“I know. My mom was better than my dad. She took care of me and we were close. But when she was dying, my dad couldn’t handle it. He was desperate without her. After she was gone, he didn’t know how to survive.”
Phoebe could see how the ranch could get lonely for a man on his own. “But he had you.”
“You’d think.”
She didn’t know what to make of that. “Then he met and married Chase’s mother, right?”
Zane nodded. “She stuck around for a few years before she took off. Maya’s mother was next. There were a couple more after that. Eventually my old man stopped trying to replace my mom. He simply waited to die, so he could be with her again.”
“I guess he loved her a lot,” Phoebe said, then shuddered. “But it sounds like a scary kind of love. I like what Thad and C.J. have. They obviously adore each other, but there’s plenty of room for other people.”
“I agree with you. What my parents had was...I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t want that.”
“What would you want?” she asked before she could stop herself. “How would you like to love a woman?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
She swallowed her fear and plunged ahead. “Have you been in love before?”
He glanced at her. “No. You?”
She sighed. “No. There were a couple of times I came close, but it didn’t work out. Sometimes I want it more than anything, and sometimes I find the concept terrifying. I don’t want to be that vulnerable.”
She braced herself for him to be critical, but all he said was, “Makes sense.”
They rode in silence for a while. Finally Zane spoke.
“What will you do if you lose your real estate license?”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out. I need to have a plan. So far, nothing’s been coming to me. I was talking to Manny about it and—” She broke off. “Just so you know, Manny doesn’t answer.”
“Good thing. If he did, I’d worry about you both.”
“I would hope so. Anyway, I don’t have a plan yet. I always thought I’d stay in LA, but having been out here has shown me that maybe I’d like something different. Fool’s Gold seems like a special place.” She smiled. “Think I could get a job rustling cattle?”
“Rustling? That’s stealing.”
“Oh. I mean taking care of them.”
“You’d better learn your terms before you apply.”
“I guess.” She tugged at her hat. “Chase will be going off to college next year, right? What will you do?”
“What I’ve always done.”
She knew what that meant. Work the land, breed cattle, raise the goats. By himself.
“Won’t you be lonely?”
He glanced at her. “Probably.”
The single word tugged at her heart more than any declaration of affection ever had. She wanted to crawl up on his horse and hold him close. She wanted to promise that she would be there for him, if he was interested. She wanted a lot of things.
“This is all I know,” he said.
“Plus, it’s what you love. It’s not as if you feel trapped by your destiny or anything.”
Zane didn’t answer. She looked at him.
“Do you feel trapped?”
“Not in the way you mean. But there are times...” His mouth twisted at the corners, but he didn’t smile. “When I was about Chase’s age, my father decided to improve the bloodline in our horses, so he went out and bought an expensive stallion. The ranch was in trouble—he couldn’t afford the horse, but he was determined.”
Phoebe frowned slightly. The ranch looked plenty prosperous to her. Was that a recent development?
“That stallion was a real beauty,” Zane continued. “Spirited, strong and stubborn. He wasn’t to be ridden. My dad laid down the law on that one right away.”
She got a bad feeling in her belly. “You rode him, didn’t you?”
Zane shrugged. “Sure. I was a kid. Impulsive, plus I hated that my old man didn’t trust me. I took him out that first afternoon. He moved like the wind. He took fences and gullies. I’d never felt such speed or drive in a horse before. But we’d been having some heavy rains, and the horse slipped in the mud. I went flying and he fell. I broke an arm, and he broke two legs.”
She winced. “That must have hurt.”
“I got over my break easily enough, but the stallion had to be put down. My dad was furious. He hadn’t called the insurance company yet, so we weren’t covered. He still owed more money than we had, and without stud fees, there was no way to make the payments. He ended up selling some land to cover the costs.”
Phoebe shivered slightly. She didn’t have to ask about the rest of it—she’d already figured out that Zane’s father was a hard man who didn’t excuse mistakes or those who made them.
“He never said a word,” Zane said quietly. “That was the worst of it. He never let me say I was sorry, or make up for it. For him, I didn’t exist anymore.”
“But you were his son.”
He glanced at her. “That didn’t matter. I did my best to never screw up again, but it was too late. Every day I walked to the fence line and stared at the land we’d lost. I was determined to get it back.”
She had a thousand questions. “The ranch is okay now, right?”