Show Me You Remember

Rowe I'd convinced myself she was never coming back. Not after I destroyed my life defending her and was left to live alone in the fallout. I made my peace with that years ago, when I learned Tilly Whittman was gone for good. Yet here she is, standing in my barn again and brushing down my horses like the last decade of silence never happened. I shouldn't care that she's here, or be thinking about what she'd written to me in that final letter. But every time she opens her mouth, it's like she's trying to pick a fight with the version of me that went to prison for something I'd do again in a heartbeat. She's here on my land with her boots planted, chin high, and curved nails picking at old wounds like she's trying to see if I'll bleed. And I will. I always did when it came to my best friend's sister. Tilly I swore I was done with Oak Point. But when my life falls apart for the second time, I crawl back to the only place that might still want me. My home. The place I lost myself. Now I'm grooming horses at Painted Sky and trying not to rip the head off the man who's been pretending I don't exist since the day I showed up. Rowe Carrigan. The cowboy who went to prison and came out angrier than the broncs he rides. We were never together. Not really. Yet what happened between us left a scar I can't seem to stop touching. He thinks I'm trouble and he's right. Because the longer I stay, the harder it is to ignore the weight of the past, or how badly I still want the one man I was never supposed to have.