I have dreams of blood and guns. Of toothless grins and devil eyes. Of prison bars over beating hearts. Of Rachel’s lips. Those beautiful lips, the taste of whisky on them, maraschino cherries. Hope. So much hope.

Did that really happen?

The world seems different under the veil of truth.

A thud shakes the whole room, sending knives into my brain.

“Holy hell, Shane,” Maverick’s voice booms. “Did you tie one on last night or what?”

I groan and open one eye. The room spins. I’m no longer dreaming even though fragments of last night settle around me like dust.

“What time is it?” I mumble into the pillow.

“It’s nine a.m., sharpshooter,” he says, kicking the edge of the bed, blunt objects splintering through my head. “I thought you cowboys were up with the fucking roosters.”

“Most cowboys don’t drink their weight in whisky,” I manage to say. My mouth tastes like sour dirt.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Mav says. “Of course they do. The only difference is they know how to handle it and you obviously don’t. I’m starting to think you ain’t a Nelson at all.”

“Why are you here, standing in my room, yelling at me?” I slowly ease myself up, ignoring the spins.

“Because dad said you needed my help today. He’s off on a ride, says you need to do the irrigation pipes. I know you need help for that.”

I nod. Irrigating is an all-day job and time-consuming. Usually we hire someone to do this but it’s a tough role to fill and we’ve already gone through three different guys this year so far. The pipes have to be moved every day to ensure the fields (which we use for hay or silage) get water and some of our lines are hand lines, so we have to manually move each forty-foot pipe over sixty feet to ensure the entire field gets water. It’s hard, tedious work.

So I’m surprised that Maverick volunteered for the job. Surprised but not at all complaining, especially when I feel like ass.

“Well I’m glad you’re here,” I tell him, moving slowly as I put on my jeans so as not to disrupt all the loose sharp stuff in my brain. “You do remember how to ride, right?”

He grins at me as I throw on my tee shirt and hat. “Fuck riding, brother. We’re taking my new truck.”

“That’s not technically yours,” I remind him. “And this field is all the way to the east, down by the lake.”

“Then we’ll see just how this baby will handle.”

As it turns out, it handles really well. Maverick loves his vehicles and he’s driving this truck with a big, shit-eating grin on his face, laughing maniacally as we careen over potholes and bumps.

Finally, we reach the field and get started, carefully moving the long, rusted pipe along the tall, green grass in sections. It’s a lot of lifting and shuffling and the sun beats down on us harder with each hour that passes.

We take a break at the truck, leaning against it as we drink sun-warmed water straight out of plastic jugs.

“So are you going to talk about what happened last night?” Maverick asks, dipping over to sprinkle some water on the back of his neck.

“What do you mean?”

“I was there for a minute, you know,” he says, giving me a steady look. “Saw you and Rachel dancing like it was old times.”

“We were just dancing,” I tell him, looking off toward the crop of alder and birch where our land meets the lake. Waylon Jennings plays in my head.

“Uh huh. That’s not what it looked like to me. You know, man, you and Fox are exactly the same.”

That brings a sharp look out of me. “What do you mean?”

Mav looks at me like I’m dumb. “You and Rachel, Fox and Delilah. Two sets of couples that should just shut the fuck up and admit that they love each other already.”

“Fox is in love with Del?”

“Don’t change the subject. I knew you never got over Rachel. I didn’t see how you could, to be honest. And I never believed for a second that you willingly broke up with her. The Shane I know would never do that to her. Especially in front of everyone like that. You were fucking vicious, man, and that’s not you.”

I stiffen, hating that I’ve had to keep reliving that moment so much lately.

“What happened?” he asks, his voice lower. “Look, I get it. Water under the bridge, maybe. But it’s something no one has ever understood, especially Rachel.”

“She understands now,” I tell him, looking him square in the eye. “Last night I told her.”

“Told her what?”

It’s not my place to say but since the truth has been coming out…

“Errol Waters use to abuse her. Sexually. Emotionally. Physically. He was abusive to Vernalee too.”

Mav’s jaw sets in a hard line. He’s almost as protective over Rachel as I am. “Why am I not fucking surprised,” he seethes quietly.

“Because he’s a fucking piece of shit, disgusting scum on this good green earth. And Rachel dealt with it for years before she finally told me. That night…I wasn’t thinking straight. I couldn’t. I just wanted to murder him and that’s all that I could see, all I could do. If I had just stepped back and took a moment and tried to control myself but…she’s Rachel, you know? I couldn’t let it slide. I had to take matters into my own hands. I was blind with rage. Just fucking blind.”

“What did you do, Shane?”

I take a deep breath and I let it all out. I don’t hold back on anything, just lay the truth bare.

“Holy fuck,” Mav whispers when I’m done. “Why didn’t he just throw you in jail?”

“Because he knew he was at fault. He wanted to keep what he did hidden. He knew that if he pressed charges against me, the town would talk. They’d wonder why I did what I did. Why did good ol’ boy Shane Nelson nearly beat this man to death? The truth would leak out that way, which wouldn’t be a bad thing. But it would be for him. If I told the truth, there might be a trial. A trial might bring out a testimony from Rachel, even Vernalee. There’s a witness too, Zimmer. Sure he kept his mouth shut but under oath? In court? Would he still keep quiet about what he heard? Errol knew that he couldn’t risk it. He wanted everything to be shoved under the rug so things would go on as they always did. He wanted to keep his position of power.”

My heart is still galloping in my chest, making me feel lightheaded under this sun. “And most of all, he knew that breaking Rachel’s heart would be far, far worse. He hated me. Hated her. He wanted the both of us to suffer. And he got what he wanted. His crimes never came to light and I broke up with her and I knew that if I wasn’t ruthless and vicious and cruel to her that she wouldn’t believe it. I couldn’t let her know why I was doing it. So I broke up with her in front of everyone. I humiliated her and I broke my own heart and ruined everything because I had no fucking choice.”

My fists ball, then uncurl. “There hasn’t been a day where I haven’t wished I finished the job, you know. That he got away with it all, then went on to kill that kid and who knows who the hell else in the so-called name of the law. In the end, he fucked himself over but he shouldn’t have even had the choice.”

A solid silence hangs over us, both of us digesting this poison from the past.

“Fuck me. That is some heavy, heavy shit, Shane.” Mav runs his hand down over his face, tugging at his features. “What did she say after you told her this last night?”

I exhale loudly, feeling the frustration roll through me. “She didn’t know what to say. How to handle it. She said she needed time to think. And then she went back into the bar. I got a cab, came back here and finished a bottle of Grandpa’s whisky.”

“Just like old times.”

“Pretty much.”

“I can’t believe you’ve kept that inside all this time. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you ever tell her?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t reach Rachel and I guess I thought it didn’t matter. Why bring up the past? What good would it do? And to be honest, even though parts of me wish I killed him, I’m not proud of what I did. I should have gone about it another way, that way I would have never had to break up with Rachel. I just wasn’t thinking. I was young and brash and stupid.”

“With balls of fucking steel.” He slaps me hard on the shoulder. “If I’m ever screwed over by someone, I’m calling you for your own brand of vigilante justice.”

I smirk at him. Maverick is pretty much all muscle. He hangs off the side of cliffs every winter like Stallone in Cliffhanger, risking his life to rescue people. He has no problems dealing with anybody. That said, he often puts himself in situations where extra support may be needed. Confidence is a virtue, being a cocky fucker is another thing entirely.

“Is that Pa?” he suddenly says, squinting in the sun and I look over to see our father cantering over the ridge toward us.

“Shane!” he yells to me, riding over on Basil, his prized paint quarter horse.

“Something wrong?” I ask as I put on my hat, striding toward him. He doesn’t sound overly panicked but there’s still something wrong considering he’s rode all the way over to us. Normally there’s a radio in my truck that we use to communicate since cell phone service over here doesn’t reach but we took Mav’s truck instead.

“I need you to head west over Pastor’s Peak,” he says to me, coming to a stop along the edge of the field. “Neighbor’s plane spotted some of our cows too far onto Crown Land. It’ll be a bitch to get them back later if they don’t get turned around right now.” He gets off of Basil and hands me his reins. “Here, take him back and go. I’ll help Mav with the irrigation.”

I nod and swing up on Basil, adjusting myself on Basil’s broad back. “Do you know how far around the peak?”

“I think closer to Arrow Lake,” he says.

“I should bring an overnight bag then.”

“Shouldn’t take you that long but just in case. It’s only a handful so just take Fletcher with you.”

I tell him I will, thank Mav and then turn around galloping toward the ranch.

I’m there in no time, though Basil is frothy with sweat, and I quickly take the time to rinse him off with the hose before I tack up Polly.

It’s when I’m about to lead Basil over to the pasture that I hear a strange whimpering sound coming from the hayloft.

I leave Basil and head over to the ladder. “Hello?” I call up it.

A sniffle.

“Rachel?”

I haul myself up the rungs and peer out over the edge.

Rachel is sitting amongst the hay, her knees drawn up to her chest, her phone beside her. Her head is turned away from me and I can see she’s trying to wipe away tears.

“What happened?” I ask her, climbing up and coming over, hunching down from the roof. I crouch right in front of her and think about putting my hand on her leg, wondering if she’ll flinch.

I do it anyway, my palm pressed against her warm skin.

She doesn’t flinch.

A small victory.

“Did something happen to your mom?” I ask softly.

She shakes her head. “No. Yes. Not like that…”

I reach out and hold her chin, bringing her face around so I’m staring right into her eyes, red-rimmed and shining with tears. “What happened?”

She sighs and shakes her head, eyes closed, tears spilling down her cheeks until they run onto my fingers. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Rachel. Everything you do matters to me. You know this now. Is it…something to do with me? With what happened last night?”

She takes in a deep breath and I tuck her hair behind her ear. “Yeah.”

My heart feels heavy. I sit down right next to her, copying her pose, my arms resting on my knees. “Lay it on me.”

“I, uh…I broke up with Samuel.”

I shouldn’t be feeling joy right now, especially when she’s upset, but that’s what’s burning in my chest. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “That was probably my fault.”

She gives me a weak smile. “Yeah. It was. But…it was also mine. I called him, you know, because I wanted to check in. Reception here sucks, so I took mom’s car and drove into town until I could get a better signal. I felt guilty about last night, I can’t help it. And just off the bat, I could tell he didn’t really care when I was coming home. So I knew it was pretty much over. I mean, it’s been over for a while but I…well, anyway, then I told him the truth. That you kissed me and I kissed you back and he didn’t even sound upset.” She lets out a sour laugh. “I mean, what does that say?”

“Says he didn’t know what he had when he had it. How long were you together?”

“Half a year or so,” she says, picking up some hay and playing with it. “Never said I love you. Never felt it. But I figured that eventually I would, you know. I was used to not falling in love…I couldn’t fall in love after you, Shane.” She rubs her lips together, glances at me. “You were it for me. I gave my heart to you and I never got it back. I don’t even think I wanted it back. I just prayed that I could love as big as I did the first time I loved you.”

I’m holding my breath as she talks, my own heart swelling and stretching with each word that falls from her lips.

“And I didn’t,” she goes on. “My heart just couldn’t do it. I didn’t have it in me because it’s only you that could get me to love like that again. Your heart is the only one that mine responds to.”

Are you talking in past or present tense? I think. Please, please God, let this be about the here and now.

“Funny thing is, Samuel says he wasn’t surprised at all. He knew this would happen. I never talked about you to him, I did my best to pretend you didn’t exist, but he still knew that my heart belonged elsewhere. Said that when we were, well, together, I was never in the moment. Never present. He said it was as if I was always somewhere else but it was never with him. And he was totally right.”

I clear my throat, wanting so badly to just push her back on the hay and kiss her, have her, take her. Revel in her sweet, sweet words.

I manage to hold it in. “Sounds like it needed to happen, though you know I’m biased.”

“It did,” she says and then rolls her eyes. “And then I contacted work because I was all paranoid that my boss was going to break up with me too.”

“And?”

She gives a half-hearted shrug. “He said that he’s thinking of bringing Pete up to my level so when I go back, I shouldn’t be surprised if I’m officially sharing my clients now. Actually, I think by the time I get back…I won’t have any clients at all.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Well. I knew that was the risk in coming here but I wouldn’t change anything. Still, I was upset and angry and frustrated at everything, just every fucking thing. And I came back to the house and my mom and I got in a fight and I think everything I kept bottled up just came pouring out. It was last night, what you told me. It reminded me that she was never ever there for me and yet here I am for her, sacrificing everything. I know I’m her daughter and I’m doing what good daughters do but fuck!” She slaps her knee. “She was never there. She turned her back on me. You were the only one who went to bat for me, Shane. I’m just so fucking confused.”

I grab her hand, holding it, trying to give her comfort. “I know it’s hard.”

“I told her some really horrible things,” she cries out softly, looking at me with pained eyes. “I was so mean.”

“It happens. This is what families do. You don’t think I haven’t fought with every single member of my family?”

“Not your grandpa.”

“Yes my grandpa. Rachel, you knew me when I was young. I could be a little shit sometimes. I’m not anymore but that’s the point of getting older. Maybe I still want to duke it out with Fox every now and then and maybe we should but even so, it’s just life. You said some mean things and your mother probably deserved it. She hurt you. She was your mother and she failed for a while because she was hurt too and she hurt you and that’s valid. But in time, you’ll both get over it. I promise. No one’s heart repairs overnight, it takes time to put the pieces back together.”

If they even want to try, that is.

“Why are you so good to me?” she whispers.

Because I never stopped loving you.

“Because you deserve all the good this world can bring,” I tell her, sliding my hand behind her neck as I lean in, my lips finding hers.

“Shane,” she whispers against my mouth but her words drop away. The world drops away as I sink into the sweetness of her tongue, as we fall back into the hay, my hands roaming over her body in quiet worship. Each section of skin my palm skirts over is a section of my heart I’m shocking alive again, willing it to beat. Her body makes me feel like I’m just being born, over and over again.

I want to give her everything.

I kiss her, deeper, sweeter, with a longing I can’t hide as I start to pull down her shorts, slipping my fingers under the front of her panties.

She tenses. I know it’s moving fast and backwards all at once but I keep going because I know what she likes, I know how she likes it. I need to know that I still know her as intimately as I once did.

“Shane,” she says again but her words drip with sex and then I’m pulling her shorts and underwear down, yanking them aside and parting her soft thighs, diving right in.

I need to taste her, messy, hot, and wild. I want her body, her touch, her soul, everything I once had and lost. I need to put my cock deep inside her, make sure she really feels me, knows me, knows I’m hers. Always hers.

But this isn’t about that right now. Right now, I just want to take her mind off of everything. I want to make her come in my mouth, thighs squeezing my face, whispering my name.

“I’m on the pill,” she manages to say as my tongue, flat, wide and wet, licks up her thighs, her taste is sweet and salty and sinfully good. “I mean, an IUD. And I’m clean…I…”

“Shhhh,” I tell her, murmuring into her skin. “Don’t worry about that right now. This is just about you.”

At that, she squirms underneath me in anticipation and my mouth fucking waters at the sight. I push my lips into her, groaning as my tongue swirls around her clit, building and building, just the way she used to like it.

I think she still does. She’s growing wetter by the second, her hands are first in the hay, making fists and then they’re reaching down, in my hair, holding tight, and her legs are splayed wider, wanting more. I pull back, wanting to be a tease and gently blow on her until she’s whimpering.

“Do want it soft or wild?” I whisper, air skirting over her clit. I’ll give her anything she asks for.

“Wild,” she says and I love how bold she is. There was no hesitation at all.

I smile to myself, the sight of her spread before me, then I attack her with my tongue, pulsing it in and out of her, flicking and licking up a frenzy until it’s wet and messy and my mouth is cramping. It’s not long before she’s coming, her thighs wrapped on either side of my head, her skin throbbing beneath my lips.

I smile against her and look up over her chest rising and falling, frantic. She’s gripping the hay for dear life, her back arched and her mouth is gaping open as she cries out my name.

I’ve missed this. It’s like witnessing a miracle. Hard to find in an ordinary world.

I pull back and watch her as she comes down from the high, her cheeks rosy, her skin glistening with sweat.

Eventually she sits up, pulls her underwear and shorts back on.

She’s avoiding my eyes at all costs.

That ain’t fucking good.

My heart seems to drop out of me.

“Was that okay?” I ask her. She sure acted like it was okay in the moment but now that the moment has passed, she looks like she’s struggling with something.

“It was…” she starts. She looks at me. “I’m not sure if that was a good idea.”

I swallow uneasily. “Okay. Why?”

“It’s too much…too fast.” She rubs at her forehead. “I don’t know how I feel about anything right now. An orgasm isn’t going to fix anything, it’s just going to complicate things and we’re already complicated enough as it is.”

An orgasm? I want to say. That wasn’t just an orgasm. That was everything.

But I don’t say it because she’s fucking right and this just proves it. Things are complicated as hell.

Still, “I hate to break it to you, Rachel, but we’re going to be complicated for a while yet.”

“And when does it stop?”

When you love me again. When you stay.

If you stay.

Our eyes lock with each other and I know that she knows what I’m thinking. She has to feel it off of me. Rachel feels everything.

And because of that, I know I have to tread carefully. I don’t want to push her away, I don’t want to scare her off. She has to work things out on her own, even though I would give anything to help her. I gave her closure, I reset her past, but that doesn’t mean that I’m her future.

I get to my feet, breaking our gaze, and start heading down the ladder.

“I better get a move on then.”

“Where are you going?” she asks, staring over the edge as I jump down on the barn floor.

I look up at her. With the way the sun is streaming in, the dust motes floating around her head look like a halo. “I’d just finished hosing down Basil. Now I gotta get Polly, tack up, head out on the range. Some cows have wandered too far.”

“How long are you going to be gone for?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her as she starts climbing down the ladder. “Maybe overnight. Maybe not.”

“Can I come?” she steps onto the ground and turns to face me.

I’m beyond puzzled. “Why would you want to come?”

“I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to talk to my mother after that, I just need to get away for a bit. I don’t want to be alone.”

I raise my brows. For someone who doesn’t want complications, she’s certainly complicating things.

But like hell I’m complaining.

“Of course you can come,” I tell her. “I’ll saddle up Sybil for you. Go put on some jeans, boots, grab a sweater, maybe a toothbrush and I’ll get us some saddle bags just in case.”

She nods, looking nervous at the thought of having to go back into the worker’s cottage and the scene of the crime. Then she turns and runs to go get her stuff.

I watch her ass as she goes, the taste of her still on my lips.

I’m welcoming this complication with open fucking arms.