“She’s nuts,” Zoey huffs.

“She loves you,” I maintain, because that’s true enough. Despite Bri’s petty jealousies and mind games, I know she loves her daughter. “We have to accept the way she is.”

“I want to go back to Wyoming and live with you,” she whines, those big, blue eyes filling with tears, and aw, fuck… that gets me every time. “It’s not fair.”

“Listen,” I say as I reach across the table and grab her hands. “We are going to be together. I’m looking at some options to move here. I have an idea on a business I want to start.”

“I bet Grandpa loved hearing that,” Zoey says sarcastically.

I laugh and squeeze her hands before I release them. “Well, I haven’t told him that part yet, but I’m sure he’ll have something to say about it.”

My father always had something to say about the direction I chose to move my life, especially since it wasn’t aimed back at the ranch.

“I miss my horse,” Zoey blurts out. “I miss riding every day.”

“Aren’t you going to a riding camp next week?” I ask as I reach for another corn chip.

“Yeah… Kip found a great one just north of Raleigh,” she says excitedly.

And as only a fourteen-year-old can do, she immediately changes subjects again. “I want to live with you once you move here.”

A wave of pure, unadulterated joy sweeps through me, because there is nothing I would want more in this world than to have Zoey with me full time. But I proceed cautiously. “Are you sure about that, honey? I mean… I work too. Or, at least I hope to be working if I can get this business idea launched off the ground. Could be long hours.”

“Dad,” Zoey says earnestly as she looks me dead in the eye. “No matter how hard you worked before, you always had time for me. You always helped me with schoolwork, went horseback riding with me, and took me on bike rides. You spent all your free time with me. You’ve always been there for me.”

And fuck… getting a little choked up now. I clear my throat and give her a tentative smile. “Okay… got it. I’m a pretty cool dad.”

“So can I live with you?” she presses.

“I’ll talk to your mom about it once things get settled with me,” I promise her.

“She won’t agree,” she mutters sulkily. “She won’t agree just to punish you.”

While I don’t voice this to Zoey, I know without a doubt that if she really wants to live with me and Bri won’t allow it, I’ll fight her in court. Zoey’s old enough now that a judge will listen to her preferences.

“Don’t worry about it, baby girl. I’ll handle it, okay?”

“Okay,” she says happily and then launches in to telling me about the riding camp she’s going to attend.

I fucking hate doing laundry. I hate it even more when I’m out on the road because there is nothing worse than sitting in a laundry mat and watching all the other pathetic fools folding their underwear and socks on a Friday night.

Throwing my laundry bag complete with freshly washed clothes on one of the hotel beds, I flop down on my back on the other. Laundry aside, today was a moderately successful day. I had a blast with Zoey, and I even got Brianna’s agreement to let me take her to the beach when she gets back from riding camp.

Of course, I want Zoey to have a great vacation on a sunny beach, but my idea to bring her there is completely self-serving as well. It means I get to see Casey some more, which is a very good thing because I can’t get her out of my fucking head.

As per usual, Brianna put up a huge fight about it, maintaining that Zoey needed to stay in Raleigh because she couldn’t be parted with her for that long. For Christ sake, it’s just a week or two, but luckily for me, I didn’t even have to enter the argument. Kip happened to be there and yeah… he’s a cool fucking dude because he stepped in and got Brianna to agree to it with a lot of cajoling, of which, I’m sure she’ll make him suffer for later.

My phone rings, and I turn onto one hip to retrieve it out of my back pocket. When I see the Caller ID, my smile breaks out as I answer, “About time you called me back, asshole.”

My buddy, Nix Caldwell’s, deep voice booms through. “You left a message just two hours ago, asshole.”

Yeah… when you serve in the Marine Corps together, forever spitting sand out of your mouth and sweating buckets a day in a war zone, you tend to get away with affectionately calling each other “asshole”.

“How are you, man?” I ask as I push myself up on the bed to rest my back against the headboard.

“Fucking fantastic,” he says, and then in a lower voice he whispers, “but I have to say, planning this wedding sucks donkey dick.”

I hear a feminine voice in the background say, “I heard that, and you’ll pay.”

Snickering, I try to call upon an image of badass Nix Caldwell tasting wedding cakes and picking out flowers. “It will be worth it, dude. Keep your honey happy.”

“That’s what my life is all about, man. Keeping Emily happy.”

I saw Nix about six months ago out in San Diego when we had a battalion reunion. He brought his fiancée Emily with him and holy fuck… the guy scored big time with that one. She’s bright, funny, and scorchingly hot, so yeah… I’d see why he’d want to marry that woman and lock her ass down.

Also got to see our buddy, Paul, who served with us. He’s walking great on his prosthetics and was starting to do some motivational work with other wounded warriors. While I don’t know all the details because the mission was beyond my secrecy clearing, Nix and Paul got caught up in a green-on-blue attack and both of them got pretty fucked up. Nix took a bullet to the chest, and Paul lost both his legs. Would have lost a whole lot more the way he tells it if Nix hadn’t pulled him out.

It was during that get together that the three of us went out for beers one night, and I became extremely interested in what Nix has been up to since he got out of the Corps. He works as a metal artist but one of his specialties is custom-built motorcycles. It got me thinking and I haven’t been able to let it go since.

“So… you up for a visit?” I ask him.

“Dude… door is always open,” he says. “When can you be here?”

“Two days,” I tell him. “I’m going to fly rather than ride my bike. I have to be back in Raleigh by middle of next week.”

Because I want a full week back on the Outer Banks with Casey before Zoey comes back from riding camp. I want at least a full week to immerse myself in her hot body and hopefully continue to chip away at her walls. It wasn’t until Zoey told me that she wanted to live with me that I seriously started realizing that I’d be making North Carolina my home. Casey and me in the same state? Yeah… that was all right by me.

Nix and I iron out the details for my arrival. He knows I want to discuss a business idea with him, but we didn’t get into the specifics. After we hang up, I take a moment to flip through my email. I’m not a big electronic communicator, but I try to make it a habit to check it every few days.

As expected, there’s a long-winded email from my father, giving me a chatty update about the ranch and reminding me of my heritage and legacy. God love my father… he’s a wonderful man, truly. But he’s a bit rigid in his ideas over what his sons ought to be doing with their lives.

I forward the email on to Woolf with a short but blunt statement, “Dude… you need to step up.”

If only my baby brother would grow up and take the helm, then I’d be released from my obligation to the family and the ranch. And it’s not like I’m pressing upon him something he doesn’t want. He loves that ranch more than anything but he refuses to grow the fuck up, instead intent on spending all of his free time partying and chasing tail. Running the ranch requires he settle down… man up… pay attention to what’s important, the way my father has his whole life.