Chapter One
R yder Carey took the turn off of the snowy interstate too fast, then had to slow way down as he transitioned onto the smaller county road. It was that or welcome himself home in a ditch, face-first in a snowdrift, for all the locals to discuss instead of, say, his rodeo career.
Not really what he was going for.
If he had to come back to Cowboy Point, he figured he might as well ride what so-called stardom he had. In his experience, that might get a man a beer. Once.
It wasn’t like a bull rider was all that exciting outside the ring. Devoid of context, he was just another guy in cowboy boots and a Stetson. A bull rider wasn’t a hero, like a firefighter.
The only life Ryder had ever tried to save was his own.
Thoughts like that, he knew, were only going to lead to an immediate sit down with his ghosts, and he was already moving home for a spell. No need to rush into meetups with the inevitable specters from his childhood.
It was a bright blue February day, as pretty as it was cold. Once he was certain his Airstream wouldn’t slither right off the snow-packed road, he pulled the shearling collar of his favorite coat up higher on his neck. Then shook his head at the fact he was cold at all. That was what he got for leaving Montana pretty much the moment he turned eighteen, and for wisely spending the bulk of his winters in places that smelled like flowers all year long.
Thin blood and a lot of texts from his twin brother, all designed to make him feel like an asshole for not moving on home to live on the ranch and be one of those Carey brothers for all eternity.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like his brothers. He loved them. All of them.
Still, he’d wanted to see more of the world than what was available on the backside of a mountain in Paradise Valley, MT, miles away from everything. No matter how pretty it was.
He wasn’t all that happy about returning now, but he was doing it.
Finally , Wilder had texted him when Ryder had told him that yes, he was finally coming home and yes , he intended to stay. A while.
There was no end date because no one knew how long it would take.
It was a part of life, Ryder knew that. People got old and died. He’d watched this cycle play out in the rodeo more times than he’d like. He’d always fancied himself pretty practical where these things were concerned.
But it was different when the dying man in question was the father he’d idolized his entire life. The one he’d always believed was immortal, because how could Zeke be anything else? Everything about him was larger than life could ever dream of becoming.
He hadn’t stayed away because he didn’t care. It was the opposite.
“Now you’re back,” he told himself, like saying the words out loud would make it better. He reminded himself of the vow he’d made when he’d left what might have been his last rodeo in Texas a few days earlier—though he wasn’t sure he was ready to pull that trigger, not yet, no matter how much his damn body hurt these days. He’d told himself that this time , in honor of his father, he would leave the historic chip on his shoulder behind for once.
But there it was, sure enough, pressing down on his trapezoid muscles like an anvil.
Like it planned to stay a while.
He drove along the outskirts of the small town of Marietta, nestled there in the inarguably beautiful Paradise Valley about an hour or so south of Livingston. As a teenager, he’d raced along these roads as fast as he could go, like he was trying to outrun the Gallatins themselves. Those were the mountains that started down in Yellowstone and stretched all the way up to Livingston, forming the western wall of the valley.
Somehow, he always forgot the way it was when he was near them. How they seemed to sing their way inside him.
That chip on his shoulder only got heavier as he aimed his truck and trailer up the side of Copper Mountain, all covered in snow, which made it a certainty that the winding, ten-mile stretch of road that meandered its way to the back side of the mountain would be slick and dangerous.
“Good times,” he muttered.
Not that it was the weather that was really bothering him. He didn’t even mind it when the wind picked up halfway into the slow climb, kicking around the already-fallen snow like it wanted to welcome him home with a trusty ground blizzard. Just to say hello, Montana-style.
The trouble was that he was coming home at all.
Ryder had spent the better part of his adult life avoiding ever visiting for more than a quick weekend, and even that as seldom as possible. It wasn’t that he hated this place, he admitted to himself as he crested the last rise and got a good look at the even smaller valley that waited there on the other side. Truth was, he didn’t. He couldn’t.
But he preferred to keep his distance all the same.
This afternoon, with the sky so blue and the tiny community of Cowboy Point spread out below him like a painting, it was hard to remember why.
Ryder drove down the far gentler slope on the far side of the mountain, through waiting lines of evergreens with snow weighing their branches down. The road wasn’t plowed—there was no point in it, not this high up—but the snow beneath his tires was packed tight and didn’t feel icy or treacherous.
Snow made everything feel closer, cozier. The last time he’d been home had been a whirlwind trip to make it to Wilder’s shotgun wedding. It had been an achingly crisp and beautiful fall, gold and orange and red. It had hurt a little, if he was honest. So had seeing his twin so happy, for all the right reasons.
Today, there were feet of snow piled high, everywhere he looked.
He could see the lights on in the library and in the elementary school, working hard to ward off the bitter cold and the dark that fell hard and quick. Farther down the road, the cluster of buildings that made up what passed for a town boasted even more lights. In the little shops, strung along the roofs, anything to beat back the northern winter dark. Because this time of year, spring always seemed too far away.
Higher in the hills that rose above the narrow valley that made up Cowboy Point, he could see more points of light in the houses that clung to the hillsides and up high on Lisle Hill, where some maniac Lisle had built himself a lighthouse. Some eight hundred miles from the sea.
A lighthouse that was no longer the beacon of his family’s enemies, he reminded himself. Given the fact that Wilder had gone ahead and married one of them.
He crossed over the frozen creek, considered a spot of day drinking at the always-open Copper Mine, but kept driving. No point in making things worse by dragging it all out.
On the far side of the small valley, the road led him up another hill and he blew out a breath as he passed the lodge that had stood tall at the top for more than a hundred years. It had been closed for most of Ryder’s life, victim to disputes within the family that owned it. It was still closed, as far as he knew, though he could see lights on inside its graceful old windows too, and had a vague memory of someone at Wilder’s wedding telling him that Jack Stark, the oldest Stark cousin in Ryder’s generation, had big plans to revamp the place and get it up and running again.
From what he could remember about Jack, he always had big plans, and yet here he still was in this tiny speck of a place that only made some maps, and only the ones that zoomed in.
For the sake of the community, Ryder hoped that the extended Stark family who communally owned it—or so the rumors went—had finally gotten their act together the way their parents had not. Thinking about the Stark family did not make him feel better about this whole homecoming situation, however.
Well. It was only the one member of the Stark family that made his chest feel a little too tight—but this wasn’t the time to think about Rosie. Or that night in Austin that he really shouldn’t think about as much as he did.
Ryder hated regret and avoided apologies, but he’d long since accepted the fact that if he was ever home for long enough—and if Rosie Stark was still around, which would surprise him, because pretty as it was, Cowboy Point was nothing but a wide space in a little-traveled road—he owed her one.
A man should know better than to treat a girl next door like a buckle bunny. No matter how she’d responded when he’d pulled her into his arms.
That was on him. And he’d say so, if he ever saw her again.
He had to believe he was still that much of a man, despite what his brothers liked to tell him.
Thinking about Rosie was a good way to not think about where he was headed, a problem he had encountered more than once over the years since that night, but soon enough he was there anyway.
High Mountain Ranch. Home.
Ryder squared his shoulders and guided his truck onto the acreage that had been in his family since crusty old Matthew Carey made it all the way to Montana, failed at being a miner, grew an epic mustache, and decided to try his hand at cattle instead.
“You’re being ridiculous,” he muttered at himself.
That was true. He knew it was true.
But he still didn’t want to be here.
Something he had tried to make clear to his brothers, who were famous for not listening to him.
Especially his twin.
You need to come home , Wilder had said at Christmas. Not in a text that time, but to his face. It’s time.
It can’t be time , Ryder had replied in his usual glib fashion. Or anyway, he’d smiled blandly at his brother, and had acted as if he had no idea that Wilder’s tone had gotten… intense. I have bulls to ride, bunnies to buckle. It’s hard being the pretty one.
Because that was what he always said.
Because it was always true.
What you have , his twin had replied in a low voice that Ryder didn’t like at all, because it was serious and they made a point of never being too serious, is one sick father. You’re going to regret it if all you remember of his last year is not being here.
But Wilder was the dramatic twin. Ryder probably would have blown what he’d said off if he hadn’t talked to Harlan.
Harlan was the most dependable. That was why he was in charge. It was true that his brother Boone was a close second in the dependability department, and the next in line age-wise after Ryder, but Harlan was the one that Ryder trusted the most.
Harlan was the one everyone trusted the most, because Harlan was the one who always told the truth. Like it or not.
Unlike Wilder, Harlan also didn’t exaggerate.
Do you think I need to come home? he’d asked Harlan while they were out chopping wood on Christmas night.
His older brother had held his gaze a little bit too long, the snow coming down hard and the light from inside not quite doing its job.
I do , he’d said quietly. And soon.
That had really cinched it. Ryder hadn’t stayed home then and there. He couldn’t. He’d made commitments to the tour and that meant there were still bulls to ride, as he’d said.
But now it was February. It was a good stopping place, if a man wanted to stop—or needed to press the pause button. A lot of bull riders took off part of the winter anyway, depending on what tour they were signed with. The American Extreme Bull Riders Tour that Ryder had headlined for years now took a break this time of year, then came back in the spring.
Ryder figured he could do the same this year instead of heading down south toward good weather and a beach the way he usually did.
Assuming, that was, that their father was actually as bad as Wilder claimed.
The trouble was, Ryder had the sinking feeling that he was. It was bad enough that Zeke had acted so frail over Christmas, sitting in a chair with a blanket pulled over him like he was feeling the draft from death’s door and was holding it off with a flannel shroud.
Maybe the reality he really didn’t want to face was that it was happening. It was happening, it was bad, and there was no bargaining that away.
When he thought about Zeke’s condition, it made sense that he was here. When he thought about the fact that his father might actually be dying the way he’d told them all he was last Easter, well.
Ryder knew he was doing the right thing.
He just wished he didn’t have to do it.
As he drove along the dirt road that wound its lazy way into the heart of the ranch and up to the sprawling old house where he’d grown up, he didn’t follow it all the way up. There were little dirt roads that pulled off here and there, and he could see smoke coming from the various chimneys that marked the individual cabins that were tucked away in the trees and the rolling hills.
This was where most of his brothers lived, out of sight of each other because a grown man liked a little privacy even here on the family land. But they also liked to stay close enough so that they could all easily pitch in on the ranch work the way Careys had for generations.
Ryder had nothing against ranch work. It was hard, physical labor and the truth was, he’d always liked it. He’d just always also wanted more . Maybe it was because he was the middle son. He’d known from a very young age that if he ever wanted anything attached to his name that was only his, he had to leave this place to get it.
Today, he passed the turnoff to the piece of land that he’d chosen when he and Wilder had turned eighteen, but had yet to build on. He kept going, and turned down Wilder’s little road instead.
And then there was no getting around it. He was here. He was home.
The moment Wilder saw his truck out front of his cabin, there would be no pretending otherwise. No backing out.
Ryder parked. Then he pushed his way out of the truck and stretched, letting the frigid air slice straight through him with all its teeth. He pulled his cowboy hat down on his head and thought it was a little too familiar, the way his boots crunched into the snow. It was the same as the kick of frigid air against his skin, like a burn.
He was barely halfway across the yard when the front door opened and there was Wilder himself, standing there with the light from inside spilling out all around him, but grinning ear to ear and much brighter.
Idiot , Ryder thought, but he felt the same swell of rightness he always did when he and Wilder were sharing space. They didn’t have to talk about it. It was just…the way things always had been. Twin stuff.
“You made it,” Wilder said, but he was shaking his head. “I expected you to call me from somewhere warm and say you’d changed your mind. That you needed a little R and R down in the Keys or some shit.”
“I did change my mind. But I came anyway.” Ryder eyed his twin. “I hope you’re happy.”
Wilder laughed, because he was one of the few people alive who didn’t find Ryder formidable and intimidating—the others being the rest of their immediate family, possibly another reason he didn’t spend much time here—and met Ryder at the bottom of his porch stairs.
“I am happy. It’s about time.” He clapped Ryder on the back, pulled him in for a hug Ryder returned. Ungraciously. Then Wilder laughed louder at the expression on his twin’s face. “I know, I know. Just look at this winter wonderland all around you. What a nightmare.”
“You’ve been here too long. It’s too cold. Humans aren’t meant to live under five feet of snow for months on end.”
Wilder smirked. “And you, famous rodeo star Ryder Carey, are forced to stay here against your will. What a tragedy. How will you ever survive?”
Ryder shoulder checked his twin as he richly deserved, then smiled past him to where his sister-in-law had come out to stand in the doorway to their little cabin.
“Cat,” he said, and tipped his hat in her direction, opting not to pay close attention to how red-cheeked she was, suggesting that they’d been having a happy little afternoon before he showed up. That he’d interrupted them pleased him. Why should Wilder have any fun? Ryder knew he wouldn’t. Not around here. “A pleasure to see you. And if I didn’t say this at the wedding, it’s a great pity you married so beneath yourself.”
“I tell her every day that she could do better,” Wilder said happily, coming up to the door and grinning at his wife. “She’s ornery, though. Keeps claiming she’ll stay if she wants to stay, thank you very much.”
“I’m a Lisle,” Cat replied, her eyes gleaming. “In the tradition of my people, I don’t pay that much attention to the opinions of Careys.”
“Oh, this isn’t an opinion,” Ryder said, and made himself laugh the way Wilder did. Like maybe this time it might take. “It’s a fact. You’re doomed.”
“Oh no,” Cat said, grinning up at her husband. “Whatever will I do?”
“Good news,” Wilder said, turning back to Ryder as he pulled Cat into his side. “You’re doomed with us now. Like it or not.”
“I don’t like it at all,” Ryder declared, but more to the mountains than his brother, because Wilder wasn’t paying attention.
But the Gallatins kept their own counsel, and he was back in Montana for the foreseeable future, so Ryder sucked it up and followed them both inside.