“Life isn’t fair, Garth. That is one lesson I learned a long time ago.” Mr. Gibson’s voice wasn’t quite as harsh. Probably because he knew he’d beaten me down so much I couldn’t fall any lower. “I’m an aging rancher running a fifth-generation ranch with one son who wants nothing to do with ranching and one daughter who can’t run it on her own. You drew the short straw as to what family you were born into.”

I squeezed my eyes closed. “I wasn’t born into a family. I was born into a dysfunctional fucking mess.” That right there was getting straight to the point. A minute or two of silence passed between us. I expected he was waiting for me to say something, but there was nothing I could say to explain myself. There was nothing left to say.

“I know you would never try to drag Josie down with you, but it’s inevitable. It’s kind of like a person with a cold. They might not mean to spread it, but they can’t do anything to stop it either.”

I finally opened my eyes. Had he just said what I’d known for so long but tried to ignore during the past few weeks with Josie? “Are you saying I’m a virus?”

Mr. Gibson’s silence was all the answer I needed. “I’m saying I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep my daughter healthy and safe.”

“I am, too.” I let go of the chair and tried to stand tall, but it wasn’t happening. I was too beat down, physically and mentally.

Shoving off of the railing, he approached me until only a foot of cool night air separated us. “Can you look me in the eye and promise me, as a man, that Josie wouldn’t be better off falling in love and settling down with someone else? Can you look me in the eye and guarantee me that the best life she could expect to lead would be one with you?”

Yes! I wanted to shout. Absolutely! But what I wanted and what I knew were two very different things. Confusion hadn’t only settled in; it had taken over.

Mr. Gibson waited for me to respond, but when a minute passed with nothing from me, he patted my shoulder and headed for the door. “Do the right thing. I’ll give you until morning to do it yourself, or I’ll do it for you. This ends come tomorrow, you hear?”

Having a person order me to stay away from the one thing that seemed more essential to my life than oxygen didn’t settle well with me. “I’ll leave, but you won’t be able to keep Josie and me apart. Fifteen years and you’ve never been able to keep us apart. I want her, and she wants me, too. That’s something you’re just going to have to deal with.”

Mr. Gibson’s hand stayed on my shoulder, and he surveyed me with almost a . . . pitiful look. “She doesn’t want you. She wants the idea of you. The idea of the lost and lonely boy from her past that needs saving. Nothing more. I promise when you leave tomorrow and you stay away, she’ll be just fine.”

I had to unclench my jaw before I could reply. “Josie’s never been able to just ‘get over’ me, and she won’t be able to now. I know how she feels because it’s the exact same way I do about her.”

“You’ve never given her a chance to get over you. You two have gone through so many ups and downs I can’t keep it straight.” Mr. Gibson shook his head and dropped his hand from my shoulder. “Give her space, give her time, and she’ll move on. She’ll move on to the life she deserves. The life even you know she deserves.” Our to-the-point conversation apparently done, Mr. Gibson slipped inside the door and closed it behind him.

Just like that, I’d been locked out of her life.

IT WAS MY last night sleeping under the Gibsons’ roof. I hadn’t yet decided if I’d remove myself or if Mr. Gibson and his shotgun would have to do the removing, but I held off sleep for as long as I could realizing tomorrow night, Josie wouldn’t be a mere few rooms away.

After Mr. Gibson’s and my conversation, I’d stood out on that porch for a while. I heard Mrs. Gibson all but force Josie up to bed when she headed for the front door to find me. I waited another hour after all the lights in the house had gone out. I was cold and I’d been beaten within a few inches of my life, but I felt numb. Everything inside and outside of me felt anesthetized. Everything but my heart. It ached so badly I almost convinced myself I was having a heart attack.

What Josie’s dad had said was right. All of it. I might have made a solemn vow with myself never to hurt her and to keep her protected, but I seemed incapable of either. While I knew I couldn’t assume the trend would carry into the future, I couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t, and until I knew for sure that I wouldn’t hurt her, I couldn’t be around her. Not after what had happened. Josie would wear a fist-sized bruise on her face the rest of the month because the shit that followed me at every turn had caught sight of her and decided to share the wealth.

So I was leaving. I wouldn’t make Mr. Gibson throw me out. I’d pack my bags and leave until I figured out what needed figuring out. Which, when it came to me, was like saying I needed to figure out everything. I hadn’t decided what I’d say to Josie yet, or if anything I could say would explain it all to her. How could I express to her that I was leaving her for her own good? Especially when I knew neither one of us would feel good about it. That was the question I was stuck on when my body finally gave in and gave up to sleep.

It wasn’t the dreamless kind of sleep either . . .

A couple summers ago, Josie’s brother was turning twenty-one. Jesse was out of town at some rancher’s convention with his dad and had asked me to tag along with Josie and keep an eye on her. Not because he didn’t trust her—because he was Jesse Walker and he gave trust like it was in limitless supply—but because he knew there’d be alcohol and a bunch of Luke’s frat brothers who had a thing for his little sister. Even if Jesse hadn’t asked me to hang with Josie at the party, I would have. I didn’t trust those U of M frat boys as far as I could throw their hillbilly deluxe trucks.

The party was at Luke’s frat house. After Josie had drained a couple of shots, every time I turned around, some other frat douche was handing her another. I don’t know how many she had total, but I’d counted seven when I finally called bullshit. I shut the music off, climbed up on a table, and warned the next son of a bitch who slipped her a drink that he’d leave there with my boot up his ass. The drinks slowed, but they didn’t stop. Thankfully, she stayed glued to my side unless she had to go to the restroom, which I stood outside of and guarded like a fucking Rottweiler. Luke drank himself into a mini coma halfway into the night, so I was literally the only guy in the room not trying to lure Josie into some dark room. It got old. Fast.

I was about two seconds away from driving my elbow into a guy’s jaw—the one who kept grinding up against Josie when we weren’t anywhere close to the thrown-together dance floor—when Josie threw her arms around my neck, looked up at me with those green eyes of hers, and grinned.

“Ever since that first dance we had back in high school, I’ve always dreamed of dancing with you again.” Before her words had registered, she tucked her head beneath my chin and swayed against me. “Tonight, I finally get to live that dream.”

I’d been conflicted in my life plenty of times and to varying degrees, but that dance with that girl . . . there was no word for how conflicted I felt right then. Conflicted didn’t even come close to describing it. I knew my arms didn’t belong around her, and I knew my body didn’t have a right to respond to her the way it was, but my head and heart never aligned when I was with Josie. I danced with her. That first dance, and a second, and a third. After the fifth one, I lost count. Dance after dance didn’t make it any easier to drop my arms and let her go. She’d wandered into them of her own accord, and I wasn’t sure I could ever let her wander out.