Chapter 4BOONE
BOONE
“What the hell do you mean you have a son?”
Wren’s voice cuts through the dining room like a shot—sharp, loud, and full of disbelief. She’s looking at me like I just dropped a bomb in the middle of the table. Her red ponytail snaps over her shoulder as she shakes her head.
She’s twenty-eight now. Which still doesn’t add up to me.
Last time I saw her, she was sixteen—practically running this ranch like she owned the deed, barking orders at the ranch hands with a clipboard clutched to her chest and a scowl that could make grown men fold.
Smart as hell. Always two steps ahead of everyone.
Obsessed with planning things down to the minute.
The type to alphabetize the spice rack in Loretta’s kitchen and color-code the calving schedule—just because she could.
She didn’t miss a thing back then. Still doesn’t.
But now?
Now she’s grown into herself in a way that makes me pause every time I look at her.
Strong. Steady. Still a little sharp around the edges, but she carries herself like a woman who doesn’t need anyone to tell her she’s doing a good job—because she already knows.
I see her out there managing the staff, wrangling horses, negotiating contracts over the phone while fixing a fence with the other hand.
She’s a force. And I missed the whole damn evolution.
I drag a hand down my face, sigh hard. “I mean exactly what I said, Wren.”
Didn’t even make it twenty minutes through the front door before calling this family meeting.
Now we’re all crammed around the same oak table we grew up at—where we ate every meal, did homework, fought, made up, and got lectured more times than I can count.
Only this time, I’m the one in the hot seat.
Sage sits curled into the corner of her chair, hands wrapped around a mug she hasn’t touched in ten minutes. Her gaze stays low, fixed on a crack in the table, like if she stares hard enough, it might swallow her whole.
She’s twenty-five now, a woman forged in the years that stretched between my leaving and this moment.
When I last saw her, she was thirteen, all sharp angles and hidden vulnerability, her emotions a visible tide she tried to suppress but never quite could.
She felt everything with a startling depth, a sponge absorbing the unspoken anxieties and joys of those around her.
She trailed behind us like a softer echo when were young, a quiet presence always on the periphery.
And even then, her heart leaned towards the overlooked—the scrawny kittens abandoned in the barn’s shadow, the rejected calf nudging its mother’s flank.
Now, I catch glimpses of that same inherent tenderness, a flicker beneath the surface of her fierce independence. Because that’s there too, a quiet fire that can catch you off guard.
They’ve built a life without me. Figured out how to carry the load I left behind. Wren filled the cracks. Sage held the rest of it together. And now I’m walking through the door at thirty years old like I expect there to be space left for me.
Like the ghost of who I was doesn’t still hang in the corners.
Truth is, I feel like an outsider in my own family. I’m not the big brother they remember. And they’re not the little sisters I left behind.
Mom’s at the head of the table, arms crossed tight, her mouth pressed into a thin line. I know that look—she’s already thinking about all the ways she would’ve handled this better. My little brother, Ridge, is on speakerphone from whatever rodeo town he’s in, the line buzzing faintly.
Then, finally, his voice: “Well, shit.”
Yeah. My thoughts exactly.
Sage shifts in her chair, arms folded across her chest. “Are you sure he’s yours?” Her voice is quieter than Wren’s. Careful. “I mean…how do you know?”
I let out a dry laugh, shake my head. “I just do.” I press my palms to the edge of the table, trying to ground myself. “If you’d seen him, you’d get it.”
Because fuck, the kid is me.
Same dark hair under his ball cap. Same sharp jaw. Same cleft chin. Same brown eyes. Same scatter of freckles across his nose. It was like looking in a damn mirror.
And the timeline checks out.
I left for basic at the end of May. Last time Lark and I were together was March—right before graduation. He would’ve been born that winter.
I remember because that night had been fucking unforgettable.
It was March in Montana—the kind of cold that settles in your bones and stays there. But we didn’t feel a damn bit of it. Not with the way she was straddling me in the cab of my truck, parked just past the tree line, windows fogged over from our breath and the heat rolling off our bodies.
Lark was on top of me, knees digging into the torn leather seat, jacket already tossed somewhere on the floor. Her hands were in my hair, pulling, gripping, kissing me like she was trying to leave a permanent mark—like she knew it might be the last time.
Her sweater had ridden up, exposing warm skin I couldn’t stop touching. My hands were all over her—rough, greedy, desperate—like I had to memorize the feel of her while I still could.
She gasped when I slid my hands under the hem and dragged that sweater over her head, leaving her in just her bra, skin pebbling from the cold.
I smoothed my palms down her back, trying to chase the chill away, while my mouth found her throat—her pulse pounding beneath it like a drum I couldn’t stop following.
She shivered when I bit the spot just below her ear. Rolled her hips against mine, slow and deep, like she knew exactly what she was doing. Like she wanted to break me in half.
And fuck, she did.
The truck smelled like us. Her honeysuckle perfume. Her lavender shampoo. Sweat, leather, heat. It was primal—messy and real.
I gripped her hips and thrust up into her, and she let out this soft, wrecked sound that damn near undid me. Nails dug into my shoulders. Lips parted around my name like it belonged to her.
I’ll never forget the way she felt—tight, hot, wrapped around me like she never wanted to let go. The way her breath fogged the air between us. The pink flush on her cheeks, the way her eyes fluttered shut when she came, gasping like it caught her by surprise every time.
After, she pressed her forehead to mine. Breathless. Shaking. Skin to skin in the cold.
And for a second, none of the other shit mattered. Not the goodbye. Not the years between. Not everything we lost.
Just Lark.
Wild and warm and fucking mine.
Sex with her had always been like that—intense, consuming, like she felt it just as deep as I did. No hesitation. No walls. Just heat and teeth and skin. Nails down my back. Her voice in my ear. Saying my name like it was the only thing keeping her grounded.
And damn me, I still remember every sound she made. Every twitch of her hips. The way she bit her lip to keep quiet, like she didn’t want to give it all away but couldn’t help it.
Christ. I don’t have time to be thinking about sex with Lark.
Not when I’ve got a son.
A living, breathing, baseball-playing kid—and I’ve already missed twelve goddamn years of his life.
I sit there, hands braced on my knees, staring at the floor like it might give me some kind of answer. But all I see are the things I never got. A dozen birthdays. Christmas mornings. First steps. First words. First days of school. All of it gone.
I wonder what his laugh sounds like. If he snores.
If he gulps down chocolate milk in the mornings or if he’s the orange juice type.
I wonder if he hates math like I did, or if he’s got Lark’s sharp brain for it.
I wonder if he knows how to tie a fishing knot.
If he’s ever thrown a leg over a horse. If he’s got a favorite team or a glove he won’t let anyone touch.
Does he know I exist?
Has he ever asked?
Has he hated me?
I rub a hand over my jaw, trying to loosen the knot in my chest. It’s too big, too heavy—like it doesn’t fit inside me.
“Hudson.” I say the name out loud, testing it on my tongue. It hits hard. Familiar and foreign all at once. “His name is Hudson.”
I’d heard Lark say it like it was nothing. Like it was just another Tuesday. Like it wasn’t the moment my whole damn life split in two.
I have to take Hudson to baseball practice.
Just like that.
Like she hadn’t been sitting on the biggest thing she could possibly keep from me.
Sage leans back in her chair, exhaling slow, her eyes locked on mine.
Wren shakes her head, her disbelief turning sharp. “So she just…never told you?”
“No,” I mutter, dragging my hand down my face. “She didn’t.”
Mom’s fingers press into her temples, her breath shaky. “But why?” Her voice is lower now, rougher. “That doesn’t sound like Lark.”
Lark’s not just some girl I used to screw around with—she’s woven into this family whether anyone likes it or not. And I can see it in Mom’s face—she’s not mad. She’s disappointed.
“She could’ve come to us. She could’ve said something.” Mom shakes her head, her voice cracking. “We would’ve helped her. She and Hudson could’ve stayed here. Been safe. Been home.”
I shove back from the table, the chair scraping hard against the floor. “ I don’t know, Mom,” I bite out. “I don’t know why she didn’t tell me. I haven’t had a real conversation with her yet.”
I run a hand through my hair, grip the back of my neck like that might settle the storm rolling under my skin.
Wren blows out a sharp breath. “Okay, so what are you gonna do?”
I glance her way. “What do you mean?”
She lifts a shoulder like it’s obvious. “I mean, are you gonna fight for custody? Partial custody, something? Where do you even go from here?”
I drag a hand across the back of my neck, the pressure of it all pushing down like a damn freight train. “Jesus, Wren. I just found out about him.” My voice is rough—gravel and exhaustion. “I haven’t even wrapped my head around it yet.”
She doesn’t back down. “Yeah, and Lark knew. She kept him from you. How is that even remotely okay?”