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She kept her eyes on the two-lane road ahead of her, trying not to get distracted by the scenery. The town itself was nothing to behold. A little strip of buildings made of timber that blended in to the trees. But the sight of them signified that they were close to Four Corners Ranch, which was where they would be living.
Specifically McCloud’s Landing.
Four Corners itself was a ranching collective that functioned like one large ranch, but it was actually four, run by the four founding families.
The McClouds had been equestrian focused since the founding of the ranch in the late 1800s, and now they were expanding to offer equine therapy.
She’d met all of the McCloud brothers, who were handsome, intense, and a whole thing.
Gus, the oldest, and the one she’d had the most dealings with, was now happily married to a woman she’d met briefly on her last visit. Tag and Hunter were married too, and she harbored hopes of finding a friend among at least one of the wives. Lachlan and Brody McCloud were both single.
Lachlan didn’t bother her in the least.
Brody, on the other hand...
There was something about him. Something that made her feel prickly and uncomfortable. Worse, during her every interaction with him, she had the sense he knew it.
She didn’t like it.
“We’re here,” she said, happy to distract both Benny and herself. The sign that proudly proclaimed the dirt road they were turning on to be the main-entry point for Four Corners Ranch had horses on it, and Benny didn’t seem overly impressed by that.
It was her greatest sorrow that her son did not seem even half as enthused about horses as she was.
But then, he hadn’t been able to have a lot of exposure to them.
Carter had left when Benny was two, and it had changed their lives dramatically. They had gone from living in a lovely house on the outskirts of town, with ten acres and several horses, to only being able to afford an apartment.
While Carter had kept the house.
And her horses. They would always be her horses, because in her mind nothing living was property in the sense of who bought them or was awarded them by a judge. And she didn’t think of them as hers in that way.
As something she owned.
They were hers, in her heart. Because she loved them and always would.
But he’d taken those like they were assets.
He had eventually moved his girlfriend in, and she’d been pregnant already. They’d married, and started a family. Right over the top of Elizabeth’s life.
Right over the top of their life.
Like she and Carter had never been there at all.
Ashley’d had twin boys, which always felt like an insult to Elizabeth. Like she’d been doubly efficient when giving him children too.
Two to Elizabeth’s one, in a single pregnancy.
And now there was a girl, and another baby on the way.
The worst part about Carter was when he’d told her, he hadn’t been cruel. He’d looked at her with that familiar, handsome face and said he’d made a mistake. But that the mistake had opened his eyes to problems he’d been ignoring in their lives, in him.
His fault, his mistakes.
It’s not your fault, Elizabeth. It’s me.
Like that was supposed to make her feel better? They’d been married. Everything was supposed to be about them. But this was all him, which meant there was nothing she could do to change it or fix it.
He’d been the one to lead her, she’d always felt that. But suddenly in this story he told her about them that wasn’t true at all. In this story he’d made no real choices, he’d made it sound like they’d drifted together, then drifted apart.
