Down in Flames (The Bunkhouse #4)

Chapter 1

HATTIE

My body says no before my brain remembers what’s at stake.

Marcus, my boyfriend, is kneeling on the concrete in my dad’s shop, smiling up at me like this is the best idea he’s ever had.

The slab is peppered with dirt and decades-old oil stains, so it shocks me that he’s willing to risk doubling his dry cleaning bill next week for a traditional on bended knee proposal.

He reaches for my left hand.

I take a step back the second I realize he isn’t fooling around, yanking my hand away with a full-body cringe before he can even get a word out.

My physical reflexes rarely come off subtle, especially when they’re purely instinctual like this one.

Marcus’s brows pinch together. I silently beg the clock to move in reverse and gift me a re-do, but I should know better than anyone that time refuses to negotiate.

There are at least fifty witnesses packed around us, and there’s no undoing the fact that I didn’t react like a woman head-over-heels for the man holding a velvet box in front of her.

The solution to my problems is beaming up at me. My dad’s blessing and the closeness of our relationship. The ranch’s future. Protecting this somewhat healed but still fragile version of myself that I’ve finally clawed my way back to.

I wish this were as simple as it may seem, but my choices are limited. Politely declining isn’t an option I could afford to take. I shake my head to collect myself.

“Sorry,” I say, adding a light laugh to help ease the unwanted tension still thick in the air.

I blink rapidly and wipe my left palm on the side of my jeans before extending it back toward him.

“You know how my hands get sweaty. I didn’t want to gross you out.

” The crowd fills the silence with a soft hum of laughter, successfully dissolving the awkward moment. “Please continue,” I add with a nod.

Marcus looks relieved. The people surrounding us seem to exhale as well.

Our closest friends and family are here this evening, at my dad’s ranch, to celebrate his birthday.

I inhale as deeply as I can, grounding myself with the familiar scent that I’ve associated with joyous occasions since I was a little girl.

The vanilla sheet cake frosting and blown-out candles, threaded with undercurrents of engine grease, are an unlikely mix.

But it marks some of my happiest memories.

The ranch house is huge, and could easily fit a party crowd, so I don’t know who decided that this old building was the best place to gather on nights like this one.

But true to tradition, we opened the massive garage doors, set up tables, and stocked the space with enough beer for an entire town right here in his shop tonight.

This birthday party was supposed to be about reminding my dad of how much the people in his life love him. Marcus interrupting that with a proposal was not part of the plan, but I’m nothing if not a quick adapter.

He lets out a deep exhale and scrapes a shaky palm down his face.

“Hattie Jo Murdoch.” His grip on my left hand tightens as he fights to stave off the emotion in his voice.

“I fell in love with you, as you know, and it didn’t take me very long to realize that I wanted to continue doing that forever.

I’m too crazy about you to put it off any longer.

Would you do me the honor of being my wife? ”

Eight years ago, when Marcus first took a job here on my family’s ranch, I did not see this coming.

Our paths didn’t cross often at the time, and any interaction I had with him was brief.

My sole focus those days was to knock my undergrad studies out of the park so I could eventually get into the best possible veterinary medicine program.

I only knew him as the guy with a knack for managing money who my dad had hired to help tackle the dreaded accounting that comes with being self-employed.

He worked here for a year before moving on to try his luck in the corporate financial world. Dad never hired someone new to replace him, and I didn’t think much of it.

Then, earlier this year, I took a short trip home for Spring break during my last semester of vet school. Marcus had returned—older, sharper, and a hell of a lot more suave this time around.

Officially moving back home after graduation put us in each other’s proximity quite a bit. His career shift baffled me at first. What would a successful analyst at a private equity firm gain from leaving his position to come work for my dad again?

Their dynamic gave me my answer. Debriefing over coffee about an important meeting or planning dinner at the house to discuss their next move was almost a daily occurrence for them.

I think Dad gave Marcus the level of freedom and resources that every money man dreams of. His ambition and zest for life had a way of reinvigorating my dad, too.

After learning the ranch had hit a rough patch not long before, it was a huge relief to know my dad was getting the help he needed in the office again.

Marcus did much more than just get my dad’s finances back on track, though.

They skyrocketed. Restoring order in the books was only the beginning, and in a very short time, they’d worked to nearly double their holdings together.

It’d been forever since I’d seen Dad thrive like that.

I had a hunch the new business ventures were serving as a side-project distraction for his grief, but I wasn’t going to question it, especially after all he’d been through.

He deserved to feel inspired for a change.

In my eyes, investing was a far superior alternative to spending his nights tinkering with a souped-up motorcycle and thrill-seeking his way through a midlife crisis.

The energy around here had shifted from bleak to hopeful and flourishing right before my eyes, and even a blind man could see that Marcus had been the missing piece to make it happen.

I was beside myself with gratitude, so much so that I felt I owed him more than a simple thank you. It’s why I accepted the first time he asked me out on a date. It’s why I didn’t say no the second and third time he asked me out, either.

Somewhere along the way, I’d unknowingly become his most-prized acquisition. And if I’ve learned anything about Marcus, it’s that he’ll stop at nothing to prevent a loss on his investment.

I’m on a path with a strict no U-turns policy, and it scares the shit out of me. But my dad is finally in a good place, and we’re closer than ever right now—the polar opposite of our bond during my last serious relationship.

Marcus clears his throat, pulling me from the long list of whys and why nots in my head. If I weren’t being put on the spot right now, I might go back and forth until I’m blue in the face before giving him an answer.

The tight look of impatience on his face tells me he doesn’t plan on giving me much more time.

Fine. I don’t really want to go down as the girl who couldn’t get over her heartbreak and move on, anyway.

Or worse, the selfish idiot who ruined the only good thing to happen to her family in over a decade.

“Yes.”

The ring slips over my knuckle. Marcus stands and wraps his arms around me. He lifts me off the ground and swings me in a circle while I stare over his shoulder through the blur of happy, clapping loved ones around us.

Unable to hold back his excitement, Marcus stumbles slightly, and I’m quickly placed back on my feet. Hand-in-hand, we wobble and laugh together until our dizziness disappears.

When he drops our connection to fix his untucked shirt, my hand flexes at my side. This new accessory will take some getting used to. There’s a subtle twitch in my eye—caused by all of the smiling, probably—that I blink away.

My Aunt Jana is the first to open her arms and rush toward us.

She wastes no time, offering to let us use the old chapel she bought and restored several years ago as an event venue.

She’s an expert in these things, and I’m sure that time is of the essence when booking a location, but is it normal to bring them up immediately?

Either way, wedding planning makes my stomach turn.

Hopefully, Marcus is on board with the quick-and-painless approach. The less I have to think about this, the better.

The rest of the congratulations that follow seem to fade together.

An hour in, and all I want is to catch my breath and get to the part where the shock wears off, and happy contentment sets in.

I’m sitting at the card table at the back of the shop, across from Dad, when I start to wonder if that feeling will ever come.

No one else would ever take this spot in the corner by his collection of big toolboxes. It’s ours.

I shake my head at what I like to call his winter uniform.

There’s not a day under fifty degrees that he deviates from a Carhartt vest over a sweatshirt, hood pulled up over a stockyard cap that you wouldn’t believe used to be the color blue, and jeans so heavily starched that the dirt slides right off of them at the end of the day.

Normally, he’s got one hand in his pocket and the other holding his phone to his ear.

For now, he crosses one boot over his knee and absentmindedly slides his bottle of beer back and forth on the table.

I was barely old enough to stay up past ten when the tradition of claiming our spot first started.

Years later, we still spend every shop party sitting here locked in a late-night war of spades.

The card table’s legs are a little wobbly, and the plastic covering has seen better days, but I like it that way.

It fits in with the rest of his nostalgic collection of things that I’m attached to on this ranch. Practical and needlessly ancient.

“Well, let’s see it,” he says.