2. Ryan

Present Day…

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of my neck, tickling my skin. I reached up and swiped it away, adjusting the wide-brimmed hat on top of my head. It was my only protection against the blistering heat of a mid-day Texas sun.

Storm, the horse I currently rode, was impatient and stomped his hoof, causing dust to kick up around us. I bent down and patted his neck. "What do you say we take a break?" I murmured near his ear, and he tossed his head back, his mane brushing against my sticky skin. I gripped the reins and dug my heels into his sides, gently nudging him toward the pond across the pasture.

My body swayed side to side as Storm trotted slowly across the grass. I squinted my eyes, my gaze searching the horizon for Quinn, my best friend and fellow ranch hand. Instead, in the distance, I could barely make out a weathered farmhouse, and my breath caught as the memories washed over me. I tried years ago to shut them off, shove them down to some deep place inside my brain where they were locked away so I could move on.

But it never worked. It never worked because of that house, sitting on the edge of my family's ranch, at the edge of my consciousness, always lingering just out of reach just like the boy who grew up there. Even after twelve years, Maddox still consumed me.

I had just four short years with him before he left one night when I was fourteen and never looked back. He went from my best friend, protector, and first love to nothing all in the span of one night that I hadn't seen coming.

I'd been crushed. Devastated. The kind of inconsolable pain that I didn't think my teenage heart would ever recover from. And I'd been partially right. Time had dulled the ache where Maddox had carved out his place on my soul, but the scars were still there.

I refused to think of myself as pathetic, though. So many aspects of my life had been shaped by those four years. Yet, here I sat, desperately trying to keep my family's ranch going, on top of this horse in the middle of my daily chores. Was this what I had planned for my life? Hell no. But it was where I'd ended up, and I wouldn't be resentful.

I climbed down off of Storm, my boots scraping along the dry ground as I walked to the shaded spot by the waterline. I pulled my hat off my head and adjusted my ponytail, sweeping the escaped tendrils behind my ears and sitting down on the soft grass, leaning back against a tree trunk.

I heard the pounding hooves before I saw him, and a slow smile spread across my face as I looked to my left and watched as Quinn came into view on the back of his horse, Daisy. He rode right up next to me, pulling back on the reins so Daisy would stop.

He hopped off of her back, his boots making a loud thud on the dirt before he patted her haunches and sent her over to the water. Watching him close the distance between us, his sculpted frame, messy dark hair, and hazel eyes framed by long, dark lashes were every girl's fantasy. Too bad for all of us he wasn't interested. That didn't mean I couldn't enjoy looking at him, though.

Quinn flashed me a cocky smile. "My eyes are up here, sweetheart."

I laughed. "Damn, you caught me. If you didn't want me to stare, maybe you should try putting on some weight, maybe around the middle."

He dropped down beside me, leaning against the tree so our shoulders touched. "Not a chance. I don't exactly have a lot of prospects out here in this podunk town, so I'm not about to let myself go and miss out on the random app hookups in the city. I've got to pull them in somehow, and a picture's all I've got to work with."

Biting my lip to keep from smiling, I eyed him up and down. "You do you, boo. Just don't mind me ogling you from time to time. Checking you out is the most action I've had… ever."

Quinn sighed, wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulled me into his body, and kissed the top of my head. "When are you going to let go of the boy next door, Mr. Manwhore Rockstar himself, and finally move on?"

Resting my head on his shoulder, I closed my eyes, and dark, haunted eyes with gold flecks flashed in my mind. "I don't know if I can."

Working the ranch was so far from the life I'd dreamed it was almost laughable. If I'd told my ten-year-old self where I was at now, she'd be so disappointed—the little girl I used to be had dreams of no longer needing to be saved. No, I wanted to be the one to do the saving.

As soon as I'd graduated high school, I'd gotten the hell out of here. All I'd ever wanted was to be a cop. To put on the uniform, to be able to protect people the way Maddox had protected me. The way the police went to his house over and over when he was a kid, and I'd watched from my window as the red and blue lights lit up the open fields between our houses, helpless to do anything but observe.

I was still so hung up on Maddox that I enrolled in college in California, naively hoping that in a state with thirty-nine million people, I'd run into him at least once in four years. But, it never happened, and I was too scared of rejection to reach out. Besides, what would I have said?

"Hey, it's Ryan. You know, your childhood best friend and neighbor who you abandoned after giving her a life-altering first kiss?" Yeah, right.

Instead, I kept my head down and studied my ass off. I took every self-defense and fighting class I could find from kickboxing to jiu-jitsu, and when I graduated, I got picked up by the LAPD. Thinking back on those days, a wistful smile pulls at my lips. I was so close to achieving my dream that I could taste it.

However, my life wasn't destined to be so easy, and a few months into the academy, I got the phone call that dragged me back to this tiny town and the ranch I grew up on. My dad, the tall and invincible cowboy I always thought he was, had been in an accident. There wasn't anyone else to step into my father's shoes and take care of things around here. So, I came home, and this was where I'd been ever since.

The past four years felt like at least ten. But, I never complained. My parents needed me. While my sisters were out in the world living their lives, I was here, sitting in the shade by the pond, sweating my ass off in jeans and boots before I'd climb back up on Storm and go fix an endless stretch of fence.

Quinn didn't say much else after that, and his breathing evened out. That boy could fall asleep anywhere, and it made me a little jealous. Once I'd cooled down a little and Storm had drunk his fill, I nudged Quinn with my elbow and he startled. "Wake up, hot stuff. We've got a fence to fix."

I pushed myself up and dusted off my jeans. I grabbed my hat off the grass and pushed it back onto my head before holding out my hand and helping Quinn up off the grass. He looked off into the distance, shielding his eyes with his hand. "Do you think we have enough time to tackle the fence before dinner?"

Sighing, I moved toward my dark gray stallion and ran my hand down his velvety nose. He nudged my cheek, and I chuckled. "If we haul ass, we can get it done."

Quinn saluted me before grabbing Daisey's reins and hauling himself up into her saddle. "Aye, aye captain."

Rolling my eyes, I lifted myself into my own saddle, leading the way to the east pasture. Squinting up at the sun, I figured we'd have a couple of hours left before my mom called us in for dinner. She rang a dinner bell and everything. We needed to finish the fence repair before then because tomorrow we had a whole new never-ending list of shit to do around here, and it felt like Quinn and I would never get it all done. With one last glance back at my best friend, I picked up the pace and tried to push the past as far out of my mind as I could.

Rinsing the suds off my hands, I watched the dirt-tinted water swirl down the drain. The smell of my mom's home cooking hung heavy in the air, and my stomach growled. Quinn took off his boots in the mudroom behind me and hip-checked me out of the way. "Move your cute ass, I'm starving."

We both knew my mom would never allow us at the table without freshly scrubbed hands, something ingrained in me since I was a kid and something Quinn had learned quickly when he'd come to work for my family when he was twenty-one.

I tossed the towel I'd just used at him, and it hit him in the face. He glared at me as he pulled it off, and I giggled. "Now who's holding us up?"

"You'll be lucky if there's any left for you." He pushed past me and threw me a grin over his shoulder.

"You better not hog all the food, Quinn, or so help me I'll hogtie you and make you sleep in the barn," I threatened. When it came to my mom's chicken fried steak, all bets were off.

He laughed. "Sweetheart, I'd love to see you try."

"Knock it off, you two," my mom scolded lightly. We both mumbled our apologies and sat down next to each other at the table. My sisters both came into town for dinner tonight, so they sat across from us. My dad sat at one end of the table, and my mom would sit at the other when she finished piling dishes onto the table in front of us.

"Yeah, you two. Stop flirting at the dinner table," Justice, my younger sister, piled on.

Rolling my eyes, I reached for the salad bowl, scooping a heaping pile onto my plate. "Quinn and I can't seem to help ourselves, sis. Don't be jealous."

Quinn choked out a laugh around the piece of roll he'd shoved in his mouth and pounded himself on the chest. I reached over and hit his back, too.

"You're going to kill the poor guy, Ryan," my older sister, Charlie, chimed in. She shot Quinn a sympathetic smile before stretching her hand across the table to grab the bowl of salad from me.

"Seriously, Ry. Come into Dallas this weekend and come out with us. Even Quinn is coming," Justice said.

I raised my eyebrow at Quinn, and he shrugged his shoulder. "What? It's been a while, and I need to blow off some steam. Literally."

Chuckling, I glanced over at my dad. I'd known Quinn was gay since high school, but when he'd come out to my family, I didn't expect my dad to be so okay with it. He was an old school Texas cattle rancher. But he loved Quinn like the son he never had.

My dad stopped slicing into his chicken and looked up at Quinn with his eyes sparkling mischievously. "You better be staying safe, son. And watch out for my girls." That was as much approval as any of us were going to get.

Quinn straightened up next to me. "Yes, sir. I always keep at least one eye on them. And I'm always careful."

My dad nodded once and resumed slicing into the breaded meat in front of him.

"Well, I don't feel like going out this weekend, so I think I'll stay back," I decided before stuffing a piece of chicken in my mouth and moaning as it coated my taste buds with deep-fried goodness.

Next to me, my best friend cringed. "Jesus, Ry. Save it for the boy next door, will you?"

I nearly choked on my bite and had to grab my glass of ice water and chug some to get the food down my throat.

Charlie shifted her eyes in my direction. "Speaking of Maddox, are you still not over that ridiculous crush you had on him? It's been twelve years, Ryan. He's not coming back."

My cheeks heated up like they always did when my sisters brought Maddox up. For a long time, they'd been understanding and sympathetic. Until months had turned into years, and now that it'd been more than a decade, they'd completely lost their patience with me. Every week they'd come to dinner and pressure me to go out with them and try to meet someone.

I just wasn't ready. I didn't know if I ever would be.

Justice studied me with her green eyes narrowed slightly. "She's not going to budge, Charlie. I don't know why we try anymore. You might as well become a nun, Ryan."

My mom stepped in. "Girls, enough. If your sister doesn't want to come with you this week, drop it. She'll come around in her own time." She turned to look at me with a soft smile on her face. My mom had been the one who comforted me all through high school when I wanted to give up and curl up in a ball and never leave my bed again. She may not understand my pain from a personal experience perspective, but she was my mom, and on some level, I think she knew how deep my hurt ran even now. I thought she probably hurt for both Maddox and me for what we went through back then. She always looked at him like he was her son.

My dad cleared his throat. "We went to see the doctor today."

We all froze, stopping mid-bite and turning to look between my parents. My dad had been thrown from a horse four years ago and never recovered his ability to walk. Being confined to a wheelchair was the worst kind of torture for a man who lived for working his land. He'd tried everything he could up to this point to help, but nothing worked. I didn't even know how much physical therapy he'd done over the years, but still, he spent his days in the house or on the porch in his chair.

"You did? What for?" I rested my chin on my fist and my elbow on the table.

"We heard about a specialist with a new experimental treatment. We set the appointment six months ago but didn't say anything because we didn't want to get our hopes up," my mom explained.

"What kind of treatment?" Justice asked.

"It's called stimulation. Doctors implant a strip of electrodes into my spine, and it would potentially activate the nerves that help me walk. They'd had quite a bit of early success, and it looks promising," my dad elaborated.

Charlie tilted her head and sipped her water, looking thoughtful. "I think I read a study on that a couple of years ago, but it was still early. I'll dig into the research when I get home and see what I can find." Charlie was a neurosurgery resident. She'd finished medical school two years ago and was working her way through her residency. She changed her specialty to neurosurgery after my dad's accident because she wanted to help people like him if she could.

"We don't even know if you can get in. There's a long waitlist, and the treatment is really expensive for something we don't know will work." My mom sounded weary, like she'd gotten her hopes up before and been let down. And she had. We all had. We all knew not to put too much faith into any new treatment option that came up. All had failed so far.

Besides that, I didn't exactly know all the details of my parent's financial situation. Still, I doubted they had the money to take something like this on. It made me angry that helping my dad get better depended on how much money he had, but that was how the medical system worked. I looked at Charlie, and our eyes met. We were thinking the same thing. Maybe her connections at the hospital where she worked could help get him into the treatment and with the money aspect, too.

"I'm pulling for you, Alex," Quinn chimed in.

My dad's smile lit up his whole face. "Thanks, Quinn."

We all dug into our food, the mood lighter, but we were all quiet, lost in our own thoughts. When I finished, I stood and grabbed my plate, and Quinn followed me into the kitchen where we dropped our dishes into the dishwasher. "Movie night?" he asked.

I nodded. "Your turn to pick."

He grinned and rubbed his hands together. "Are your sisters staying?"

Charlie and Justice had followed us into the kitchen. "No, we're about to take off, so feel free to torture her with your movie selection," Justice smirked.

Quinn giggled, and I poked him in the side. "Goddamn, Quinn. You sound like a maniac."

"Don't hate, Ry. We're off to watch She's All That. Bye, ladies." Quinn wiggled his fingers in a wave before he grabbed my arm. I barely contained my groan. I hated romantic movies, and Quinn knew it.

"Ugh, couldn't you pick a better Paul Walker movie? The Fast and the Furious , maybe?" I pouted.

"Nope. Sure, he's hot in that, but he's hot and an asshole in my movie. The best combination." He was practically vibrating, and I begrudgingly smiled. "Seems like maybe we both have a type, right, Ryan?" He shot me a smug smile in return.

I couldn't argue with him there. I didn't know what Maddox was like now from personal experience, but he seemed to be a grade-A asshole in the media. "You know me too well. I think we need to break up," I grumbled.

Quinn chuckled. "If only it were that easy to get rid of me. Sorry, Lancelot. You're stuck with me for life."

I sat on my bed next to Quinn and snuggled into his side, burrowing underneath the covers as he started the movie. "I guess I could do worse," I mumbled.

"Damn right. Now shut up and take in all this nineties hotness with me." Quinn wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I tried to lose myself in the movie, ignoring how my thoughts kept drifting to the house over the hill and wondering what Maddox was doing right now and if he ever thought of me, too.