I’ve grown into the kind of man that doesn’t sleep around. It was perhaps a fault of mine for a brief period in college, but besides that, it’s hardly been my taste to bed women I don’t see a future with. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t that the offers don’t come, but it seems hollow, and having come from a family with parents whose love seemed like the world revolved around it or would stop turning without it, that’s what I craved, but damned if God himself would see it fit to give or grant me that.

More often than not, I take Street, my horse, out for a ride each morning before making my way into the office. The fresh air and the space narrow my focus on the agenda for the remainder of my day. However, like everything else in my life, the ability to ride horses has been overshadowed by the one thing constantly nagging at my brain. Come Sunday, it will hardly be of concern. For, within a week’s time, I’ll take the first step towards righting the wrong that consumes my normally unrelenting, focused brain.

I’m a man familiar with getting what he wants.

This would be no exception.

“GIRLS!” MY FATHER’S VOICE BOOMS through the smaller barn, where I am organizing buckets for tomorrow’s Monday morning feeding.

I pop my head around the corner of the feed room door, wincing at his second harsh call. “Geez.” I step into the aisleway, scrunching my nose up and shaking my head. “Right here.”

“Yell a little louder, Daddy. I don’t think Hank heard you,” Aurora whines from a nearby stall, referring to one of our three miniature ponies. While Willy and Waylon are old but sound, Hank happens to be deaf and quite pesky, really—hence the reference.

“Hardy har har.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m calling a family meeting. There’s something we need to discuss. Your brother is on his way over. Finish up and come on over to the house.” Pausing, he looks us both in the eyes from underneath the brim of his ball cap. “I mean it, girls. No dillydallying. This is important.”

Instead of waiting for us to answer, he stalks from the barn as quickly as he entered it.

“What in Heaven’s name could that be about?” my sister asks, leaning her hip against the stall she was cleaning, chucking her pitchfork into the wheelbarrow.

Shrugging, I look at where Daddy walked out of the barn. “Not a clue.” We had dinner less than two hours ago, so what could have possibly changed in that short amount of time? Her guess was as good as mine.

It was Sunday already. I’ve been home for a little over a week, and Achilles, my butt pillow, and I are settling in just fine. I’m not allowed to clean stalls, move hay, or lift anything heavy, so instead of feeling useless, I spend my days taking care of the smaller tasks, which are fewer and farther between than I remember.

In the mornings, I was helping Aurora with the grain feeding, occasionally the turnout too, but after a few days of that, my back began acting up and I was put on even more modified duty: grooming horses, ordering new supply, and some free lunging of any of the horses that require exercise, including Chil. He hasn’t been ridden since my fall, and even thought I know that isn’t a good thing—for either of us—I can’t bring myself to ask anyone else to ride him. It’s only ever been me, been us.

Twenty minutes later, Aurora steps into the feed room. “The stalls are done. You ready?” she asks, wiping the dirt from her hands on her jeans before shoving them into her front pockets.

After lining up the last of the now-labeled containers on the shelf, I rest my hands on my hips. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.” I follow behind her to the green gator we use to get around the property, huffing as I position the junk in my trunk on top of the elusive ass pillow.

“Have you been into town at all?” she questions, driving the howling hunk of junk towards the house.

Picking at the rip in the knee of my jeans, I fight against the urge to fidget. I know full well the actions will only serve to irritate both my injuries and me. “No.”

“You’ll have to go eventually.”

Rolling my shoulders back in an effort to exude more confidence, I shake my head. “To give the small town vultures a chance to pick apart what’s left of my dignity and career in person? I think I’ll pass.”

“You’re only making it worse by hiding out. You’re becoming some kind of attraction by staying holed up here. They need to see you. They need to see it hasn’t broken you.”

I don’t even consider answering her—for the simple fact I’m afraid to tell her it may have indeed broken me, at least more so than anything before.

“I’m meeting some of the girls at the Sundance tonight. They’re doing karaoke. Come with us.”

I open my mouth, an assault of excuses ranging from a sore ass to a headache on the tip of my tongue, but she abruptly pumps the brakes, turning almost fully in her seat to look at me.

“Stop.”

“Stop what?” I shrug.

As she pokes my chest with her finger, she loses the battle with the moisture in her eyes. “Letting this become you . . .” She struggles with her words, repeatedly fluttering her eyelids. When the familiar blue stares back at me this time, it’s with more fire than she usually harbors. “You’re not this person”—she now waves her hand in front of me—“and you’re not the person in that article, either. So let them choke on their ignorance. Heaven is filled with redeemed sinners sporting crooked halos, and your sins or mistakes hardly stack up to those of others. None of us are perfect, London, so to Hell with the bastards. It’s not your job to make them understand. You’re not the asshole whisperer.”

Clenching my jaw to ward the threatening tears off, I nod. “A saint, a sinner, and a cowboy—Lord have mercy, Daddy has his hands full.”

“So, you’ll come?” she urges.

I’ll admit I’m still furiously unsure about whether the idea is good, but my sister is a saint, and she just pulled her guns out for me. Seems downright unsisterly to tell her no.

“I’ll come,” I say, giving in.

Without any warning, she morphs back into her dominant personality and enthusiastically claps her hands. “Then let’s get this godforsaken meeting over with so I can laugh at your attempt to sing Shania Twain,” she deadpans, pressing the gas pedal down and lurching us forward.

“I need you all to understand it hasn’t been an easy year,” Daddy says, pulling his Edmonton Oilers ball cap off and running his hand over his head.

Uncertainty is rolling off him in waves, and that alone making us all uncomfortable. It’s unlike Larry Daniels to exude any emotion of the sort.

“With the economy the way it is, people aren’t boarding their horses at stables like ours anymore.” He pauses uncomfortably.

“What’s going on, Dad? Just tell us,” Owen rumbles, leaning back in his chair.

Aurora pulls her chair around before resting a hand on his forearm. “Is everything okay?”

“Daddy?” I prompt.

He looks up at me from across the kitchen table as I lean my elbows onto the wood.

“Share the weight.”

“The barn has been running me into the ground. At the rate we’ve been going, especially with the cost of repairs to prepare for the coming winter, I would have to remortgage the property to keep us afloat.” The hit it’s taking on his pride to tell us this is waging a war of emotions on his face. “However, it would seem lady luck is on our side, which I like to think of as your mother watching out for us. A gentleman has approached me with another offer, but I want us to agree on it as a family.”

Leaning his forearms onto the table, Owen furrows his brow. “What’s the offer?”