Page 15 of Chains and Vows

Which feels like a stupid mistake one only makes in movies as a plot device, but also, panic does weird things to people.

It makes you careless.

I resolve to not be careless with my panic ever again.

Then I allow the relief of Colt's real message to wash over me, and press the call button.

"Finally," Colt answers on the first ring. "Were you trying to make me paranoid? Or just teach me a lesson about... whatever."

A real smile breaks across my face. My breath steadies out, and I feel the shaking in my fingers start to subside. "You have no idea how much I've missed you. Do you know what it's like to sit at a table with Cash and Wyatt without you there to run interference? It's hell, Colt. Burning agony."

"You always were dramatic," he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

The tension drains from my shoulders. I sit down on the bed and settle back against my pillows, pushing Marcus's voice out of my head.

"So how have you been?" I ask, surprised by how normal I sound. "How's the baby? How's Destiny doing?"

"They're both good. Great, actually. Marigold's getting big already. Destiny's a natural mother."

"Really?" It's hard to picture Legion's wild-child sister as a mother, but then again, it was hard to picture Destiny with Colt at all.

"Yeah. Turns out motherhood calms her down." There's something soft in Colt's voice I've never heard before. "We've got a nice place here. It's a carriage house on the Butcher property."

"Butcher?" I try to place the name. "Cattlemen?"

"No, that's a different Butcher. These are the real estate Butchers. Old money, old connections."

"Ah."

"It's a beautiful property, actually. Completely restored—exposed beams, original stonework. And I've been offered a partnership stake in a development deal nearby. Luxury condos just outside Jackson, private country club attached. Very exclusive, very high-end. The kind of market that prints money if you know how to talk to the right people."

My brows lift. "Is that what you're gonna do then? Settle in Jackson?"

He lets out that short, sardonic scoff I've known my entire life—the one that says you're being naive and we both know it.

"Savannah," he says, and even through the phone I can picture his expression perfectly, that too-white smile turned thin and private, "one does not put all their eggs in a Jackson Hole basket. You know that as well as I do."

A beat, and then something almost wistful creeps into his voice, softening the edges of his usual performance.

"This place used to be something, you know. Remember when we used to come here as kids? The skiing, the lodge, all of it. It felt special then. Like it belonged to a different world entirely." He pauses. "It's not like that anymore. It's just money in a different coat."

"Are you disappointed then?" I ask carefully.

He sighs into the phone but doesn't answer.

I see the opening and I take it before he can draw another breath.

"Come home, Colt. Bring the baby and Destiny and come back to where you belong." The words tumble out all at once, stackin' up on each other the way they do when I know I only have a few seconds before a door closes. "Everything is settled now. Legion lives here. He's on the ranch, he's not—" I wince at what's about to come out of my mouth, but I say it anyway, "—he's not angry with you."

That's a lie and we both know it, but I let it hang there like it isn't.

"Well," I revise, because even I can't hold that one with a straight face, "he probably is. He's probably furious, actually. But he wants Destiny home. He wants his niece home, Colt, and that matters more to him than whatever happened between the two of you." I pause, and I hear myself breathe. "Did you get married yet?"

"No," he says quietly.

I pounce on that like Cassia on a fresh bucket of grain, and I don't even try to be subtle about it. "Perfect. Then Destiny and I can plan the wedding together. Next June would be perfect—green pastures just coming in, a horse carriage, wildflowers everywhere, the mountains still snowcapped behind us. We'll find the most beautiful corner of the ranch and make it look like something out of a dream."

"I don't think that's her dream wedding, Savannah," Colt says, and there's a hint of amusement in his voice, soft and familiar—the old Colt, the one I grew up with, peekin' through just enough to make my chest ache with want of him.