Loving Liam had given her back her dreams. She didn’t regret a moment of it.
The following morning, Liam’s truck was packed with the last remaining things he hadn’t already taken to his own place. He was ready to leave and yet, looking around the Perry Ranch, he had to take a minute. He’d lived most of his life on this spread. He’d grown up here, learned here and, thanks to Chloe, he’d loved here.
Yes. Sometime during the night, Liam had had to admit the stone-cold truth. He loved Chloe. But did that change anything? Did it mean that he could suddenly trust in something that had burned him badly the first time?
But could he even compare the two situations? What he felt for Chloe was so much more than he’d had with Tessa. He hadn’t been able to acknowledge it, even to himself, but what he had with Chloe was—
“Ready to leave, are you?”
Sterling Perry’s voice shattered his train of thought, and Liam watched the older man stride across the ranch yard and then step up onto the porch alongside him.
“About time, don’t you think?” Liam asked. “I was just standing here thinking how I’ve been on this ranch since I was seven years old.”
Sterling laughed and nodded. “A skinnier kid I’ve never seen. But you had a way with horses. Even then.”
Liam glanced at the older man. Sterling wore one of his suits, with a black Stetson and shining black boots. He looked like the Hollywood ideal of a Texas patriarch. And Liam was pretty sure Sterling knew it and played the part.
“You getting sentimental on me, Sterling?”
“That would be something, wouldn’t it?” He leaned one shoulder against a porch post and shook his head. “No, I’m not. But as you get older, you do a lot more looking back than forward, Liam. And standing here today, I see you as a boy, a teenager, a young man with a head full of ideas for change.”
“Yeah.” Sheepishly, Liam took his own hat off and pushed one hand through his hair. “I did give you a hard time now and then, didn’t I?”
“More your daddy than me,” Sterling mused, staring off across the yard as if looking into a past only he could see.
“Your daddy was a good man,” he said softly. “But when he lost your mother, he lost a part of himself. That softer part where love lives in a man.”
Liam frowned, remembering. His mother had died not long after his father had taken the job as foreman here. A car accident on the way into Houston for some Saturday shopping. A disaster that had changed everything for Liam and his father.
Sterling turned his head to look at Liam. “It was a hard time. For both of you.”
“Yeah, it was.” Some men, Liam knew, would have lost themselves in their own pain, ignoring their children, or worse yet, even running from the hard injustice of loss. Liam’s father hadn’t. He’d just gone on. A little harder, a little colder, but he’d been there, day in and day out.
“Losing your mother about ripped your daddy’s heart out, Liam, but he didn’t quit. Not once.”
“No, sir.” Liam took a deep breath to withstand the rising tide of old memories, and wondered where the hell Sterling was going with this.
Musing almost to himself, Sterling went on. “Takes a strong man to risk pain and keep going.”
Suspicious now about the track this little conversation was taking, Liam looked at him.
Sterling met his gaze. “You’ve always had your plans and dreams, Liam. Being your own man, calling your own shots.” He nodded sagely. “I can understand that. Respect it. But does that really mean you have to be alone?”
Liam started to answer, but the older man cut him off. “I had my Tamara, you know. We had ups and downs like anybody else. But it was a good marriage. People used to say I married her for this ranch, but the truth is, I loved that woman until the day she died—no matter what gossips have to say about things.”
He hadn’t paid any attention to gossip until the night Chloe’d told him the story. Now he said what he’d told her then. “I don’t listen to gossip.”
“Then you’re a better man than most around here.” Sterling gave him a sad smile. “My point is, while you’re out there building your life, and starting in on all those grand plans, you might want to pause and think about something.”