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I nearly have a heart attack when I see Aubrey dabbing at her eyes with her napkin.

“Earlier today. I know it’s not the perfect solution to our problem, but it’s a start. This will also give me a little more room to work here in Dallas when—if—we take some of the stock you have in the closet back to the ranch. We could put a big desk in the closet where we can all work with our laptops.”

Aubrey scrunches her forehead. “You have a laptop?”

“Mom, he has a huge job overseeing a quarter of a million acres of land. Of course Cash has a laptop.”

I nod. “I spend more time on it than I’d like, but such is life.”

Aubrey sets down her wine. “If you have such a big job, how can you be away from the ranch?”

“I won’t lie to you, it’ll be an adjustment for everyone. But I’ve got four brothers who are doing a fine job holding down the fort while we’re gone.” I tip my chin at the phone. “Haven’t heard from them once since we’ve been here.”

Mollie gives me a watery smile. “Told you.”

“You were right.” I lean in to kiss her mouth. “Thanks for giving me the push I needed.”

She nods, looking back down at my phone. “Maybe this is the push I needed. I mean…Cash, this could work.” Her eyes light up as the pieces come together. “I’m pretty sure Wheeler would come out to the ranch if I told her you have four single brothers who live there. There’s plenty of space for her in the New House. Now that I have access to my trust, I can hire some people to help out at Bellamy Brooks, which would free me up to help out on the ranch a couple of days a week. What do you think, Mom?”

Aubrey is quiet as she continues to sip her wine. “I’m not sure what I think. It’s a lovely idea?—”

“But it could work.” Mollie blinks. “Holy shit, it could really work.”

I swallow the thickness in my throat. “Why do you look so surprised?” I ask softly. “Did you not think we would figure this out?”

She’s quiet for a beat. Mollie’s eyes fill all over again. “Maybe I didn’t think I deserved it. Being able to keep my life hereandkeep you. Feels like I’m getting away with something. Like I’m going to be punished for not doing things the way I’ve been taught they should be done.”

“Making your dreams happen?” I ask. “That feels like a crime?”

Mollie’s crying again. I don’t miss how Aubrey reaches over and grabs her daughter’s other hand.

“That’s all I ever wanted for you, you know. For you to make your dreams come true.” Aubrey sniffles. “I just don’t want you to give up on the dreams you have here. You’ve worked so hard. Your boots are beautiful. I guess I assumed that if you ran off with a cowboy”—Aubrey cocks a brow in my direction—“you’d abandon all that. But now I’m starting to see I was wrong.”

“I’m not abandoning my dreams, Mom. I’m just changing them. Making them bigger. My heart belongs to Bellamy Brooks and to Dallas, but it also belongs to Cash and the ranch and Hartsville. I hope you don’t view that as some kind of betrayal, because it’s not. It’s just me, following my truth as I figure it out.”

Aubrey closes her eyes. Her chin trembles.

A tear slips out of my own eye. Goddamn, being around all this emotion is really getting me in my own feels.

“I won’t lie to you, sweetheart. It hurts to hear you say that you might be leaving,” she says at last. “But if you feel like this is the right move, then you have to make it. I knew in my gut life on a cattle ranch wasn’t for me, but I tried to fight it because I loved your father so damn much. Don’t fight what you know to be true.”

Mollie stares at her mother. “You mean that? Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Aubrey’s eyes cut to me. “Don’t waste time like I did trying to be someone you’re not. What’s all this money for if not to make you happy? Go be happy.”

CHAPTER 32

Mollie

GOOD-LUCK CHARMS

I’m scrollingthrough nineties country playlists on Spotify the next morning in the front seat of my car when Cash calls out from behind me.

“Hey, Mollie. I think your mom is here.” He grunts as he lifts my largest suitcase into the trunk. “That her in the white Mercedes?”

I immediately whip around in the passenger seat to look out the windows. Yep, that’s my mother. She’s pulling into one of the parallel parking spots outside my building.

“That’s her.”