Chapter 1 Cade
cade
Idon’t see her at first. Just Evie—perched on the middle rail of the fence, arms draped over the top board, chattering away to someone on the other side.
A stranger?
I hurry up to her and….
No, she’s not talking to a stranger. She’s talking to….
Sarah.
Her name still tastes like betrayal. Ten years haven’t dulled the edge of pain she inflicted on my family and me.
She’s smiling at my daughter like she has the right. Like she didn’t betray me, leaving me with a gut full of broken glass.
Blue Rock Ranch, my family’s cattle ranch, adjoins Kincaid Farms. I know Maverick Kincaid hired Sarah as the vet for his farm after she assisted his fiancée, who owns Longhorn.
I knew it was bound to happen…that I’d see her, eventually.
Wildflower Canyon is a small town with many ranches and only two vets. For a while after Sarah’s father, Dr. Sam Kirk, passed, there was just Dr. Bodie Tiller. I know Bodie’s relieved Sarah is here.
I am not.
“Evie,” I snap, sharper than I mean to. “Step away from the fence.”
“Daddy!” Evie looks at me with wide eyes. “This lady is helping Bluebell. Her leg was hurting. Apparently, she has a….” My four-year-old turns to Sarah. “What did you say she had?”
Sarah meets my eyes for a fraction of a second before focusing on Evie.
“A strained tendon.” She crouches to my daughter’s height. “That’s like when you run too much, and your leg feels sore. Bluebell must have stepped wrong in the pasture.”
“Will she be okay?”
My kid loves animals, and she knows Bluebell, since she’s gone riding with Mav’s sister Joy, who helps me out by babysitting—sometimes at our place, sometimes at the Kincaid homestead, or her boutique on Main Street.
“Evie—” I begin.
“She’ll be fine with rest, a bandage, and some medicine. No riding for a couple of weeks,” Sarah continues, speaking over me.
After, she straightens and holds my gaze with those green-hazel eyes of hers. The eyes I used to love waking up to.
“Hello, Cade.” Her voice is husky. I remember it well.
“I love you, Cade, so much.”
“Sarah, you have no idea how good it feels to hear you say that.”
I shut that memory down fast.
“You know my daddy?” Evie is beside herself with delight.
I grit my teeth for a moment to find control. “Time to get back home.” My daughter scrambles down from the fence, little boots hitting dirt. I soften my voice. “Tillie made chocolate chip cookies. Why don’t you go and see if she’ll give you some?”
And I will deal with the woman who dared to speak to you, knowing who you are—because there’s no way anyone could not see that Evie was mine.
Evie’s eyes are blue-gray like mine. Her hair, longer and lighter, frames a face with the same tilt of the nose I’ve got. She’s a mini-me.
“Bye, Dr. K.” She sprints to the house as I knew she would.
Dr. K? The fuck? How long were they talking that Evie is calling her that?
“Bye, Evie,” Sarah murmurs, almost to herself.
As soon as Evie’s out of earshot, I’m out for blood. “Don’t fucking ever speak to me or mine again,” I say, calm as a cow in tall grass right before the snake strikes.
Inside me, everything is burning.
She strokes the flank of the horse, who’s getting restless—probably because she can feel the tension in the air. “She saw me and asked questions about Bluebell.”
“You see my kid, you walk the other way. You see me, you walk the other way. You don’t say hello, you don’t chit-chat, and you sure as shit don’t get to pretend you’re not the woman I hate.
” I walk to the fence, put my hands on it, and grip the wood hard.
“The only reason Wildflower Canyon is tolerating your lying, cheating ass is because we’re short a vet since your daddy passed.
Otherwise, we’d kick you out like we did all those years ago. ”
Her mouth presses tight. I see her eyes go from surprised to hurt.
Good.
Then, just like that, her face goes blank. I can’t read her. I used to always be able to—or at least I thought I did, right up until the time she fucked my brother.
“Evie is beautiful,” she tells me softly, like I didn’t just rip her a new one.
I remember her cuddling up to me as we dreamed of a life together, of having a family.
“We’re going to make beautiful babies, aren’t we, Cade?”
“As beautiful as you, Dove.”
I started calling her that when she saved a dove that had gotten hurt. Even then, when she was fifteen and I was sixteen, she wanted to take care of animals. It was her calling—a dream she has now made a reality.
“None of your business what Evie is.” My molars grind together, the pressure sharp in my jaw. I let her see the hate in my eyes, make damn sure she knows there’s nothing she can say or do that’ll ever change how I feel about her.
“Take care of yourself, Cade.” She smiles politely, then gives Bluebell’s lead rope a gentle tug. “Come on, Bluebell girl, let’s walk you out a bit.”
I watch her lead the roan mare away, the dappled gray of her coat catching the late light as she favors her injured leg.
I turn away when I find myself staring at Sarah’s perfectly toned ass covered in tight jeans.
I cuss under my breath.
It should’ve been a peaceful evening. Instead, my pulse is still hammering from one look at Sarah Kirk.
I’ve managed to steer clear of her since she came back. But I knew I couldn’t do it forever—not in a small town like Wildflower Canyon.
She’s been getting friendly with Aria Delgado, Mav’s fiancée, and Joy, as well as Elena Wilder. These are important people to have on your side in our town, which is the only reason she’s even getting as much work as she is here, especially from the newer folks who don’t know what she did.
Those who remember know her story—how she accused my brother of the darkest crime a man can bear, instead of just owning up to cheating on me.
They won’t forgive her. Won’t even let her near their animals.
I know Bodie’s trying to lure new vets to Wildflower Canyon, and as soon as that happens, I’ll blackball Sarah—drive her out of town again so that I can have some peace.
Because, regardless of how many years have gone by, she’s still the only woman I’ve ever loved.