Chapter 1

Chapter One

B eau Peterson poured himself a cup of coffee, the feeling down deep inside him starting to bubble to the surface. He hadn't decided if it was a good feeling or a bad one, and he glanced over to the clock ticking away in his kitchen.

His parents had owned it, but it had originally belonged to his grandfather on his dad's side. So the grandfather clock seemed fitting. It told time precisely, and if Beau knew his best friend, Bennett would be arriving any minute.

He stirred sugar into his coffee and lifted the hot liquid to his lips, his gaze skating by the championship photos of his younger sister and the horses she used to show. The coffee stung bitterly against his tongue, and he went back to get more sweetener. The first chime on the clock had just sounded when Bennett knocked on the front door and opened it at the same time.

"Ah, coffee," he said, his grin permanently in place these days. And why shouldn't it be? The man was getting married this weekend.

Ruby lifted her head from where she lay on the couch, her breakfast long gone. Pepper, Beau's black lab, jumped down from his pre-work nap to greet Bennett.

Beau glanced past the man he'd lived with and worked with for just about twenty years now. Of course he was happy for Bennett and his soon-to-be-bride. He absolutely was. He'd show up on the day and play the part—and heaven knew Beau had been a best man or a groomsman enough to do his duties in his sleep.

The seventeen bowties hanging from the long two-by-four in the hallway spoke of that. Bennett had made the display for him one day last year; he'd made one for himself too. Before he'd met Ellie. Before they'd started dating. Before things got serious.

Beau had no idea where his best friend's bowties had gone. His still hung in the hallway of the foreman's cabin, where he'd moved six months ago when he'd become the foreman of Three Rivers Ranch.

Bennett threw a box on the counter. "Look what I got for you." He bent down to scratch Pepper's ears, cooing at the dog like he was a baby instead of a seven-year-old black lab with gray starting to grow around his mouth.

Beau took another taste of his coffee instead of looking at anything. Neither of them wore their cowboy hats inside, so Beau's raised eyebrows landed squarely on Bennett as he poured himself a cup of coffee as if they still lived together.

Beau could admit that it had been hard living alone. He'd never really done it, and his momma had told him for the entirety of his life that he wasn't meant to be alone. He did have the two dogs, and he had a small herd of donkeys who brayed and brayed whenever he found time to go visit them. If three could be considered a herd. To Beau, it was, and he was the only one calling them that anyway.

Too bad he'd never been able to find anyone to get serious with, the way Bennett had. And Squire. Pete. Brett. Tom. Garth. Reese. Ethan.

The list went on and on. Times seventeen.

Seventeen weddings he'd attended. Seventeen wedding parties. Seventeen bow ties.

Dear Lord , he thought. Will it ever be my turn?

God did not answer, and Beau hadn't really been trying to find anyone anyway. Not since his new job appointment, that was. Running a ranch the size of Three Rivers was the job of at least six men, and Beau was still learning the ropes despite having lived and worked on this ranch for a couple decades now.

"Are you going to look?" Bennett asked, drawing Beau back to the kitchen. Back to the present. Back to his current loneliness.

He reached over and picked up the box, knowing exactly what it was. Only one thing came in a frilly blue box with silver engraving on the top.

Sure enough, a purple bowtie sat inside, and Beau forced a smile to his face. "For the wedding," he said needlessly.

Bennett must've heard something in Beau's voice, because he swept the bowtie away. Before he could even blink, Bennett had his fingers curled around the back of his neck. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"It's fine," Beau said back. No questions needed. He knew exactly what Bennett was apologizing for, and they both knew it wasn't fine. Sure, they'd been flirtatious and maybe even considered playboys back in the day.

Both of them had gone out with any number of women. Beau couldn't even pinpoint exactly when he'd decided he'd had enough of the fun-loving dating life. When he'd wanted to find a single woman he could fall deeply in love with and build a life with. It felt like it had been eight or nine years now, but time had warped in a lot of ways.

For example, Beau couldn't believe that shortly following Ben's wedding, he'd turn forty.

Him.

Forty.

Still single.

Texting his momma that he was still alive, still liked West Texas more than New Mexico, still missed his daddy like crazy, and no, still hadn't found anyone to call his.

Bennett pulled his hand back and cleared his throat. "Where we at today?"

"Well, I have some paperwork to go over in the admin trailer," Beau said, the words accompanied with a big sigh. "Then I'm gonna help with the loft tear-out in the hay barn, and then I have interviews this afternoon for the new Stable Master."

Ben nodded and nodded. "Where'd you put me?"

"Not anywhere you'd get sunburnt or hurt, I know that." Beau grinned at his best friend, most of the melancholy melting clean away. "Ellie would never forgive me if I let you show up to your wedding in a cast or looking like Rudolph."

Ben laughed, and it felt good for Beau to join his voice in with his friend's. He didn't ask if Beau had found a date to the wedding. If he had, he'd have texted Ben to say so. He didn't ask if he'd be there to calm him down only minutes before the ceremony began. Of course he would be.

He didn't ask if Beau would be okay once Ben had moved off the ranch to Ellie's house in town. He wouldn't be—neither of them would be. So many changes had entered their lives in the past year, and Beau had to remind himself daily that change was good. Change encouraged growth. Change could get a cowboy moving in the direction he was meant to be moving.

Simultaneously, Beau felt utterly suspended in time, unable to move forward or backward, left or right, up or down. Nothing.

"Let's get goin'," he said, mostly because he'd seen the concern enter Ben's eyes just now. He didn't want to answer any more questions, and he didn't need another apology. Ben shouldn't even have to apologize for meeting a great woman, falling in love with her, and getting married.

This weekend.

You can make it through one more wedding , he told himself. One more weekend. No big deal.

Maybe if he recited it enough, it would somehow be true.

"Come on, dogs," he said to Ruby and Pepper. "Time to get to work." His faithful pups trotted out with him, Bennett hot on their heels, and as Beau took a taste of the morning air, he decided his life wasn't all bad just because he didn't have a girlfriend.

Hours later, with hay seemingly clinging to every part of his body, Beau made his way back to the cabin on the end of the row. The biggest, nicest one, where the foreman lived. He had three bedrooms, a loft, and two baths in addition to a bigger living room, dining room, and kitchen. Oh, and a full deck off the back door. A real back lawn. A real front one too, which none of the other cowboys had.

The foreman's cabin sat the furthest from the homestead and the closest to the administration building. It was shielded from the worst of the animal smells on the ranch, the loudest of the squabbling chickens, and all of the traffic that came to the ranch for riding lessons, equine therapy appointments, rodeo horses, and any other business on the ranch.

Beau had finished his paperwork quickly that morning, which meant he'd been working in the hay barn, tearing out the rotted and soft wood in the loft, for long enough to be starving, dirty, sweaty, and covered in what felt like hay splinters up and down his arms.

"Despite wearing a long-sleeved shirt," he muttered. He headed toward his cabin, ready for a shower and something to eat. He checked his phone as his cowboy boots crunched over the immaculate gravel running in front of the row of cowboy cabins, and which separated the housing of men and women from the housing of horses, chickens, and even a few pigs.

Ducks, dogs, cats, and even calves sometimes. Three Rivers Ranch had it all.

Beau made the turn to go down the short sidewalk to his front steps, and he'd gained them all when he realized his front door stood open a few inches. He immediately slowed, though having someone come to the foreman's cabin certainly wasn't all that abnormal.

He'd had a nasty head cold a few months ago, and he'd conducted all his business from home, through texts, or not at all.

But today, he wasn't expecting anyone until after lunch. He wanted to put a pizza in the oven, take a fast shower to scrub the hay shards from his skin, and prep for the interviews.

A visitor? Not on the agenda, and Beau's irritation grew as he stepped lightly toward his door.

He used a couple of fingers to nudge the door open further, now annoyed that his air conditioning—which he had to pay for, thank you very much—had been leaking out and cooling the brutal Texas July.

His gaze immediately got drawn to the blonde woman standing in front of his grandfather clock. Pepper surely saw her too, as he darted inside to go greet their visitor. The black lab loved people as much as he loved tennis balls, sticks, and the blue Frisbee Beau threw for him every night. Well, every night the wind wasn't howling behind the cabin. So most nights.

The woman didn't turn from the clock—or perhaps the pictures on the credenza beside it—to greet Pepper, much to the canine's displeasure. Beau wasn't entirely sure what she was looking at. He knew she shouldn't be in his house, but he paused in the doorway to watch her for some reason.

She sure seemed familiar to him, but he couldn't quite be sure as she hadn't faced him fully yet. Her long, blonde hair hung a few inches past her shoulders, and she wore her cowgirl hat inside. Blue jeans. A blue shirt that looked like she might have bought it from the men's section at The Boot Barn. A pair of sturdy work boots.

Ruby, his collie, trotted over to the woman too, and as she stood a little taller than Pepper, and she definitely had more fluff, she brushed up against the woman's hand. She sucked in a breath, looked down at the dog, and seemed to sway on her feet.

Or maybe the earth had moved.

Because Beau suddenly recognized her. With that slight tilt of her head toward him, as the woman looked down at the collie, he knew her.

Charlotte Wisenhouer.

He hadn't seen her in forever—clearly. She'd grown all the way up, and he reminded himself he wasn't a twenty-year-old anymore, flirting with anyone wearing a lipglossed smile and earrings.

And Charlotte had been off-limits for as long as he could remember anyway. Her older brother Mason was Beau's age, and he'd warned Beau away from Charlotte years ago.

What in the world was she doing here now? Standing in his cabin, examining his grandfather clock with those stunning aquamarine eyes.

And crumpling to the floor right in front of him.

"Whoa." Beau wasn't sure if he'd spoken or not, but he did manage to propel himself out of the doorway and toward the woman who'd just suddenly and unexpectedly clattered to the floor. Pepper barked, and by the time Beau reached her, Ruby hovered over Charlotte in a very protective stance.

"Charlotte?" Beau asked. Then Ruby started licking her face, as if her rough tongue would surely wake her. Beau prayed it would as he took in the unconscious woman now in his kitchen.

"Come on," he said, a hint of desperation in his voice. He had no idea what to do with his hands, where to touch or not touch. "Charlotte? Can you hear me?" He pressed on Ruby's chest to get her to back up.

Pepper barked again, and Beau felt at an utter loss.

Then he remembered he had a phone, and he knew Charlotte's brother. Mason and his family had just moved onto a ranch on the southeast side of Three Rivers, and perhaps he'd know why his younger sister had literally just passed out for no reason.