After the Storm (Cottonwood Cove, #5)

by Laura Pavlov

“Well, if memory serves, the cowboy only came to life for his wild raven.”

She’d always been the prettiest girl in the room, but after years of not seeing her, I hadn’t been prepared to have the wind knocked from my lungs.

We’d always been explosive together. The way we loved. The way we fought. The way we existed.

“Presley? That’s your friend who shares your heart with me, right, Daddy? Her name is inked right by my name. We have the same birthday. We’re your two girls?”

The way his brows furrowed as he watched the car drive away had my heart threatening to burst. The protective stance, the concern—it was everything I knew he’d be as a father. But witnessing it was different. Witnessing it hurt me in a way that I couldn’t explain to even myself. I was getting a glimpse of the life that should have been mine. Time had never been on our side. And that certainly hadn’t changed.

“She got a tattoo on her wrist. This little raven. She said it was just something special she wanted. But years later, during one of our heated fights, she admitted Raven was a nickname that you’d given her. That it was a reminder of a time when she was actually happy.” He sipped his wine. “How do I compete with that?”