My phone buzzes in the drawer beside my bunk. It’s only a few minutes since we got back to the firehouse after a grueling apartment building fire. I’m dog tired and for good reason.

My days off are spent working on the renovations to the house I’ll be living in on the Pendleton ranch. Whenever needed, Hammer and Cody leave Carter and I to work on the house while they get acquainted with the ranch staff. It’s all in an effort to get to the bottom of this Jameson issue their family is stuck with.

But the real reason for my exhaustion is my lack of sleep. Because our nights off are spent in Ember’s bed. And on her kitchen counter. And in her living room sofa. And right on the inside of her front door. I don’t remember fucking one woman so many times in such a short window of time. But it’s Ember we’re talking about. The more I have her, the more I want her.

Hammer feels the same way.

The weirdest part is there are moments where, as we share her, all I want is to get Hammer out of the picture to have her to myself.

That’s never happened before.

I have to wonder if Hammer’s experiencing the same thing.

If we both want to keep her to ourselves, there’s sure to be a problem one of these days. Although, with my track record, she’s likely to pick Hammer if she has to make a choice. I wouldn’t take it too badly. She’s probably better off if she chooses him. I’m not lucky with the whole relationship thing. One failed marriage under my belt is more than enough for a lifetime. I much prefer to focus on the here and now, and let the past stay in the past. The future can take care of itself.

But time will tell.

My neglected phone buzzes again and I’m so wiped out, I ignore it and stretch out on my bunk. But the thing keeps going off, then the chime of a text comes in. And another. Sitting up, I reach into the drawer to see what’s going on. I tense up when I see the last call is from Connie. My mind immediately shifts to fear. I brace for news I don’t want to hear about my daughter when I can’t do anything because it’s almost a full ten hours before my shift is up.

“Connie? It’s Deuce. What’s going on?”

“Hi Deuce, uh…”

“What’s wrong? Is Sandy okay?”

“Yes, yes. She’s asleep. She’s good. Have you checked your voicemail and texts?”

“Not yet. Why, what’s up?”

“One word. Can you take a wild guess what it is?”

I blow out a breath. “Do I have to?”

“Well, no.”

“Just tell me what’s going on, Connie.”

“Dawn.”

Fuck. Did I just hear that right? “What about her?” I ask. “Did she call you?”

“Yes. She demanded to talk to Sandy because she said she didn’t hear back from you.”

“What the hell? I haven’t heard from Dawn for almost eight months. She didn’t give a crap to come see Sandy in all that time, and now we’ve only been gone for a month, and she’s making demands?”

Connie sighs. “Exactly. Did she call you?”

“I haven’t really been checking my phone. Maybe.”

“Well, I let her talk to Sandy for a few minutes…but that’s not the only reason I’m calling.”

“What? Why, what else happened?”

“I don’t know if it’s any cause for alarm, but…I kept the phone on speaker while she spoke to Sandy. She told Sandy she’d see her real soon.”

“And you believed her?”

“Something about the way she said it made me think… I don’t know. Something was off.”

I wouldn’t put it past Dawn. We could never really know what state of mind the woman was in from minute to minute. Not with the drugs, the drinking…

“Look, I doubt you have anything to worry about, but I’ll ask Cody and Carter to keep an eye out for her if she shows up at the ranch.”

“Okay,” Connie answers. “What should I do here at your parents’ place?”

“Jameson’s son should be out of the main house soon. Once he’s gone, we’ll clean up the place from top to bottom then bring you and the kids here. No need to get my parents involved. They’d have the cops on alert in no time.”

“Maybe that’s not a bad idea, Deuce. I mean, she’s unpredictable…she’s never in her right mind.”

“True but for now, she’s not here. The woman’s almost two thousand miles away. No sense worrying just because she has a one-time urge to get chatty with Sandy out of the blue.”

“You’ve got a point. Just be aware, okay?”

“Thanks for letting me know. Keep your eyes open.”

“I will.”

“Is Sandy up?”

“No no. Dawn called hours ago. I tried to phone you—”

“It’s been a busy night here.”

“All right. Get some rest. Good night, Deuce.”

“Night.”

My mind turns to Dawn after I hang up and start to scroll through her text messages. She probably came out of her drug-induced state long enough to miss Sandy. Or maybe she was just hoping to reach me so she could hit me up for cash. As I rest my head on the pillow and close my eyes, I make a mental note to call one of my buddies at my old fire station in Austin. One of them can swing by Dawn’s mother’s place to find out what’s going on. Until then, with all these miles between us and her, I won’t give her another minute’s thought.

* * *

After making it home and getting a decent amount of sleep, I brew myself some coffee and get my mind right. My head needs to be clear when I return Dawn’s string of text and voicemail messages. As I sit in the kitchen, I want to enjoy the bright early afternoon light streaming in through the window beside me. I want to, but I can’t. Not while I take some extra time to read and listen to each message, to figure out if there’s a point to Dawn reaching out to us after so many months.

Time and time again while Sandy was an infant, Dawn would tell me she wasn’t mom material. That she did her best, but it’d never be enough. I should’ve believed her the first time, but even her OB/GYN said it was probably mild postpartum depression. Perfectly normal. When Dawn admitted that she started smoking weed and using drugs to cope, I worked my ass off trying to get her to check herself into a treatment program. With Connie’s help, I kept things together and picked up the slack at home.

Then Dawn started to get extreme with the drug use. I was close to my limit. She was wearing me down. I couldn’t take the loud arguments where she blamed me for knocking her up and stealing her youth, or fighting about nothing at all, or the way she took pleasure in throwing and breaking shit even when Sandy was in my arms. By then she was completely unreliable with Sandy. She left my baby in her crib all day, letting her go for hours bawling her eyes out because she’d gone without eating or a diaper change. When Dawn finally admitted to darker thoughts—things like wanting to end it all, or threats to hurt herself and take Sandy with her—that was my last straw. I packed my shit, grabbed up my little girl, and took her to Hammer’s place.

Dawn put up an act for a while, trying to come off as mother of the year to anyone who’d listen to her. But eventually, she started to enjoy the lack of responsibilities. It gave her all the time in the world to get deep into her drunken or drugged up hazes. Eventually, she stopped caring to put up a front. If she ever cared at all.

Eight months.

Eight fucking months and not a word from her.

And now she wants to talk?

The more I think about it, the less I want to hear what she has to say. The one thing I did right before I left Texas was apply for sole custody. Sandy’s mine now. Dawn has no legal rights to see our baby. But I’m not unreasonable. If she’s cleaned up her act, I’m willing to give her another chance to see our daughter.

Taking a breath, I pull up her number and send a quick text to see if she has time to talk. Dawn calls me back before I can step over to the coffee machine and pour another cup of brew.

“Dawn,” I answer flatly. There’s no emotion in my voice because I’ve been with this woman long enough to know that anything can set her off.

“You have some nerve, leaving the state with my girl,” she shouts.

“Getting right to the punch line as always, I see.”

“I want her back.”

“You lost your right to make demands, Dawn. It’s called sole custody for a reason. What do you want?”

“I need to see her. Please, Deuce.”

“Are you cleaned up?”

“That’s none of your fucking business. Sandy is my baby girl! You can’t keep her from me.”

“Are you clean?” I repeat the question, but I already know she’s on something. I can tell from the slur in her shrill sounding voice, and that way she strings sentences together, and even that familiar erratic pacing I’ve heard so many times before.

Too many times.

She doesn’t answer my question. “Sandy is my baby girl,” she says instead.

“Call me back when you’ve gone through a full forty days of rehab, Dawn. After that, once I’m comfortable that you can be in the same room with Sandy without having a meltdown, we can talk about arranging a trip for you to come out here and see her.”

I’m not at all comfortable when Dawn lets out a cackle.

“What makes you think you can keep me out of Reno, Deuce? Or Truckee? You don’t really believe your parents or Connie can stop me, do you? Or some little old teacher?”

Every muscle in my body tenses when she describes Sandy’s new preschool teacher. The only way Dawn can possibly know what the woman looks like is if she’s here in town.

“I swear to God, Dawn. Don’t even think of trying to see Sandy when I’m not there.”

“She’s my baby girl,” she slurs out for the umpteenth time, then hangs up on me.

I stare out the window at the vast expanse of farmland for a solid minute before moving from my spot at the sink. This can’t be happening. No way in hell am I letting this woman near Sandy.

No fucking way.

Dumping the rest of my coffee, I spin around and head to my room to get dressed. On my way upstairs, I send a text to Connie to give her a heads up, and I ask her to let my parents know to be on the lookout. Hammer is still asleep when I head out, and Cody and Carter are out on a hardware supply run.

If I have to check every seedy motel from here to Truckee to find Dawn, that’s what I’ll do.