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“I’m going to need a driver to take me to Austin.” Then she could at least get work done on the way.

“Yes, ma’am. One way or round-trip?”

Maggie closed her eyes tight and attempted to will away the headache brewing in the back of her head.

“One way. I’ll call when I get a sense of things and have you book the return.”

“Very good. When do you want to leave?”

Never.

“As soon as possible.” She hung up and settled deeper into the crevice of the couch, her thoughts racing. If she’d changed as much as she had in a decade and a half, what else would she find altered by time and heat and land when she got home?

A shudder rolled through her. She really wasn’t looking forward to finding out.

*

Bennett Marshall shoved his hands in his pockets and gazed over the east end of his property. He whistled low and long, his breath frozen and suspended in front of him. The early spring air still had a chill wrapped around it in the morning, but like any good swath of Texas land, it heated up just fine as the day wore on. This was gonna be a warm one according to Bob Warner, the newscaster on the truck radio, who also happened to double as Deer Creek’s weatherman.

It was only a ten-minute drive from the north end of BTM Ranch to the east border, but thanks to Bob, Bennett caught up on the weather, Lorna’s escaped racoon stealing trash out of the neighbor’s yards, and a fire sale down at Harvey’s Feed.

Ah, small-town living. He’d thought he’d want more than the simple, quiet life when he’d been growing up and making trouble where he couldn’t find it, but now? Heck. Ranching the way he did, it wasn’t quiet or simple. Take the barbed wire blocking his view, for example.

The fence line delineated what was his and what wasn’t… yet. He squinted until the border between his and Newman’s property blurred in his vision. He imagined the light flickering on the canyon stream, the sun peeking over the rolling hills, and the shadowed peaks that rose behind them all nestled under his archway.

A smile—rare as a Deer Creek vegetarian—wrinkled the corners of his eyes.

It’d been fifteen years in the making, but the culmination of his hard work was close enough to touch for the first time since his dad had lost their property to the bank.

You might’ve gotten here sooner if—his brain drummed up.

Uh-uh. He was where he was and that’s all that mattered. The people who’d left him behind—Maggie, Matt, and his father to name a few—didn’t matter as much as the dream within his reach.

Bennett whistled again, this time sharp enough to call back Gander, the mutt that found him the day he’d purchased his second-to-last property in Deer Creek six years ago. The faithful boy was laying at his door like a well-fed welcome mat and hadn’t left since. He might have lost some pep, but his eyes were filled with the same mischief he’d carried with him as a young pup.

Gander ambled back, chewing on some foraged something or other Bennett could only guess at. The dog looked like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Me neither, boy. Me neither,” Bennett said, scratching Gander’s soft but dusty scruff. “We’re gonna make it happen this time. I can feel it in my bones. We’re gonna tear down that fence and finally take that dip in the creek.”

Like I did when I first kissed Margaret. Before her father’s rifle and hateful stare had guided Bennett back to his side of the fence. It didn’t keep—those two found ways in and out of each other’s arms and land all summer that year. It should’ve been the start of something wonderful, but it had gone full scale the other way pretty quick.

“It didn’t matter, though, did it?” he said to Gander. The mutt gazed up at him with a lazy, contented look that Bennett could’ve sworn was a smile. Bennett’s gaze settled on the first rays of light splintering the pale blue sky above. “Something spooked Margaret. But I wish you could’ve met her. She was something else. Like the land and air swirled together to make a dervish with eyes you could get lost in.”

He shook the mirage from his thoughts. The memory wasn’t unpleasant, just one that brought up nostalgia he’d put to bed. No use waking it up now. Out here, in ranchland Texas, loss was as much a part of life as birth.

Bennett knew that truth firsthand, but there was too much to do before the sun finished cresting those hills, and thinking about his past wasn’t gonna get them done. He’d come back tomorrow and start adding Newman’s repairs to the list.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, son. That canyon’ll be yours someday; I can see it.”

Carl Newman had meant a lot to him, despite the cavernous ache his daughter left in her wake. Even though the promise of a canyon stream sounded good to Bennett—it might well be the only way he could fight the drought plaguing the other ranches—it didn’t take the hurt away. Bennett missed the guy.

He sighed and whistled for Gander to follow him back to the truck. The creek, the fence line, and Carl Newman faded with every step Bennett took.

Only a hazy image of a girl with wild oak-brown curls remained as the truck bounced down the unmaintained dirt roads connecting the web of BTM properties.

Only a few more days and he’d be able to tear down the last of her hold on him along with the fencing keeping his dreams at bay. Carl Newman might not have offered the property outright, but his words reverberated in Bennett’s head.

That canyon will be yours one day…