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To the people on their healing journey. Growth isn't just beautiful, it's painful and imperfect. Perfection is overrated. You're allowed to make mistakes. You're allowed to feel emotions—good and bad. You're allowed to stumble. You're allowed to take up space. Be you, babe. Unapologetically.
She never thought I was good enough, even when she had love from one of her boyfriends. Max was the fourth one after Daddy.
Mom was standing on the other side of the living room, her makeup running down her cheeks. She’d just gotten that mascara from the drug store two days ago with money I’d found in the couch. She was so proud of me for finding it, said we would go into town for a treat. I thought the treat was for me. It wasn’t. “Max, please,” she begged, her voice cracking as she fisted her dress at her sides. It was the same dress she always wore when he came over. It was the only one she had. He shook his head. “I can’t be here with you every fucking day, Sheri. I have work to do.”
I didn’t blink as all the emotion in my mother’s face melted away, revealing the cold, distant side of her I didn’t like. It scared me. She could go from one mood to the next, and it didn’t matter what I did to try and stop it. Last time she got cold, she slapped me in the face.
It was always the same. Mom would fall in love with a new man, they’d be nice for awhile, and then they would leave. None of them ever stayed, including Daddy. He left on my fifth birthday. That was five years ago.
“Abigail!” I sucked in a breath, feeling goosebumps spread over my arms at the anger in my mother’s voice. Quickly, I flipped off the light, praying she would think I was already asleep. She shouted my name again, sounding closer this time. I felt a lump grow in my throat, and I bit down on my bottom lip as hard as I could, forcing my whimpers to quiet. “Girl, you have five seconds to get into the living room,” she screeched. “Jesus, Sheri, leave her alone,” Max cut in, sounding tired. My heart skipped a beat. None of her other boyfriends gave a crap about me. “Don’t tell me how to raise my
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Good news: I got an A on my math homework. Bad news: everyone at school stared at the bruise on my cheek the next day—including Beau Marks. “What the heck is that?” he asked, his voice sounding strange.
I shrugged a shoulder. “A bruise,” I answered. Beau had the prettiest blue eyes I’d ever seen on this side of the Rockies, and his golden hair was my favorite shade. It was much better than my dull brown. I watched as he brought his brows together, looking concerned. “From what?” My mouth felt dry all of a sudden. I’d practiced this lie in my head all morning, but I couldn’t lie to Beau. In the future, a long time from now, one statement would remain true. I, Abbie Spears, would never be able to lie to Beau Marks, even when a lie was the only thing that could save his life.
Every morning, if the weather allowed it, I hiked up Denver’s mountain and watched the sunrise. It was a ritual I’d had for over ten years—even when I wasn’t working here.
“It doesn’t feel right,” he answered, still looking at the tree line. I shifted in my saddle, the hair on the back of my neck rising. “What doesn’t feel right?” “Something is coming,” he said. The crack of a whip in the distance snapped him out of it, and he shook his head. Clearing my throat, I twisted my torso, looking over to the herd. “When do we go to auction?” “End of September.”
“Motherfucker, did you take my towel?” Lance grinned as I chuckled. “He’s going to kill you one day.” “Agreed,” Caleb said with a laugh. “He can’t live without me,” Lance argued. “I’m his favorite brother.” “Bitch, you’re my only brother,” Lawson yelled. “Bring me my towel, or Caleb gets to see what a real man looks like.” Caleb looked at me, raising a brow. “I thought you said Lawson’s balls hadn’t dropped yet?”
“I’m not talking about this with you.” “Well, who else are you going to talk about it with?” he pressed. “No one else knows about the pain you’re in. You spend the majority of your time hiding it.” Closing my eyes, I bite down, feeling the muscle in my jaw jump. “I know that.” “Then do I need to remind you of the night you snuck out of the bunkhouse with a bottle of Jack and a gun? Who followed you out into that field and talked you off the ledge?” Leave it to Mags to get straight to the point. When I didn’t answer, he clipped, “Tell me who, Beau.”
“Today has been six years. That’s why I asked you over, dumbass, not to help me with the fence. I can handle my own fucking fence.”
“You haven’t gone to Denver in a while,” he noted. I looked down at my feet, jaw tight. “Haven’t needed to.” “Haven’t needed to or haven’t wanted to?” God fucking dammit. I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to talk about it, trying to stall this conversation for as long as I could. If I was a smart man, I would just get up and fucking leave. I wasn’t being held here against my will, and I didn’t have to tell Mags anything. We both knew that, and yet? My ass was still planted in his fucking rocking chair. A few more minutes passed before I answered his question. “I haven’t needed to,” I repeated,
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Still, Denver’s words from earlier echoed in the back of my mind. Something is coming.
He wasn’t the only one of my friends concerned about my personal life. I hadn’t been on a date in two years and I hadn’t had sex in just over six. For the better part of those six years, I was wallowing in a deep depression. I’d let the only man I’d ever love go. Did it still hurt? Yes. Every time I thought about him, my chest ached—which was why I didn’t think about him, dating, relationships, or even sex. I pushed all that crap to the back of my mind so I could focus on the person I needed to be.
“I’m not talking about that fake ass smile you put on for the rest of the world. I’m talking about the smile that lights up your face, shows your pretty teeth, and leaves crinkles around your eyes. The smile that made you know who fall to his damn knees every single time he saw it.” “I thought we weren’t talking about him anymore,” I said, my voice shaking slightly at the end. “Did I get my point across or not?” he asked pointedly.
“What’s your deal with not sharing food, babe?”
I bent my head, closing my eyes, letting myself feel the pain for the first time in a long, long time. All I saw was his face. Handsome and chiseled with sun kissed skin, golden hair, and the prettiest blue eyes I’d ever seen. Beau.
As I was shampooing my hair for the second time, I heard the front door open and shut. I waited for Dave to call out for me, but he didn’t.
Suddenly, goosebumps scattered along the left side of my body, and I felt a chill in the room. Movement caught my eye to the left—in the doorway of the bathroom. I twisted my neck, eye wide as fear took over. Nothing was there.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. He was here. I heard another noise—this time on the inside of my bedroom, the familiar creak of the floor boards that only occurred when I walked around to my side of the bed. He was by my bed.
tone. I was paralyzed with fear, short pants coming from me now. I couldn’t even answer the phone. I couldn’t even run. There was nothing I could do, because even if I did, he would find me. He always managed to find me when I was out in public.
I heard my closet door open and close, followed by heavy, slow footsteps leading out of my room and down the hall before they pounded down the stairs. Seconds later, there was a loud bang—my front door slamming shut. A chilled quiet followed, and that’s when I broke.
My stalker was back, and this time, I knew he wouldn’t let me escape.
“This is Sheriff Bowen,” Chase answered on the fifth ring. “What took you so long?” I asked, shooting Denver a look. “Beau? What’s going on?” he demanded. “Need you to call Forest Ranger Dipshit and have him send a team out here,” I told him. Chase sighed. “Beau, you have got to stop calling him that.”
“I’m sorry, mama,” I said to her, Spirit circling her. My chest still ached as I lassoed her, and led her out of the field, leaving her baby to rot beneath the sweltering summer sun.
“It’s bad, huh?” Valerie guessed from behind me, but I could hear the smile in her voice. I looked at her over my shoulder, shooting her a knowing look. “When Denver remodeled this kitchen, he didn’t replace the piping, and now he’s paying for it.” She smiled at the mention of her husband. “You saying he should have?” “I told him to do it,” I said, sighing. “He didn’t listen to me.” “He’s a stubborn man.” I rose to my feet with a grunt, my lower back aching. “Yeah, but you love him,” I said, moving around the island. “Y’all still keep his tool bag in the laundry room?”
Whether Valerie knew it or not, the Hallow Ranch cowboys were forever in her debt. She brought this ranch back to life, and Harmony, Mason’s wife, brought the family back together. We owed a lot to those women, and we’d be damned if we let anything happen to them.
It wasn’t paper. It was a photograph. One that contained a beautiful memory… My eyes studied the two people in the photo: a younger me, bright eyed and ready to take on the world with the girl standing beside me. She was cheesing hard, her ponytail lopsided, her cheeks red from the summer heat. Behind us was the stream where we’d just taken a swim, and on the ground beside us was a picnic I’d gotten together for the both of us. I’d taken the photo on a shitty disposable camera with a self-timer on it from the Hayden drug store. I’d picked her up from her mother’s old trailer in my father’s
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I proposed to her the day after I’d taken this photo, ready to give her the goddamn world, and she destroyed mine with a single word. No.
Fuck, I’d thought saying her name out loud would be too much for me to bear, but the real torture was hearing her name come from someone else’s mouth. Someone who knew how much I loved her, how much she gutted me in the end.
“What is this, Beau? I know what she looks like.” Before I could get a word in, he continued, “Is she in trouble or something?” I’d kill anyone who hurt her. Jesus, Beau. Get it together. I rolled my neck, nostrils flaring. “Denver, I haven’t talked to her in six years, haven’t even seen her in three,” I told him. “I went to grab your tool bag from the laundry room, and this fell down from the shelf.” His brows furrowed again. “In—in my laundry room?” I nodded once. “I’ve been looking for this photo forever. When I couldn’t find it, I just assumed it was lost.”
“That must be it,” I mumbled. When I opened my eyes again, I found Denver studying me again, and I felt a wave of guilt slam into me. “I apologize, Den. I was just—” “Don’t apologize. I’d go a damn rampage if I found a picture of my woman in the bunkhouse,” he said, cutting me off sharply. My woman.
I hadn’t spoken her name in over three years and I’d just fucking relapsed, the need to see her, to touch her, to hear her voice pulsing through my veins. “She’s not my woman, Den. Not anymore,”
The past wasn’t filled with pain. It was filled with the only love I’d ever known and a warmth I would never forget, no matter how much I wanted to. I was chained to it, to the life I’d thought I would have with her. Now, I was nothing more than a lonely cowboy, the world passing him by without a single care.
I would never be able to move on. Abbie Spears was branded into my soul.
The thing about Abbie was, she was the black sheep of Hayden. None of the adults cared for her or liked her. I thought it was absolute bullshit, considering she didn’t do anything wrong. Her piece of shit mother, on the other hand… My father raised me to treat everyone—especially women--with respect, but there was some days I wanted to kill that fucking woman for what she put Abbie through.
I heard a shout from behind him, the trailers covered in shadows. “That’s great, Billy. If you’ll excuse me, my friend needs my help,” I said, my voice hard as I shrugged his hand off my shoulder, moving around him. Billy chuckled again, something dark laced within it. My spine stiffened. “If you’re going back there for your little friend, don’t bother. She’s getting what’s coming to her,” he said, his upper lip curling in disgust. My head ticked to the side. “What the fuck did you just say to me?” Billy didn’t like that. He, just like his son, always had to be the most powerful man in the
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“Abbie!” I roared, praying my voice could be heard over the crowd. I moved, running to the left, and then, I heard it. She cried out my name. “Beau! Beau help!” Fear coiled around my neck then, ready to strike. My boots couldn’t hit the ground fast enough as I broke into a run, my heart pounding for her and only her. I’d been denying my feelings for her for too long and I was done pretending she wasn’t my entire world. She was past, my present, and I prayed to God she was my future. If she wasn’t, I didn’t know what the hell would become of me. Rounding the back of one of the larger trailers,
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All her life, Abbie had been hit by men, and I’d been powerless to stop it. I was too skinny, too small, too weak. Not anymore. I was a fucking man now. I could protect her now. Abbie deserved love, and I was going to give it to her. Day after day. Year after year. Until I was old and gray. Until my lungs stopped working. Until my heart stopped beating, I would love Abbie the way she was destined to be loved.
Her white blouse was ripped at the shoulder, and her long, pink skirt that flowed around her legs, down to her white tennis shoes was covered in dirt stains. I bit down hard, hoping like hell we could get those stains out. She loved that skirt so fucking much, and I still remembered the happy dance she did when she found it in Sam’s thrift store last spring. My eyes dropped to her shoes, studying them as my heart drummed in my ears. They had a hole them, and I was doing all I could to save up so I could get her a new pair. I couldn’t give her money—not again. The last time, her momma found it
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“Beau, you…you…” “Take a breath,” I ordered calmly. I knew the man was dead. I’d just killed a man, but I didn’t care. I only cared about her.
From the age of ten, I knew that, someday, I would have to take a life, and growing up beside Abbie, I also knew I would do it to protect her.
Mason had a choice here. He could either call the cops, maintain his image of John Langston’s son for the town of Hayden and have me arrested. Or, he could help me hide the body. I felt Abbie’s hand wrap around my forearm, her fingers tightening. I held my breath, heart pounding, only to release it five seconds later when Mason said, “I’ll call your dad.” “He won’t get here in time,” I argued, shaking my head. “We have to get the body out of here now. Leaving it would do me no good.”
“I—I need to go back to my mom’s,” she stammered. Before I knew what I was thinking, I yanked her to my chest and slammed my mouth onto hers. Our first kiss was short, rough, and possessive. It was everything I’d dreamed of. When I pulled away, her eyes were wide with shock. “Beau—” “—there’s no time, Abbie,” I murmured, stroking her jaw with my knuckle. “We’ll talk later.” “You—you just killed a man and kissed me,”
“I’ve been in love with you since the fifth fucking grade, Abbie. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you,”
By midnight, the ashes of the man who touched my wildflower had been spread over John Langston’s mountain, and no one, not even Mason and I, spoke of that night. It was a secret between the four of us; Pop, me, Mase, and Abbie. Not even Denver knew I’d killed my first man at the ripe age of seventeen.
I was just Abbie Spears, daughter of a town whore and drug addict.
“There is no one who can stop him, Dave. Not you. Not me. Not your boyfriend. Certainly not the cops.” “Red Snake Investigations,” he blurted out suddenly as I turned my back to him.
