if Nash had forced her still sat dangerously under her skin, igniting something forbidden.

Her cell phone beeped and she picked it up—they were back in range. “We should call Nash and tell him about Erica.”

“I don’t have his number anymore,” Kade said.

“Neither do I.”

“I could call my mom—she might be with him.” He reached for his phone, but she took it from him.

“We should wait, or Nash is going to freak out. Hopefully he’s called the FBI by now.”

Kade said nothing.

Looked away, his jaw tight.

“You’re not to blame for Jay’s death, Kade.”

“I shouldn’t have run. I blame myself for that.” He drew in a breath. “I just kept hearing my dad—‘Don’t be like me. Walk away from trouble.’ And there I was, walking—no, running—right into it.”

“You and Nash were best friends. Of course you went to help him.”

He made a sort of noise. “No, it was more than that. See, we weren’t always friends. I was a skinny kid, mostly bones and spit and a magnet for this kid named Tristan who exceeded the growth charts by double in fourth grade. And he was mean, too. It was about a year after my dad died, and every time Tristan took a punch at me, I’d hear Dad’s voice. So I didn’t fight back. I just took the beating.”

Like he had with Nash. “Why?” And although she’d heard parts of his story, she never really got it. The deep anger, even a thread of shame that ran like a tremor through his core.

“Because I got him killed. And I thought...well, this is what you get.”

She looked at him, her heart still. “Kade—what?” In all her years, he’d never... “How could you have had anything to do with it? Your dad died from a bar fight.”

“He died because of something I did.” Kade glanced at her, then back to the road.

Oh, how she wanted to slide her hand over to his, squeeze.

“I was eight, and it was roundup and branding season. My dad was working on the Bar T at the time, and Mom had a shift at the cafe, so my dad took me with him. Told me to stay out of trouble. They’d rounded up a bunch of the calves for branding, the cows in a separate pen. I was sitting on top of the rail of the cow pen, goofing around, and I fell in.”

She could imagine him, dark tousled hair, blue eyed, arms flailing as he fell into the muck of a cow pen.

“As I was trying to get out, I climbed the fence, and it opened. The cows freaked out, and somehow I caused a little stampede. They trampled the branding area, destroyed fences. No one got hurt, but the foreman found me and slapped me.”

“He slapped you?”

“Yeah. I probably deserved it, but my dad freaked out. He launched himself at the foreman, and when the boss found them brawling in the dirt, dad lost his job. But that wasn’t the worst of it. That night, Dad headed down to the Pony Bar in hopes of buying the foreman a drink, maybe getting his job back. It didn’t turn out that way.”

“They got in a fight.”

“Yeah, and Duke broke it up. He was Dad’s best friend, working deputy at the time, and he hauled Dad into jail, just to calm him down. And, as he tells it, for his own protection. The next morning, Duke went into the cell and found Dad dead. He’d been kicked, they think, and broke a few ribs—internal bleeding, a collapsed lung.”

“Oh, Kade.”

“So you see, if I hadn’t been goofing around—”

“No. I’m sorry, but your Dad got in a fight and should have gotten medical care.”

“Because of me.”

“You aren’t to blame. You were eight.”

“I was old enough to obey. To stay out of trouble.”

“Things happen, Kade, that you can’t control. Like watching through the rearview mirror as a semi slides into your car on black ice. Ten seconds of knowing your life is going to change forever and not being able to do a thing about it.”

He glanced at her. “You are the bravest person I know.”

Oh. “I’m only brave because I found you and Nash. You made me not afraid, Kade.”

“And Nash made me not afraid. Because one day Tristan gets hold of me, holds me down by the shoulders, and is about to spit in my eye—yeah, seriously—and I’m trying not to cry, and suddenly this blur streaks across my vision and takes out Tristan. Just tackles him off me, lands a couple punches, and suddenly Tristan is in the dirt and I’m getting helped off the ground.”

“Nash?”

“Mmmhmm. He said he’d had enough of watching Tristan pick on me. Funny thing was, Nash’s dad used to work with mine at the Bar T. My guess is that his dad felt bad for me and Mom, maybe even told Nash to watch out for me.”

“He watched over both of us,” Haddie said. “I never ate lunch alone, not once. And when he turned fourteen, he showed up with that green beater truck he loved so much. I never took the bus to school once after that.”

“A 1987 Toyota pickup he fixed up. And kept fixing. We spent years under the chassis of that truck.”

Silence. “We all make mistakes, Kade. We all get into trouble, even when we try not to. It’s the getting out of it that’s the challenge.”

“I’m getting you out of this one,” Kade said. “Nash is right. We should have called the cops at the very least when Jay died. The guy gave his life to save us, and we acted like it didn’t matter. Like we could walk away and forget. But I can’t forget.”

Neither could she. Because just sitting beside him caused the old feelings to swell inside her, the ones that had made her weep as she drove away from Dawson.

Kade Logan had walked back into her life, and she was in very real danger of him capturing her heart all over again.

And if he did, this time she couldn’t let him walk away.

Around them, in fields as far as the eye could see, oil wells pumped into the ground in endless plunder of the land. The city of Dawson, with the massive acreage that comprised the Dillon Oil refinery, shiny and bold on the eastern edge, ridged the horizon. Smoke billowed from two of the tall stacks, blurring the blue sky with a haze of smog and debris.

“Do you like working for Ian Shaw?”

“Yeah. He’s a fair boss and lets me run the place. Not much of a rancher—more of a wannabe, but that means I make most of the decisions. He’s doubled his herd a couple times over since he started. He pays me well, and I like Mercy Falls a lot. I’m thinking of buying a house...”

Oh.

He turned off the highway and toward the hospital, located just a couple blocks from the refinery.

When he pulled into the lot, he turned, catching Haddie’s arm. “Listen. We’ll tell Nash what happened, and then I want you to go home, Haddie. I’m sorry I brought you into this—but the last thing you need is to get briared up in our problems.”

She met his eyes. “For a long time, my problems were your problems, Kade Logan. Maybe I want to get stuck in your problems for a change.”

He looked at her, swallowed, and for a moment, his expression softened.

Pale blue eyes, so much of their past roaming through them—the memories, the laughter, and yes, she even saw the passion flare, the same heat that had sparked so many years ago.

He still wanted her. The thought swept through her, thick and heady, and for a wild, breathless second, she thought he might do it again, lean in, take her face in his hands...kiss her. Yes, Kade.

She held her breath.

“I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Oh. Then he leaned away from her and got out.

If that was so, he was heading the wrong direction.

She caught up to his long strides, and they stopped at the information desk, got Nash’s room info.

Yes, he’d been admitted, and Haddie led the way. They found Nash in a bed, his head bandaged, an IV running into his arm, alone. And so much ache in his eyes when he turned to them, he didn’t even have to ask.

“She wasn’t there.” Kade broke the news without preamble, knowing, probably, that’s the way Nash wanted it. “And, we got shot at.”

Nash had never been the guy to take bad news well, and honestly, Haddie expected more than just a wince, a glance out the window. The tightening of his fists in the sheet. “Cocoran has her.”

“We don’t know that,” Kade said.

Nash wore a hospital gown—it pulled over his shoulders, appeared flimsy against his work-honed biceps. The man had grown in bulk, filled out, no longer the lean quarterback of their youth. And something about his countenance, too, had deepened as he turned back to them. “I need to find Cocoran.”

Only then did she notice a gold necklace, tucked under the rim of his gown. In fact, he reached to his neck and pulled it out, played with the pendant on the end. A cross, simple, gold. “I lost my phone, but I used your mother’s. I’ve called Erica a hundred times. I thought maybe she wasn’t getting my calls because she was out of range...”

“Nash—” Kade started.

But he’d reached for his IV, and before Haddie could stop him, pulled it out.

Blood spurted from the wound.

“What are you doing?” She grabbed his arm and pressed the blanket edge against the flow. “Kade—call a nurse.”

“No! I’m leaving. I need to find my wife.”

And there was the Nash she knew. Impulsive, headstrong. More, he said it without flinching, without the thought to temper his words.

His wife.

But even as she watched, a remorse flashed across his face. It flickered in his eyes, in the twist of his mouth. “Sorry, Haddie, but...”

“It’s fine. I get it. We’ve all moved on. But you’re still hurt—”

“Yes, but not so hurt that I can’t rescue the woman I love.”

Funny, his words didn’t sting, didn’t find raw soil. Just landed. Registered. She stepped back, checked the bleeding on his arm. It had slowed, and she let him pick up his bag of clothes.

“Where are my mom and Duke?” Kade asked, nonplussed at Nash’s actions. And he hadn’t called the nurse.

“They just got back from the ranch picking up my truck. I think Duke went down to talk to Sheriff Johnson about Cocoran. Your mom is in the gift shop, I think. She mentioned something about seeing the guys who’d been burned.” Nash disappeared into the bathroom.

“I’m going with Nash,” Kade said.

“Of course you are.” She shook her head, her eyes closing. “Fine. Then, me too.”

“No. You’re staying here. You’re exhausted, for one, and I...no, Haddie. If we’re going to confront Cocoran, you can’t be there. Please.”

It was the please. Quiet, sincere, his blue eyes in hers, this time holding a sort of desperation in his expression.

She swallowed before her throat closed up. “Be careful.”

“You know me. I run from trouble.”

She gave an incredulous laugh that made her heart hurt. “Hardly.”

A muscle pinched in his jaw, though, and she nearly raised her hand to smooth it away.

“Kade...”

It must have been something in her voice, perhaps the tiny impulse of panic, the idea that—

“I’ll come back, Haddie. I promise.”

And then crazy, unfair tears welled in her eyes, tears she blamed on sheer exhaustion and not a little adrenaline dropping. She clenched her eyes shut—

“Haddie?” He touched her cheek, and heat suffused her entire body, right down to her very mitochondria.

Wow, she’d been in deep denial if she’d thought she was over Kade Logan. Just his fingertips on her cheek practically lit her on fire.

She opened her eyes, and he just stood there, his brows pinched.

Oh shoot. Because how could she let him go again?

Not when he’d just swooped back into her life.

Not when her heart had begun to beat again for the first time in seven years.

She simply stared at him, his beautiful eyes, those lips. The way his dark brown whiskers played across his chin.

And then she was pressing her fingers into the burrs of his chin. Stepping close.

His breath drew in, a sort of gasp, a moment before her lips touched his. More impulse than thought—it just felt incredibly right.

Kade didn’t move, didn’t breathe, and she let her kiss linger, sinking into the smell of him—cowboy, prairie, home.

Maybe he’d been waiting to see if he might be dreaming, but suddenly he made a noise deep inside his chest, and just like that, he came alive.

He curled his arm around her waist, pulled her against his chest, and leaned in, kissing her as if he hadn’t left off more than a heartbeat from when they’d kissed so many years ago.

Or maybe, just an exhale of longing from holding his breath for exactly the last seven years.

He tasted of coffee, smelled of his own musk—hard work and strength—and still had the most amazing, soft lips under all that bearded toughness. The secrets of Kade Logan.

When he put his other arm around her neck, drawing her in, she curled her arms up around his amazing shoulders and hung on.

Deepened her kiss, wanting so much more of him.

Kade.

And yes, sirens and warning bells and shouts screamed in the back of her brain because no, this could not end well. Kade hadn’t come back to Dawson to stay, and she—she had a future all planned out in Minneapolis.

This was simply...

Longing. The what-if’s igniting between them, the past rising to set itself right, to finish what they’d started—barely—so many years ago.

Started...and couldn’t finish. Not if she hoped to stick to her plan.

The thought rushed at her. She caught her breath, leaned away. “Kade.”

Kade just stared at her, breathing hard, as if trying to read her mind.

Right then, the door opened and Nash came out. “Let’s go.”

Impulse. Old habits. Resurrected fears. She didn’t know why, but she stepped away from Kade so fast she nearly fell out of his arms.

She couldn’t ignore the hurt that flashed through his eyes.

Oh. No. She’d done it again. “Kade—”

But she’d shut him down—the swirl of hope, the heady desire in his beautiful eyes. Even his tone changed. “Go home, Haddie.”

Then Kade Logan followed his friend, right out of her life, again.