“Are you going to be okay here alone?” Brooke asked, pulling to a stop near my front porch. “You went really quiet tonight.”

“I’ll be fine.” My voice was monotone. I felt nothing but that pain and anger I’d clung to for so long.

After that photo, the memories of the last night with Joseph rushed through me with the force of a tornado. I had pushed aside my wine and spent most of the night listening to Brooke and Kelly while they didn’t bother hiding their concerned glances in my direction. But I was lost in a sea of horrific memories.

When Jordan had stopped by, he’d been obvious with his concern, but I still didn’t tell anyone.

Everyone in town loved Joseph. I loved him. I had loved him with my entire being and in one night—one text and one voicemail that came through on his phone when I was using it to check the weather—everything changed.

I’d never told a soul. I didn’t see the point in maligning his name. Would we have stayed married? Would I have kicked him out anyway? There was an ellipses on our life together, not a period, and all because one night, one damn night three weeks before he died he hadn’t kept his dick in his pants.

My hands curled into fists at that familiar ache.

“Thanks for tonight,” I mumbled and opened the door to Brooke’s car.

“You know we’re here, right? Always? For anything.”

She leaned forward, almost to the steering wheel and I bent down through the open door. “I know. I’m sorry I wasn’t better company.”

“You know that photo means nothing too, right?” Kelly asked. Her hands curled around the passenger headrest to lean forward from her seat in the back. “We even saw the announcement he made after.”

It hadn’t even been an hour after that photo of Cooper popped up on Brooke’s phone when another alert came through, this one of him outside the restaurant, waving a folder in the air with the announcement saying the Hawke-Rinaldi marriage was officially over.

Then there’d been a mention of me. My ranch. The fact I was a widow along with speculation of what our relationship was. Which meant someone was already searching for information on me, and how ridiculous.

I just wanted to take care of my cattle and goats and be left alone. But that didn’t mean someone in town wouldn’t talk if the opportunity presented itself.

Jenni Akers would do that, that conniving, selfish, home-wrecking bitch would absolutely talk to a reporter if given the chance.

Hell, I half-suspected she was the one who took the photo of us in the first place even though I didn’t remember seeing her at Down Home that night.

But she’d spill. She’d spill everything, and then I wouldn’t be hiding the fact that my husband had slept with the biggest bitch in town.

“I’ll talk to you guys later.” I closed the door to Brooke’s car and hurried up the steps to the porch, pulling my keys from my small handbag on the way.

Once inside, I locked the doors and waited until Brooke’s taillights vanished from the long driveway.

“God. What a disaster.”

I kicked off my shoes, not bothering to put them away or fix the rug I kicked up in the process and headed upstairs. It was eleven o’clock, late for me on a good night and I should have come home as soon as I knew my night was ruined. But, I was so hell-bent on trying to move on, even with being in a crappy mood, assaulted with memories of Joseph I tried so damn hard not to relive but couldn’t be helped, I had let Brooke and Kelly convince me to stay longer.

They were only trying to help, but without knowing why that simple stupid photo turned me into such a wreck, they couldn’t shake me out of it.

Thank the Lord for good friends who would try anyway.

“Whatever,” I grumbled, flipping on the bathroom faucet. I scrubbed off my makeup and prepared for bed, crawling into sheets that still hinted at the memory of Cooper.

I couldn’t escape either of them tonight, and the harder I tried to sleep, the more I tossed and turned.

Eventually, I gave up, and grabbed my phone from my purse. A mindless scroll through social media apps I never bothered to update would put me to sleep.

I slid back under my covers and tapped the home button on my phone, only to see my screen taken over by missed calls and texts from Cooper. The last text came only thirty minutes ago.

If you’re still awake, call me. We need to talk.

We really did. My thumb tapped the screen while I debated.

We could do this now or later. There really was no point in him returning to Kansas. I could call Max and he would schedule someone to ship all of his leftover clothes back to him.

But that meant never seeing him again.

A slow pressure built in my chest, tightening my lungs until it hurt to breathe.

I didn’t want to say goodbye to him. I also didn’t know how to let him in enough to trust him, not when he’d still leave eventually.

It was smartest to cut ties now, before I fell too deep.

“Damn it.” I dropped my phone into my lap and gripped my hair. “None of this was supposed to happen. Now what do I do?”

My gaze caught on the photo of Joseph and I on the nightstand next to the bed. It had been his side of the bed, his favorite photo of us. Taken on our third anniversary, it wasn’t anything special except we’d been dressed for the wedding of Gloria Whitman’s granddaughter. My yellow and white dress had a loose skirt and the wind blew it up around my knees. In the photo, my back was to Joseph, but his hand was at my stomach. His other hand had been holding down my dress from a gust of wind and I’d smiled at him over my shoulder.

It wasn’t posed, and we were both laughing, me thinking he was ridiculous, him looking like I was the only thing he ever saw.

Which ended up being the ultimate lie.

I reached over and picked up the photo. Before I could stop myself, I threw it across the room. It dented the wall opposite my bed and thumped to the floor.

It didn’t even break. At least clean up would be easy. As my hand fell into my lap, my ring sparkled and I growled at the damn beautiful diamond I’d promised never to remove.

I yanked it off my finger and threw it too, completely unsatisfied as it landed to the carpet without a whisper of a sound.

“I hate you. Why would you do that?” I whispered the lie into the air. Like I had done every time I’d said it since Joseph died, I didn’t get the answer I needed. Not a single I’m sorry. Not a single explanation. Not a single thing to settle the turmoil he’d created and left when he took off out of the house, pissed off I’d found out, pissed off at me because I didn’t give him time to explain before kicking him out for the night. Which even then I’d known was a mistake. Where else was he going to go except to Jenni’s?

He didn’t though. He called Ryan. He went to his house and he told him everything and then he’d called me on the way home, left a message because I was still too pissed and hurt and angry to talk to him.

He told me he loved me. He told me we’d talk when he got home.

Then he lost control on an icy road and I never saw him or talked to him again.

My phone rang in my lap, jumping me out of that horrific night. Ryan showing up at my house, me so confused because Joseph wasn’t with him. Jordan following right behind and why would he be at my house so late unless he’d heard and came to kick Joseph’s ass?

The phone rang again. Cooper’s name glared at me from the black screen, his name in blinding white letters.

I answered it. At least this time, I’d get closure.

“Hello?” I asked, my throat bone dry.

“What’s wrong?” Cooper immediately asked. Sometimes it felt like he read me better than I could. It wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

“Nothing. I’m tired. Why are you calling?” I leaned back in my bed and pulled the covers up my lap. As soon as I did this, I’d cry myself to sleep and figure out another way to start over.

A gentle sigh came through the phone. “You saw photos. Or you’ve heard I was with Camilla tonight. It’s not what you think, Rebecca.”

“I know.” I plucked at a ball of lint on my vibrant-colored quilt. My mother had a friend of hers, Cathy, make it for Joseph and I as a wedding gift. She was so talented she won blue ribbons in the state fair every year for her original designs.

The quilt was beautiful. Some days, I considered burning it.

“She signed the papers,” Cooper said. “That’s all the dinner was for at the restaurant. Well, it wasn’t even dinner really—”

Determination had thickened his voice, but he didn’t need to beg me to believe him. “Brooke has your name on Google Alert,” I said, and huffed, my cheeks burned at the admission we’d essentially been stalking him, or that she had. “And don’t ask why. We were at dinner tonight at the resort and saw the pictures of you at dinner with her and then leaving.”

“Then you know it’s over.”

His marriage was over. Instead of filling me with relief like I thought it should, because now at least I wasn’t on the same level as Jenni, wanting a married man, it did the opposite. A marriage ending was rarely something to celebrate. “I’m sorry. How are you doing?”

And why was I still dragging this out? The thought of telling him goodbye made me want to vomit and yet it was still the best thing I could do. Even if something between us grew deeper, he’d still leave. Joseph couldn’t even stay faithful in a small town of a few thousand. How could Cooper if he was globe-trotting the world starring in movies?

“I feel relieved. I’m glad it’s over and I can put it behind me. But we’ll talk more about it later. I know it’s late, I just wanted to hear your voice before I went to sleep. We can talk tomorrow.”

“I don’t think that’s best,” I said. My heart leapt in my chest and dropped with a thud.

“What?”

I repeated what I said this morning. “Your life is there, Cooper. There’s no point in returning.”

“There’s no point…” he mumbled it like he was speaking to himself, not to me. He cursed and then acted like he hadn’t heard me. “We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll be there by dinnertime. I’ve got a meeting with Max and then I’ll be on a plane there.”

Had he not heard me? He had because he’d even repeated it. Which meant he was ignoring me. “Cooper. Listen.”

“Shit,” he said, his voice concerned. “Last night was too fast for you, wasn’t it?”

God. This man. He was always so concerned about me. “No. It’s not about last night. I liked it.”

I’d thought about little else today besides never seeing him again. And if I was willing to be honest, I still wanted more of it. I wanted more of him. It just wasn’t possible, or smart.

“Yeah, I did too.” His thick, warm voice enflamed my cheeks and made my pulse race.

In the distance, the echo of a gunshot sounded and I flung off the covers. “What the hell?” I asked, rushing to the window. It faced the back of my house and I peeled back the curtains.

“What the hell what?” Cooper asked. “If you don’t think I—”

“Gunshot,” I whispered, scanning the darkness. “It’s probably nothing.” It didn’t feel like nothing, though. Gunshots weren’t uncommon. Hell, I had six guns locked in a safe in the closet under the stairs. Joseph’s 9-millimeter was still in the nightstand on his side of the bed. We didn’t only use them for self-defense in case it was ever necessary, but to scare away the coyotes that’d get onto our property.

“Becca—” Cooper’s voice hit my ears. I’d forgotten I was on the phone with him.

“It’s nothing,” I repeated. “Just an odd time of night to hear one. Probably Whitman’s or something.”

Another blast sounded and this one was closer. “Shit.” I jumped from the sound, louder that time, but still didn’t see any spark of a shot going off that told me it was close. And hell, with the echo it could be coming from anywhere.

“I gotta go.”

“Was that another one?”

“Yeah, I gotta—”

“Rebecca, don’t you dare hang up on me or go getting yourself into trouble.”

I barely registered Cooper’s voice as I pulled the phone away from my ear and disconnected.

Midnight was too damn late for anyone to be out shooting anything.

As soon as I disconnected the phone, I dialed 9-1-1.

“9-1-1 dispatch, what is your emergency?”

“Yes, this is Rebecca Splendid and I’m hearing gunshots. It’s probably nothing, but it’s late, and I was concerned.”

And that second one wasn’t all that far away. The dispatch operator asked for my information and as soon as we disconnected, I threw on some clothes and at the last minute, I grabbed Joseph’s gun.

Just in case.

---

“Did you find anything?” I was running to the officers who had shown up within ten minutes of my call.

After I hung up the phone, I’d hesitated to run outside and get in my truck, searching my land for anything that might tell me if what I suspected was correct, but I held off.

Now, it was almost two o’clock in the morning and Ryan along with Beckett, another guy who graduated around the same year as me and was also a police officer, were strolling across my field toward the house, flashlights sweeping back and forth.

“You have four cows down, unmoving.”

“Shot?” My hand went to my chest. The sick feeling I had slithered down my arms. “Were they shot?”

“Hard to tell in the dark. Saw some blood. One looked pretty torn up so it could have been coyotes.”

“Or maybe the gunshots startled them and they got trampled,” I muttered. I needed to go check on the cattle, but no way would anyone let me out there now. “Have you talked to the Whitmans or Jeffersons to see if they heard anything?”

Beckett scribbled something in a notebook. “We’ll look into it, Rebecca. I’ll send a couple men to talk to your neighbors. We just came back here to call in some brighter lights to do a search. If it was something more than coyotes, we’ll figure it out.”

“Okay.” I nodded. They’d take care of it. They’d take care of me, and I trusted these guys.

A rumble of a truck headed up the road and all of us stood still while Jordan’s Yukon charged down my dirt drive. “Did you call him?” I asked Ryan.

“Nope. Didn’t even think.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket where I’d shoved it earlier, reminding me of all the texts and phone calls I hadn’t answered.

I’d texted him back that everything was fine when the first one came in, but apparently that wasn’t enough because he kept texting. Of course he’d call Jordan to come and check on me.

“You didn’t need to come,” I said as he hopped out of his truck.

“Cooper’s losing his mind. Said you heard gunshots when you were on the phone with him and hung up and aren’t calling back. Called me and sent me out here to check on you. What the hell happened?” As he asked, Jordan’s focus turned to Ryan. “And why didn’t you call me?”

“Because I’m working, dumbass.” Ryan slapped him on the shoulder and gestured toward Beckett. “Come on. We’ll head back out, see if we can find anything, but when the men get here with the bigger lights, send them out carefully Rebecca, got it?”

“Yeah. And thanks.”

“My job, ma’am.” He tipped his head and gestured like he was wearing a cowboy hat, flicking his fingers outward.

“I’m coming with,” Jordan said, but this time it was Beckett who stopped him.

“No. You’re not. Stay here with your sister and let us work, Jordan. If there’s been any foul play out there we can find we can’t exactly have more footprints. It’s going to be hard enough as it is.”

Jordan didn’t like it but arguing any more was pointless.

Another hour later and Jordan and I were in my kitchen drinking coffee that tasted like tar, it was so thick, when Ryan and Beckett returned. I pushed off the chair, Jordan already moving ahead of me and we met them outside my back door.

“We’ll need to come back in the morning,” Ryan said. He showed no sense of his usual good humor and my senses went on alert.

“What’d you find?”

Instead of answering me, he turned to Jordan. “Want you staying with her until we can come back during the day.”

“Of course.” Jordan crossed his arms over his chest. “What’d you find?”

“Shell casing,” Beckett said. He held up a clear bag and the brass color was hard to see in the dark, but even so, I leaned into Jordan. He caught me immediately. “Don’t know any more than that, but you have to promise us you won’t go out on the land until we can investigate further. Lights helped some but we need the daylight.”

“I won’t.” I shook my head. “But what about the cows you saw?”

“Shell was close to it, Rebecca.” Ryan’s tone had gone soft. The only time I’d ever heard him sound like that was the night he showed up after Jordan’s accident. “Other than that, it was still ripped open. We won’t know anything until we can run ballistics on the casing. But we’re not kidding, you stay off your land until we’re done out there. We’ll be back once the sun comes up.” His gaze swung to Jordan. “You staying with her?”

“Yup.”

“Okay then, like I said, get some rest you two.”

Like I could sleep. I’d drank enough coffee to keep me awake until Christmas, plus adrenaline was flooding my veins. Jordan stood next to me while the men slid into their vehicles.

“Come on. Let’s get you to bed.” He turned me and shoved me toward the house.

“Not possible,” I muttered, but my head was on my brother’s shoulder and I was stifling a yawn. Shit, I was damn tired and my eyes already felt like I’d scrubbed them with sandpaper. “Who would do this? Shoot my cows?”

“You don’t know that’s what happened.”

“Yeah, well my money’s on the Jeffersons. Those assholes have been after me to buy the land since Mom and Dad died. Samuel has said more than once to me a woman can’t handle the work alone.”

“Those assholes are still bitter you’d never date Gavin, but that doesn’t mean anything. Could have been idiot high school kids, or like they said, even the Whitmans shooting a coyote.”

“They would have called.”

“Yeah. Probably.” He opened the door to the house and pressed me through, his hand on my lower back. “Go on up to bed. I’ll close up down here and I’ll take my old room.”

I was too tired to argue. Not that I would. The last thing I wanted was to be here alone.

“Thanks for coming, Jordan,” I said, my hand on the railing and pulling my leaden feet up the stairs. Every step felt like it was harder than the one before and in the last few minutes, my legs had gone heavy. Damn, maybe I would be able to sleep.

“Always.”

I went to my room and stripped off my jeans, the thunk of my phone hitting the floor snagged my attention. I should at least charge it.

I bent down, grabbed it, and when it fell it must have turned my home screen on.

I scrubbed my eyes, hoping like hell I didn’t see what I thought, but yup.

You’re not calling and I’m fucking worried.

Call me, damn it.

Hopping on the redeye.

Be there in the morning.

Crap. He’d sent the last two texts at two o’clock my time which meant he’d be showing up right around the same time as the officers returned.

“Whatever,” I grumbled and slid into bed. I plugged my phone in, turned off the ringer, and I was asleep moments after my head hit the pillow.