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“Mom, can we go?” Micah demanded in a shout from a few yards off.

Cora eyed her son. Angry. Vibrating with it. She sighed. A year ago she might’ve given in to it. But Lilly and Dr. Grove had both encouraged her to set limits, todiscussanger rather than give in to it.

So, she pressed her mouth to Shane’s, in a much more chaste display of affection than she would have given if they were alone. “Thank you for dinner. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Shane looked over at Micah, and there was such a gentleness and an understanding in this man. “I hope I see both of you.” He gave her one last brief hug before releasing her. He tipped his hat at Micah before walking back toward where his family was gathered.

“He’s a jerk,” Micah spat.

Cora couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him thisangry. Sad or detached. Hurt or grumpy, yeah, but not . . . this. But he also wasn’t used to not getting everything he wanted when he wanted it. She’d set a bad precedent of giving him too much leeway to try to make up for all the mistakes she’d made.

But she was a different woman now, and she would be a better mom. Like Deb. “You don’t mean that,” Cora returned calmly. “You’re only mad he said you couldn’t do something.”

“Boone knows more than he does.”

“Maybe about riding bulls or whatever it was he did in the rodeo, but I trust Shane’s judgment when it comes to ranch things. I really trust his judgment when it comes to keeping you safe.”

“Boone said—”

“Micah, I know you like Boone. I like him too. But Shane has your safety at heart, and that’s the most important thing to me.”

Micah didn’t say anything, and she wouldn’t allow herself to go further and apologize for not keeping him safe when he was younger. She’d made those apologies. She might never forgive herself completely, but she had to move on from that guilt-driven space. In the here and now she had to be the mom she hadn’t been then.

“I know you’re upset you can’t be involved, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ever be. If you take your lessons seriously for the next few years—”

Micah scoffed. “Like we’ll be around in the next few years.”

“You don’t know—”

“I know,” Micah muttered, stomping off. “I’ll wait in the car.”

Cora stood in the middle of the Tyler ranch, wholly at a loss, but she looked back at the pretty house where Boone, Molly, and Gavin were sitting around talking with their mother and Ben. Not perfect, by any means, but good. Kind.

That existed in the world, and she would do everything in her power to keep it a part of her life. She couldn’t expect Micah to believe her. He’d been through too many years of her worst, but she could prove it to him. Day after day. Year after year.

They finally had something good, and Cora was going to keep it.

* * *

Shane didn’t head back to his family, though he’d started to. But before he’d reached them, Boone had come outside. Shane didn’t feel like smoothing that over right now. He was too raw.

He’d never been the kind of guy to get worked up if someone didn’t like him. Being in charge of his siblings, of ranch hands, he was used to making some enemies along the way.

It ate him up that Micah didn’t like him, and yeah, maybe that was wrapped up in not knowing how to reach Boone. How to bridge that gap of bitterness Shane didn’t understand.

Shane sighed and kept walking aimlessly around the ranch. He hadn’t meant to end up at the family cemetery, but somehow that’s where he was.

He slipped off his hat and walked the well-worn path to Dad’s grave. He’d spent something like twenty years coming here: apologizing, bargaining, promising, begging for guidance.

Tonight he didn’t feel much like doing anything. Twenty years of never quite explaining the whole of what happened with Dad. Keeping it buried below protecting and responsibility and a million other things.

“I don’t know why I said anything,” Shane murmured, gaze trained on his father’s name.Owen Todd Tyler: Beloved Son, Husband, Father, and Rancher.“Doesn’t change anything, does it?” Except maybe talking did change things. Could it heal the rift between him and Boone, or was it always going to be anger, bitterness, and blame?

“Hell if I know,” Shane muttered. “Hell if I know anything, but you always told me to keep going. So, that’s what I’ll do.”

“You really think the dead can hear you?”

When Shane whirled on Ben, he held his hands up.