I just want to blurt it all here and now. It hangs on the tip of my tongue, to confess how I feel, to free myself of the self-imposed rule I’ve stamped in red ink all over my life that says I cannot tell this man I love him. My ex’s father. Colton Wilder. The cowboy who has my heart, and who gets to keep it once I leave this place, even if he never knows that it will stay here with him.

