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“Then you know losing him hurts more than you. We lost a good rancher.”

“And I lost a father.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Margaret, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just—”

“Bennett, stop. Please. I’ve got to get settled in and then talk to the bank. I-I’m glad to see you, but I can’t do this right now.”

Do what? He was simply saying hi to a girl who’d said she loved him one day and was gone the next. If anything, he should be telling her off.

She stopped when Gander ambled over and sat at her feet, his tongue out and a smile on his face. Darn if the mutt didn’t nudge her slacks with his nose, too.

Bennett scratched his cheek. “Well, I’ll be. He’s never done that before.”

“Smiled?”

“Nah, that’s pretty standard Gander. But he won’t make the first move with strangers and definitely doesn’t initiate affection.”

“Well, aren’t you a cutie,” she said. She reached down to pet Gander and her whole demeanor shifted. Her shoulders relaxed and her smile was the same as the one that used to render him speechless when she turned it on him.

“He’s cute, but don’t trust him with your food. He’s a thief.”

“Aww, don’t listen to what this man says about you. You’re the sweetest.”

Gosh dang. It wasn’t enough that Margaret still had a hold on his heart? She had to win his dog over, too?

“When’d you come back?” she asked. It hadn’t taken long for the twang to come crawling back into her voice. San Antonio might be Texas, drawl and all, but there was nothin’ like a Deer Creek accent.

Good to see she hadn’t lost that, at least.

“Right after you left. Fifteen years, I think it’s been. How old’re you, boy? Six?” he asked Gander, who rolled on his back at Maggie’s feet instead of answering. “Then yeah, fifteen years.” She reached down to scratch the mutt’s belly. To Gander, he muttered, “Traitor.”

“Wow. I didn’t think you would. When your dad left—”

“I promised. And I kept my word.”

She frowned. “My dad didn’t want me to live his life, you know that.”

“Maybe. But that only answers one of my questions.”

Margaret gazed up at him with her big ole eyes, and he almost forgot she hadn’t come to see him off the morning he left. Almost. She shook her head and stood before he could ask her why she didn’t keep the promise she’d made to him. It was the one thing weighing him down all these years, the hope she’d given his eighteen-year-old self. Maybe he should just be happy she was back, but the suitcase sitting on her dad’s porch said she might not be there long.

He was still losing her, even after all this time.

“He come back with you?” she asked.

“Nope. Gander there came with the Reynolds’ property when I bought it. Showed up on the day I closed and hasn’t left my side since.”

“You’ve been busy. Buying up land and making a name for yourself. BTM all yours?”

“It is. I told you I’d do it, Margaret, and I have.”

For you. For me, too, but mostly for you.

Not that it mattered. She ignored the disclosure.

“I go by Maggie now, by the way.”

Maggie. It suited her.