Prologue
Dale
Freed.
Finally.
Ashley is home, and we’re going to make this work. Yes, it will take work. My past won’t disappear. Not ever. Like Dad said, I have to live with it. That’s not part of the choice. The choice is how I live with it—which road I choose to take.
I’m seeing Aunt Mel again to help sort everything out. The big question is whether I need to tell Donny what happened those last few days of our captivity. I waver on that. I want to tell him, to be honest with him, but he’s happy. I don’t want to destroy that.
Ashley made arrangements to finish her coursework online. By May, she’ll be a true doctor of wine! Where she goes from there is up to her. She has my full support, whether she wants to use her knowledge at the Steel Winery or live her dream to become a sommelier at a fine restaurant in Grand Junction.
Willow is moving to Colorado. She’ll be here by Thanksgiving for the big party for Uncle Ryan and Aunt Ruby. She’ll stay with us until she finds a place of her own. Ashley has already found a place in town for her to open a salon. She’s starting over in a new place, and Ashley couldn’t be happier.
And Donny…
Donny’s moving back home.
He accepted Mom’s offer to become the assistant city attorney for Snow Creek. Yes, my little brother gave up a partnership track at a top Denver firm to come home. I can’t help wondering if Callie Pike had anything to do with that decision. They were cozy the night of the reception.
The old-vine Syrah has finished fermenting. Now the aging begins. It’s going to be an amazing vintage, and even though it should have been twice the amount, I’m living with it and my part in the tragedy. There’s no way to know if my campfire truly started the fire. I’ve accepted that it most likely didn’t, as I’m always very careful, and I remember being extra careful both mornings.
But I’ll never know for sure, and I have to accept that.
Part of being free means I have to accept those things in my life that I can’t change. It’s not easy, but it’s doable.
I’m doing it.
I’m at my office now, answering a few emails before I head to the winery to check on the Syrah and other wines, when my phone dings with a text.
Brendan Murphy?
Why is he texting me?
Dale, we need to talk. Important.
Tonight at my place. Bring Donny.
Chapter One
Donny
Moving back to the ranch isn’t a huge issue. Sure, I was on a partnership track with a global firm in Denver, but my mother needs me.
I’ll do anything for my mother. She raised me, took Dale and me in when she had no obligation to, gave us a life neither of us could have dreamed of—especially after what we’d been through at the hands of our captors. She was only twenty-five years old. Twenty-five and pregnant with Diana.
And she took on a troubled ten-year-old and seven-year-old. She’s an amazing woman.
I love my dad, but I’m especially close to my mom. Dale is the opposite—really close to Dad, but he and Mom don’t have the rapport that she and I do.
My place is packed up already. I don’t have much here in the city, and I’m going to rent out my downtown loft. Tomorrow, I drive home. I’ll be staying with Mom and Dad in the main house until Dale and Ashley’s place is completed. Then I’ll move into the guesthouse.
Home. To the ranch.
To Mom and Dad.
To my new position as assistant city attorney for the town of Snow Creek. An enormous pay cut and the only room for advancement is when Mom retires. She’s only fifty, and I can’t see her retiring anytime soon.
Mom has been the city attorney for decades, and her assistant, Mary, is retiring. Enter Donovan Steel, Esquire. Will it be the most challenging position? No. But like I said, my mother needs me.
And…
Callie Pike is on the slope. The Pikes own the vineyards to the north of our property. Callie’s their third child. She’s my cousin Henry’s age, twenty-six. Yeah, a difference of seven years, but Dale and his new wife, Ashley, are ten years apart, so what the heck?
I love living in the city. Denver has so much culture and a great nightlife.
But Mom needs me.
Dale tried to talk me out of taking the job. He warned me the offer was coming. Unlike my big brother, though, I have a sense of family he doesn’t share. He loves his family, just in a different way. I have more loyalty to the woman who raised me as her own son, who loves me as much as her biological children. She loves my brother too, but the two of them are like oil and water. Now that Dale’s found happiness with Ashley, I hope he can heal his relationship with our mother.