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Physical safety, anyway. My heart was another matter. One might argue that the ever-growing crimson stain seeping through my shirt was obviously more urgent than a broken heart, it was better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, blah blah blah, but I would argue that being left by Sebastian Ashcroft was a misery I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

Well, maybe my worst enemy. But only my worst enemy.

Like the person who had slid a knife into my gut, whoever the hell he was. I hadn’t gotten a good look at his face. I never did. Hell, I couldn’t even be sure he was a he. For all I knew, I was dealing with a woman.

Sweat beaded along my hairline even though my teeth were chattering from cold. Everything went blurry. Darkness shaded the wide pastures and snow-tipped mountains as my vision tunneled. I gripped the steering wheel harder and shook my head violently, forcing myself back from the brink. Stay conscious. Do not hit a cow.

Fuck, Mom was going to be pissed.

The winding mountain roads leading from Yellowstone National Park south to the Wind River Range normally wouldn’t be a challenge for me in my decades-old Land Rover. Old Reliable and I had been through worse together. My work had taken us all over North and South America, through all kinds of inclement weather. Snowstorms, hailstorms, windstorms. We’d driven through it all and come out safely in the sunshine.

Bleeding out all over the scarred leather seats was a first for both of us.

“Sorry, old man,” I wheezed. I had to fight for every word. “Have to go on without me.”

Poor Old Reliable. He was from a different century, when they built things to last. What he lacked in technology, he more than made up for in grit and metal. I hadn’t been his first owner, and I doubted I would be his last, but I had hoped that our journey together would continue for a few more decades yet.

Those adventures would never exist now, and Old Reliable—oh, god. He was going to end up as some finance bro’s midlife crisis toy, relegated to a suburban driveway. A tear splashed down my cheek. Relly would hate the suburbs. Almost as much as I would hate being dead.

And I would really, really hate being dead. Maybe death wouldn’t be so bad if our bodies crumbled to stardust, but what if there really was a god and he expected us to sit around all day playing harps and singing hymns and shit? I wasn’t cut out for it. No sex, no adventures, no questions left to ponder? I’d be bored to tears.

Maybe Mom was right about my tattoo. Maybe inking but did you die in calligraphy above my elbow like a cuff had tempted fate to knock me down a peg. Everyone knew the gods didn’t like hubris. Mom wasn’t a fan of tattoos in general, but that was the only one she’d tried to talk me out of, saying it would look awfully dumb in my coffin. At the time I’d laughed. Shit, Mom, that’s what cremation is for. She’d given me that mom look of hers and knocked on wood. Four years later and here we were. Mom was right, and now she’d never get to tell me so to my face.

My life flashed before my eyes like a highlight reel. Mom holding my hand as my pudgy toddler feet met the frigid Pacific Ocean. A baby gorilla stealing my hat while his weary mama looked on. Whale sharks in the Gulf of Mexico, wide mouths gaping. Marveling at the song of a grasshopper rubbing his legs together at the end of a tall stalk, then looking up to see Seb watching me with the same wonder. Marry me. A cow⁠—

A cow?

I blinked hard. A square brown head and fuzzy brown ears came into focus with barely enough time for me to swerve to the right. Shit. I checked the rearview mirror. The cow was fine. Relly was fine. I was…Well, I wasn’t any worse.

Honestly, it was a good thing I nearly collided with the cow. That dang animal saved me from getting sentimental over a man who had said in sickness and in health with a straight face, only to renege ten months later. Seb had no business being in the pre-death highlight reel at all. I had thirty-three years of amazing adventures to pull from. Seb and I didn’t even get one full turn around the sun.

And yet, he was the person I was running to.

Proximity was only part of the reason. Yes, Mercy River Ranch was conveniently close to Yellowstone National Park, where I had been on assignment. Seb Ashcroft was a former SEAL, and even though he had traded in his black dog tags for cowboy boots years ago, he was still the only person who could help me now. There was nowhere safer for me to stand than right next to Seb, no matter how things had ended between us.

“If you need anything, anything at all, you know where to find me,” he’d said.

My lips grazed his cheek in the last kiss I would ever give him as I whispered, “Over my dead body.”

Poor choice of words, in retrospect. No wonder fate decided to screw with me.

“Turn left,” the GPS announced in a robotic voice.

There it was. A big metal sign arched over the dirt road, welcoming me to Mercy River Ranch. Maybe I was actually going to survive this after all.

This time.

My vision blurred as I hit the gas. In the distance, I could make out the hazy outlines of buildings. So close and somehow still so far. And then suddenly they weren’t far at all. Whether I had blinked or lost consciousness for a split second, I didn’t know, but I was here.

I made it.

I slammed the brake and skidded to a stop. With a sob of relief, I fumbled open the door and practically fell out. Two women were already moving toward me. Behind them, shirtless men appeared to be tackling each other. Was one of them Seb? I couldn’t tell.

“Help!” I cried out. “Please!”

My knees buckled, and I stumbled. One of the women caught me, her arms wrapping around my waist, and I collapsed against her. As she slowly lowered me to the ground, a familiar voice shouted, “Move!”

Seb?