Tell No Lies (Wild Acre Ranch #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

"I'm gettin' a dog."

The words hung in the air like feed dust while I stood in the dog food aisle of Lancaster Feed & Supply, starin' down rows and rows of bags stacked higher than my head.

Beef.

Chicken.

Salmon.

Grain-free.

Ancient grains.

Dog food was dog food. WTF?

I squatted to read another label, the funky-sweet smell of grain and fertilizer that lived in this store the way my family did—forever—invadin' my senses.

"Why do you have so many goddamn options?" I muttered.

From behind the scarred oak counter, Luke didn't even look up from his stack of ones. The cash register dinged, metal drawer slammin' with a thud.

"You can't keep a fuckin' cactus alive," he said flatly. "You don't need a dog."

At six-foot-three, you could hardly call my little brother little. Two-hundred-twenty pounds of farm-bred stubbornness with one facial expression he wore year-round. For fuck's sake, he made me feel small at six-one and a buck ninety.

"Hey, I take care of animals every damn day."

"Horses are different than dogs, Bro. But I'm sure you'll be great at clippin' its nails. Just don't forget to feed it, water it, walk it."

"Fuck off, Lu. I can take care of a dog."

Right? I totally can.

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans, boots scuffin' over the dusty floor, eyeing a bag with a golden retriever grinnin' like his life was perfect. A pet was probably the only logical solution to my current loneliness.

"You boys fightin' out here?" Mom stepped out of the office, gray-blond hair yanked into a ponytail. She had on her light-wash mom jeans and Dad's old Larkspur, Montana sweatshirt—the same one he'd sold to half the town over the years.

"Just keepin' your eldest humble." Luke bent to kiss the top of her head and, for a second, I saw the shadow of what we'd lost cast across them both.

I shook it off, plastering on the shit-eatin' grin everyone was used to seein' on my face. Last thing Mom needed was to worry 'bout me.

Wouldn't stop her, though.

"He doesn't think I need a dog." I spread my arms for Mom to walk straight into before I squeezed her in a hug that lifted her clear off her feet.

"How does Sassy feel about a dog?"

I sighed as I set my meddling mother down. "Mom…"

"What?" Her feigned confusion was so utterly transparent, I laughed. Couldn't help it.

My laugh made her laugh, which had Luke crackin' a smile and shakin' his head. For him, that was practically a ROFL moment.

When we'd all calmed our shit down, Mom fixed me with a more serious expression.

"She's coming home tomorrow."

As if I didn't already know.

As if I hadn't been the one to book the honeymoon of our dreams.

As if I wasn't dreading the moment I had to face down the spitfire of a woman I had loved nearly my whole damn life.

"There's still time to fix this." Mom patted my chest, hope shinin' through the same eyes that stared back at me in the mirror each morning when I brushed my teeth.

"Nothin' to fix, Ma. We ain't broken. Just wasn't right."

Her expression morphed in an instant from maternal concern laced with hope to something fierce and angry and a little fucking scary, TBH.

"Brody Lancaster, I swear to all things good in this world, if you have taken that girl away from me in my time of need, you will be so grounded."

I barked out a laugh. "Okay, Ma. Sure thing.

" She swatted me on the side of the head, and with a muttered ouch, I carried on.

"And you know as well as I do that a little called-off-wedding wouldn't stop Sassy from seein' you.

You're just as much the only mother she's ever had as she is the only daughter you've ever had. "

Mom's eyes softened again before welling with tears. I fuckin' hated seein' her cry—had seen too much of it in the last year—so I pulled her back into my chest.

"You'll be okay," I muttered into her hair. "We'll all be okay."

I wasn't totally convinced I'd be okay, but these wounds were self-inflicted. I just had to carry on, keep on livin' while I could.

Because if the last year taught me anything, it was that life was way too short to watch your fiancée be in love with your best friend.

Which was why I was gettin' a dog.

Instead of picking out chew toys and leashes, I did the responsible thing with my afternoon.

I was elbow-deep in cardboard boxes, shovin' Sassy's shit into them—one sweatshirt, one boot, one memory at a time.

Our little one-bedroom apartment above The Blue Pony Saloon—or The BP, as us locals liked to call it—was nothing to write home about, but it was home for a good many years.

Now, the space felt like all the happy had been sucked right on out of it the moment Sassy packed a bag and left for our honeymoon—alone.

I picked up the framed photograph of the two of us from last summer's rodeo that sat atop the entertainment center just below the sixty-five-inch TV Sassy told me I absolutely did not need to waste the money on but that I got anyway.

Would she want the TV?

Did I?

How did I navigate where things were with her now—more than two decades of friendship and a first love that spanned half my life, all undone by a few words meant to soothe but that cut the deepest instead?

I sighed and set the picture aside before assemblin' a new box, taking a Sharpie to the flap and writin' a simple IDK.

Because I really fucking didn't.

I didn't know.

Didn't know what the fuck I was doin' with my life.

What came next. How I'd move past this. Especially in a thimble-sized town like Larkspur, where the old biddies gathered every Sunday after the one-and-only church service to gossip over Entenmann's pastries—courtesy of one member's husband, the county's bread-and-baked-goods distributor.

Our one meager taste of the outside world, beyond the locally grown and groomed staples.

The thought had me carefully placing the picture in the box and tossing the Sharpie aside as I made my way to what we'd affectionately dubbed "The Pantry Cabinet.

" In such a tiny space, there was no room for a proper closet to house dry goods, so we'd carved out one of the few uppers for Pop-Tarts, popcorn, and Entenmann's Pop'ems. Even at thirty-three and thirty-five years old, respectively, Sass and I had the palates of toddlers.

I opened the cabinet to pop some of them glazed donut holes only to find it completely empty. Because Sassy did the shopping.

"Fuck."

She'd been a part of my life so long, it was hard to remember the years before. Two years younger, the summer she turned nine and her dad started working at the ranch, she started trailin' after Rhett and me like a shadow. And she never fuckin' left.

She sure as shit wasn't goin' anywhere now, either. So I'd find a way to deal. I had to.

Two sharp raps on the door jolted me from my spiral of shame into the kitchen cabinet and I slammed it shut.

"Come in," I called.

The unlocked knob twisted as heavy boots clomped into the small space, his presence sucking nearly all the oxygen out of the room. I busied my hands, movin' and shufflin' boxes along the counter, linin' them up only to move them.

My best friend stood quietly just inside the door. His weighted stare on my back had a bead of sweat tricklin' down my spine, but I couldn't make myself turn. Couldn't make myself look him in the eye.

Because I wasn't ready to explain.

Wasn't sure I ever would be.

Rhett cleared his throat.

"You good?"

I swallowed past the lump in my throat and pulled myself up by the bootstraps, metaphorical as they may be, since I rocked joggers and sneaks for today's activities.

I turned to face my best friend of over two decades. His brows furrowed as he looked me up and down. "You look good. Better than I want you to look, if I'm bein' honest."

"Fuck off," I muttered as I grabbed a box from the counter.

Rhett watched me as I approached, not movin' an inch from his spot in front of the door.

When I stood a foot in front of him, nothin' but a box of Sassy's possessions between us, his eyes bounced between mine.

He must have seen enough guilt, enough shame, because he stepped aside, lettin' me stomp through the doorway and down the steps to the parking lot out back of The BP.

I slid the box into his truck bed. His boots crunched over the gravel lot and he followed suit with a box of his own.

I planted my hands on the tailgate, summonin' some sort of fuckin' strength to get through this day and all the rest to come. Rhett set his box down and leaned beside me, our eyes meeting in the cab's back window.

"I'm sorry," he said. "That was an asshole thing to say."

I grunted, because was it, really? If the roles were reversed and he'd been the one to hurt Sass, I'd probably hate him. Then again, Rhett was always the better man.

Which was exactly why I'd let her go.

"Nah, man. I'm the villain in this story. I get it." I bobbed my head, willing the sting in my sinuses away.

"You're not a villain, Bro," he scoffed, drawin' my eyes. "Don't be so fuckin' dramatic."

He was starin' at me so intently it made me squirm in my Nikes. I knew what he wanted from me—a fucking reason—but I couldn't give it to him.

Wasn't ready to say it out loud.

To carve open a wound I'd barely kept from bleedin' out with a few flimsy Band-Aids.

And because I also knew exactly what he'd say.

That I was wrong.

That I was seein' shit, makin' things up.

That my grief was clouding my judgment.

When in reality, grief over the man who'd raised me—the one I’d idolized in every way—was what had so clearly opened my eyes.

Sassy and I had never been right for each other.

We'd been convenient. Easy. Best friends turned to lovers, when really it should have been her other best friend all along.

I wouldn't damn either of us to a life unfulfilled.

I wanted her to spend her life with a man she'd love as fiercely as my mother loved my father.

In those first months after Dad died, I saw it—like I'd glimpsed the future.

And while there was plenty of love between me and Sass, it wasn't that soul-deep kind.

The kind that has a woman on her knees the moment she loses it, screamin' at the cruelty of the world.

I didn't want her to settle for me. I wanted her to have that kind of love.

I held Rhett's stare, beggin' him with my eyes to drop it. To leave it, for now.

I knew the reckonin' was comin', but not today. Not when I was barely hangin' on as it was.

After a long beat, he finally said, "Let's go get some more boxes."

I exhaled sharply, spared for another moment from what was sure to be the second most painful conversation of my life—the first being the day I told Sassy I couldn't marry her.

We hauled the last of her things down in silence, the scrape of cardboard and crunch of gravel fillin' what words couldn't. When I slid the final box into Rhett's truck bed, he flipped up the tailgate.

"Drink?" he asked.

"Yeah." My nod was slow, heavy. "Drink would be good."