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Wrong.

He couldn’t put his finger on it, though he could only assume it had to do with Micah’s seeing Shane kiss Cora this morning. What else could it be? Yesterday the kid had talked a mile a minute, and, yes, Boone wasn’t here to regale Micah with tales of the rodeo, having mentioned something vague about some kind of appointment in Benson, but Micah wasn’t usuallysilentwith Shane.

Shane didn’t think.

Heknewkids were hard, and yet this was some whole new weird level. His siblings he could yell at. Control and maneuver—always in the name of protection, but he could do it confident in the fact that he was their brother and he had the right.

He couldn’t do those things with someone else’s kid, no matter how much he liked said someone else or her kid.

“Molly’s here. You can clean up and get ready for your lesson.”

Micah didn’t bound into action. Didn’t smile or respond. He just slowly began to clean up the buckets he’d been using to wash down a few horses the hands had brought by, done for the day.

Even though Cora was on her way, Shane couldn’t take this any more. “You okay, Micah?”

Micah shrugged, dumping out the buckets where he was supposed to and lining them up exactly where they went. It was a precise kind of focus Shane hadn’t seen from him before. The kid did his chores right, but there was a careless, kid-ness to the way he breezed through them.

Until today.

“You know, you can talk to me about . . . things.”

Micah stopped what he was doing and looked at him then, his expression the same blankness from this morning. “What things?”

“Any things. Questions about the ranch. If you want to unload about something that’s bothering you.” Shane hesitated. Hell, in for a penny. “If you want to talk about this morning.”

Micah stood there looking like an adult, like aman. A careful man, doing a lot to hide everything behind a wall of strength andgot this handled. It was eerie. And not just because Micah had seemed to grow three feet before his eyes, but because Shane felt such a . . .kinshipwith all that. He understood it in his bones. Hewasit.

“What about this morning?” Micah said, and it gave Shane a little chill, the way Micah could employ this cold, emotionless mask.

But Shane had started this, and he wasn’t a man to start things without finishing them. “You know, I don’t like the guy my mom’s . . .” Okay, it seemed a little off to bringmarryinginto this conversation. Shane recalculated. “. . . with. Haven’t since the beginning. I’m trying to get over it, but, you know, I know what it’s like to watch your mom. . . . I just, I know this might be strange for you.” And boy was Shane bungling it. “I get it.”

“No, you don’t,” Micah said, so sure and certain, before he strode out the exit of the stables, toward where Molly and Cora were approaching.

Shane watched him go. Surprised, baffled, and something else. Something that surprised him just as much as Micah’s walking away.

That little brush-off had hurt. Personally. Not just aCora will be disappointedkind of hurt either, and different from brush-off hurts from his siblings. He knew his siblings loved him, even when they were pissed and directed it at him. They had to love him. They were bound to him by blood and this ranch and life.

Micah was bound to him by nothing. Micah could think Boone was the coolest till the day Shane died. Micah could spend his whole life wishing his mom had wanted someone else.

“But she doesn’t,” Shane muttered to himself, readjusting his hat on his head. Plenty of women appreciated a hardworking, cautious man.

Not Mattie.

Not Mom.

Not Molly.

It was a stupid line of thought. He had nothing to do with who Molly or Mom had or would marry, and Mattie . . . Well, they’d been in high school. It wasn’t at all comparable. There was no pattern.

Cora entered the stables, wrinkling her nose, presumably at the smell. She was still a city girl at heart, but he thought it was kind of cute on her. Molly and Micah stood outside, talking something over.

“So, I just saw your mom and Ben making out.”

“Oh, God, why would you say that to me?” Shane asked, disgusted down to his soul.

Cora laughed, and most of the weirdness with Micah faded away at the sound. They’d figure Micah out. Together. With time.

“Poor Molly had to witness it. There were tongues.”