Page 32 of Bones and Ashes

And now I'm standin' in the middle of forty-seven thousand acres that bear my name, and I can't train a horse to work cattle, and I can't fix a fence line without consulting a YouTube video, and the only thing I'm truly, genuinely qualified to do is make it all look beautiful from the outside.

And I threw it away.

I burned it down.

I let out a hard breath.

Reality.

It always catches up. And most of the time… it's ugly.

I grew up on this ranch, but I don't belong on this ranch.

Because I never earned this ranch.

That's the thought that's sittin' on my chest when I hear it.

The low, unmistakable rumble of a Harley comin' up the drive.

My heart does a stupid, unserious thing in my chest—a full-body startle that has nothing to do with surprise, because I'm not surprised, I'm relieved—and I'm already moving before I've decided to move.

Away from the window.

Across the great room.

Past the antler chandelier, and the stone fireplace, and the carefully styled coffee table with its stack of hardcover books that nobody has ever read.

I don't even look for shoes.

I don't check my hair in the hallway mirror, which is the first real evidence in thirty years that Eleanor's training has a ceiling.

I just go.

Out through the front door and onto the wraparound porch, and the Montana sun hits me flat across the face, and there he is.

Legion.

Comin' up the long curve of the drive on his bike. And the thing is loud, and dark, and mean. Matte black everywhere. No chrome. No shine. Wide tires. Tall handlebars he has to reach up for.

The whole machine has this quality of bein' put together from spare parts that all agreed, somewhere along the way, to become dangerous together.

I stop at the top of the porch steps and I smile.

I can't help it. I don't even try.

He pulls up in the gravel turnaround, cuts the engine, and the silence after is so complete it feels like a different kind of sound. He swings his leg over and sets the kickstand, and he's wearin' what he's always wearin'—black leather cut, jeans that have done some livin', boots that have done more.

Then he reaches up and pulls off that little half-helmet he rides in, the skull cap that doesn't protect anything but his pride, and his hair is a disaster. Flattened on one side, standing up on the other, dark blond and every direction at once.

I walk down the steps barefoot, the flat stepping stones cold beneath my toes.

I don't say anything.

Neither does he.

I cross the gravel and I don't feel it cuttin' into my feet, and I walk straight to him, and I put both my hands flat against the leather over his chest, and I tip my face up, and I kiss him.

And just like that, the ugly reality from a minute ago—the no skills, no purpose, no belonging spiral—goes quiet.