“So it’s a yes to the ring, a yes to marriage, and a yes to the house?”
“Yes, to all of the above.”
She and Tucker walked through the house a couple more times and talked about which room they would use as a nursery, and what they might do with the others. When Blythe yawned Tucker told her it was time for him to get her back to her parents’ house. “Your dad is preparing a celebration feast.”
“Why?”
“Bree is coming over, and I heard a rumor that Liv and Ben are in town with little Caden, which means we are expecting Billy, Renie, and Willow, too. Oh, and Dottie and Bill. And Lyric. I think that about covers it.”
Someone was missing. They both knew it—it didn’t need to be said. It had been over a month since anyone had heard from Jace. Tucker told Blythe that his mother said he was okay; that he was taking time for himself. When his mom asked if he wanted to know where Jace was, or how to get in touch with him, Tucker declined.
“You’re both my children, and I hate to see you and Jace at odds. He’s your brother, Tucker,” she reminded him.
It wasn’t a reminder he needed.
On October 3, Cochran Henry Rice was born at two in the morning. Bree was in the delivery room with Blythe and Tucker, for moral support.
She pulled out her phone and took photos of the baby boy as he was weighed and measured, and then wrapped in a blanket and handed to his mother. She took another picture of Tucker kissing first Cochran then Blythe.
She texted every one of them to the same number she’d texted periodically over the last few months. She never got a response, so she didn’t know whether it was still Jace’s number. If it was, she wanted him to see the first photos of their nephew—Aunt Bree and Uncle Jace. He told her once, that they better figure out how to get along because he knew they both planned to be a part of this baby’s life.
Epilogue
It had been four months since Jace left Monument. Instead of heading to Crested Butte as everyone expected him to, he went north.
He’d called Billy the day after he left Colorado. He owed him and Renie that much. They’d been good to him; he considered both of them friends.
“Take the time you need,” Billy had told him “There ain’t nobody I know who hasn’t done somethin’ they regret, Jace, especially when they were a teenager. You don’t wanna hear my stories. I got a hella lot of ’em.”
He thanked Billy and told him he’d be in touch. He had no idea when, but when he was ready, he would be.
“You come see us whenever you want. You’re always welcome here,” Renie told him when Billy handed her the phone.
In the weeks that fol
lowed, Jace competed in more regional rodeos than he could remember. After the first couple, they all started blending together. Each morning when he woke up, it took him a while to figure out where the hell he was. Once he did, he had to figure out where the hell he was going next. He traveled around Montana and Idaho, and then he traveled to Wyoming to compete in Cheyenne.
Now he was somewhere in Montana, he wasn’t sure where. He’d been driving all night, headed to a stock contractor’s place. Someone at the last rodeo he was at told him there was an outfit up north, looking for help.
His phone pinged, and he knew who the text was from. Bree was the only one he ever heard from, other than his mother, who didn’t text—she called.
He didn’t hear from her often, but this time, he’d been expecting it. He pulled off on the side of the road and looked at the pictures she’d sent. His eyes filled with tears as he scrolled through the photos of his newborn nephew. Her last text said, Cochran Henry Rice, born 2:10 am, nine pounds, four ounces, twenty-one inches.
He’d never wished he could be in two places at once more than he did right now. If only there was a way he could get back to Colorado to see his nephew, and his brother. But he couldn’t, mainly because he wouldn’t be welcome.
Tucker knew how to reach him if he wanted to, and he hadn’t. He could feel it, or better put, he couldn’t feel it. Tucker was completely shut off from him. He had been for months.
If he was being honest with himself—and these days, he was trying damn hard to be—he’d have to admit he’d been hiding out most of the last seven years. That’s what working at the dude ranch in Colorado had been all about.
No one knew him there. They didn’t know his background; they didn’t know his brother. When he was there, he was Jace Rice, an easy-going cowboy. He flirted with the guests, who soaked it in, and then left when their six-day vacation was over.
Until the day Irene Fairchild set foot on the ranch, he hadn’t been interested in getting to know anyone well enough that their lives would cross again after the summer ended. She had changed everything.
In less than a year, he’d gone from that carefree cowboy to one who had to face the pain he’d worked hard to bury. In doing so, he lost his brother. It made him sick to his stomach whenever he thought about it.
It would be easy to blame Tucker, say he was being an asshole about it. Billy was right, who didn’t fuck up when they were a teenager? Everyone did. Even Tucker had. But he couldn’t blame his brother. He’d had every chance in the world to come clean.
Of his many regrets, he didn’t know which one was the biggest. Getting involved with Rosa? That had started the chain of events that had come to a crashing conclusion four months ago.