4
“H ere you go. Pedialyte and breakfast tacos.”
I start in surprise, tearing my gaze off the truck window’s view of bright eight a.m. sunlight.
Snow drifts across the freeway. I zoned out when Davis stopped at a gas station to refuel his behemoth of a pickup truck.
We left my Jeep on the side of the road.
Strangely, I’m not as sentimental as I thought about leaving things behind. It must be my new MO.
“It’s no croissant, but…”
“No, it’s perfect,” I say eagerly, watching as he sets the bag of food and the drink on the console between us. I may be a food snob, but even I know gas station tacos are a win.
He pins me with a look. “You need to eat.”
I do. I’ve been ravenous since I found out I was pregnant. No morning sickness for me, just constant parasitic hunger. My mouth waters as I nestle the fragrant bundle of deliciousness on my lap. I open the silver wrapping paper and tear into a soft-shell taco. A small moan leaves my mouth.
“Better?” he asks, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.
“Yes. Thank you.”
I barely get a grunt of acknowledgement before he’s peeling out of the gas station.
As I eat, I stare at the bear of a man squeezed into the driver’s side seat.
My knight in shining armor is a six-foot-three scowling Marine.
Around his neck, his dog tag glints in the sun.
A match to mine. My heart launches itself into its typical somersault fashion, as it does whenever I’m around him.
It’s infuriating that he’s still so damn handsome. Even more so than he was six years ago.
Davis Montgomery is as rugged as the leather jacket he wears.
Sculpted muscle. Broad shoulders. Tan as buckskin.
Close-cropped brown hair. The light scruff on his face frames a strong jaw.
Stern brown eyes with crinkles at the corner that exude an intense, ferocious energy.
And that soft, southern drawl. Whiskey, honey, and a late-night lullaby all rolled into one handsome country boy.
He doesn’t look as haunted as he did when I first met him. Still, the dark circles under his eyes tell me he’s running on adrenaline.
Sleep didn’t come easy for either of us. I tossed restlessly and woke to see Davis standing at the curtain, gun in his hands, staring into cold blue moonlight.
I remember when we shared a bed, he shared his nightmares. Tortured, tangled in the sheet beside me. I’d draw him into my arms and keep him there until morning.
“You didn’t sleep last night.”
With his eyes fixed on the road, he inclines his head as if my voice is an unfamiliar sound. “I never sleep.”
I swallow the last of the taco and ball up the paper. “Do you still have the nightmares?”
A muscle works in his jaw. “They’re not so bad.”
“And yet…you don’t sleep. Why?”
“Dakota.” His voice is soft, but the way his jaw jumps has my chest tightening.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have…” I trail off, unsure how to end the sentence. Shouldn’t have tried to pick back up? Shouldn’t have gotten this intimate?
Shouldn’t have thought that whatever we once had is still between us?
For all I know, Davis is married.For all I know, he’s forgotten all about me.
He scrapes a hand over his crew cut. “No, it’s okay.” His voice is rough and warm and so damn comforting. I’m horrified when my eyes fill with tears, so before he can see, I turn my face to the window.
I wish we could say more. Wish I could weep in his arms and tell him the absolute nightmare of my life over the last two years. Wish I could tell him what I’ve been up to pre-Aiden. That I found my mother. That I tried and failed to open my own bakery.
Instead, it’s about my face, this baby, and what Aiden did to me.
“How’d it happen?” Davis’s grim, demanding voice has me turning his way. There’s a storm in his dark brown eyes as his gaze lands on my cast, tucked up into the sleeve of my oversized sweater.
Tensing, I shake my head. Pain floods my memory and darkens my vision.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Davis,” I tell him quietly. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. It’ll heal.”
I’m not ready. I can skirt the truth, but the traumatic details about my past…
I can’t. Not yet. It’s too hard. Too heavy. The idea of going into detail to everyone about how badly I fucked up my life makes me incredibly sad.
Davis’s brow furrows. “Would you have told me all this?” he asks thickly. “When you came back?”
I keep my gaze on him. “Honestly, probably not.”
Last night, there was no time to lie. I had so many excuses prepared, but when I saw Davis, every little white lie disappeared. Because he was safety. He was comfort. He was someone who always knew what to do.
Now, in the harsh light of morning, I realize it’s a bad idea. Davis Montgomery is like a dog with a bone. He won’t let go until I tell him everything.
And I can’t tell him Aiden’s name. He’ll kill him.
“All the little white lies I would’ve told. I’d be a legend.”
Davis makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat.
I stretch out in the seat and say gently, “Believe me, sending out some distressed woman SOS isn’t exactly the way I wanted to come back to town.”
He doesn’t smile. Always the same stern, broody face on this cowboy.
Of course, that’s the face he’s making.
I’m weak. I’m not the girl he knew.
“I didn’t know things were this bad,” he says with quiet rage.
“No one did.” A tear slips down my cheek. “I’m tired, Davis. I’m tired of being good.”
I turn my face to the window, feeling sad. Wyoming turns to Montana as we cross the border. “I’m tired of running.”
Davis’s sharp gaze slides across me, then returns to the highway. “You’re not running. You’re going home.”
Home.
Home to rebuild my life.
At least what’s left of it.
Six years ago, I was at the top of my game.
A degree in pastry arts. Culinary festivals.
Tutelage under Dominique Ansel. I traveled the country.
France. The Keys. The Alps. Budapest. I baked like my soul was a flame and experienced things my small town could only dream of.
I ate the world. I never wanted to go back.
Then, three years into my culinary dreams, I met Aiden.
And I rushed into it.
He wasn’t mine and I wasn’t his. At least, not in the way that mattered. He was someone I let into my life. All because the Marine back home didn’t want my heart, so I tried to give it away to the first man that would take it.
I tried.
And I failed miserably.
I fucked up.
Because being with Aiden King was like being blindsided in plain sight.
For the first year, it was good. Then, after I bought the bakery, he changed. Mean. Bitter. Violent. He convinced me I wasn’t good enough. He was the prize and I couldn’t live without him.
Slowly, my world shrank. I left behind my friends, my family, even those bantering texts from Davis that got me through culinary school.
The night Aiden broke my arm was the moment I knew.
Being persistent with the wrong person is death.
But what feels like another death is Resurrection.
Going home feels like failure. Crawling back to a town I rejected.
Leaving behind a family I loved. And all for what?
Because the past Dakota McGraw wanted to outrun the town she was born?
Because I hated how every Friday night football ruled.
How our town thought Applebee’s and our local chili potlucks were the prime of life.
I wanted culture, the world, and I had it.
Now it feels like I’m being punished for wanting, for dreaming. It feels like Resurrection was right all along. All I have are broken dreams to go along with broken bones.
I cover my face with my good hand and breathe in.
“How am I going to do this, Davis?” My voice cracks. “Tell my father…”
“It’ll be okay.” His brown eyes spark as his gaze locks on my face and holds. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll find a solution where you’re safe.”
I fight that panicky urge building within. “I don’t want anyone in town to know about the baby,” I blurt.
Davis flinches. I didn’t miss the same expression last night. The painful look on Davis’s face as he glanced down at my stomach and then up so fast he could have gotten whiplash.
I look down at my stomach, look away. Part of me wants it, part of me hates myself for keeping it. Because it’s like letting Aiden win all over again.
Dread pushes against my chest as we get closer to Resurrection. Gray columns of the sugar beet factory rise and meet the horizon. The pale sky of Montana blooms with clouds. At the sight, all my nerves come rushing back.
Home means safety. But it also means questions. Hard looks in the mirror.
A pregnancy, and a baby I have no idea what to do with.
As the late afternoon sun casts its shadows, I pause on the porch outside the screen door that leads into my father’s cabin.
It feels weird to knock, but it feels even stranger to set foot in my childhood home.
My father’s bright-yellow vintage Jalopy sits in the drive.
Still rusted, still waiting for that oil change.
No doubt kittens are living in the engine.
Beside me, Davis lifts his brows in a go-ahead gesture.
But before I can knock, the door is yanked open.
Fallon.
Her nostrils flare when she sees me, her hazel eyes dancing over my black eye, my cast. Then, without a hello, her gaze punches to Davis. “Well, looks like the cowboy cavalry came to the rescue.”
Davis crosses his arms over his massive chest and shakes his head.
All I can do is stare.
I haven’t seen my little sister in over six years, just brief glimpses of her barrel racing in YouTube videos or on Instagram.
She’s no longer the feisty tomboy I left behind.
She’s devastatingly gorgeous. Lean and leggy, with colorful tattoos covering every inch of bare, muscular flesh.
Her long caramel hair is loosely braided.
She looks fierce, beautiful and annoyed.
“What?” she asks sharply.
“You grew up.”
“Astute observation,” she says with an eye roll.