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Eli shook his head. “I was gonna say—”

“Ass-over-elbow in love with my wife and my new baby girl?”

Eli groaned. “Can you shut the hell up for a second? You won. Midnight’s staying, but that’s it. This place hasn’t been a ranch for years, and I’m still…” He blew out a breath. “I’m still wrapping my head around having horses on the property again. But you look so—”

He stopped short, waiting for Boone to cut him off again, but to his credit, the younger Murphy was still listening.

“So sure,” Eli finally said. “How do you look so damned sure?”

And young, he wanted to say. Eli never thought much of the few strands of silver running through his dark hair or the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. But sometimes he simply felt weathered, like life had put him on the fast track to world-weary and wise, except the wise part hadn’t yet set in.

“Sure of what?” Boone asked. “Being able to rehab Midnight?”

Eli shook his head. “Of everything.”

Boone took a step toward his brother and slung an arm over his shoulder.

“Dr. Eli Fucking Murphy. Are you asking me for advice on living your best life? Because if so, I’ve got two words for you…therapy and knitting.”

Eli sighed. “I did the therapy thing for a year after losing Tess. And I’m okay on the knitting front, but feel free to make me another scarf for Christmas this year.”

Boone let his brother go and held out his arms, slowly turning in a circle as he took in the red barn they’d repainted this summer, the new fence they’d installed around the arena, and the chicken coop they set up on the land behind Eli’s veterinary clinic so they could move Jenna’s chickens out of the barn in order to make room for more horses.

“You forget how much you loved this place when it was Mom and Dad’s, when raising horses was it for us.” He stopped when he was facing Eli again. “Tess’s accident was awful, and I won’t pretend to know what it was like to lose her…and Fury. But we can do this, Eli. You can do this. I promise not to push you too hard. So we’ll start with Cirrus and Midnight, and we’ll take it from there. Okay?”

Eli’s throat tightened. He’d already said yes to Boone getting the ranch up and running again, this time as a rehab facility. But they’d barely had Cirrus a year.

Eli had done the labor. He’d readied the property to be what it once was when the Murphy name was synonymous with horses. He just hadn’t yet readied himself. And now she was here. Midnight.

“You want to meet her before I get her set up in her stall?” Boone added. “Maybe that will help.”

Midnight whinnied again, pressing her dark nose against a slat in the red trailer. Eli couldn’t see much else, and right now he didn’t want to. Still, his hand flinched as if it wanted to reach for the mare with a long-buried instinct he didn’t realize still existed.

He’d seen Boone on Cirrus, watched his brother on the skittish white stallion as they circled the arena and even jumped a few barrels.

“When’s the last time Cirrus tossed you?” he asked, skirting the subject.

Boone groaned. “We’re doing all right, Eli.” He rolled the shoulder he dislocated all those months before. “See? Good as new, thanks to a certain vet I know who put me back together.”

Eli opened his mouth to respond, but Boone shook his head.

“I’m not hiding anything from you, okay? We hit a few bumps in the road every now and then, but Cirrus trusts me, and I need you to trust both of us to keep each other safe. Come on.” He motioned toward the back of the trailer. “Come say hello. She’s been dying to meet you.”

Eli cleared his throat and shook his head. “Delaney just called. Something about Nolan and an earache. She’s stuck at the pediatrician, so I’m heading out to pick her sister up at the airport. Least I can do for my new office manager, right?”

Boone shrugged and redirected, heading back to the driver’s side of the truck. “She’ll be here when you get back.” Then he hopped back behind the wheel, pulling the door closed through the opened window. “This is going to be good for you, big bro. I can just feel it. New mare, new person to run the office… Who’d have thought you’d go from loner to two new women in your life, huh?” Boone laughed. He didn’t wait for Eli to respond and simply drove off the rest of the way toward the barn.

Eli clenched and unclenched his fists, then rolled his head from side to side. He wasn’t averse to change, but that didn’t mean he had to welcome it with open arms.

He’d rehab the mare and get her placed with a good family or on a proper farm. And Delaney’s sister would be an employee. There were no women in Eli’s life, just people, and that was fine by him.

He’d already married—and lost—the love of his life. Now he simply focused on the routine day-to-day of living. Living was enough. It had to be, because despite what anyone else thought, he didn’t deserve any more than the safe, comfortable cocoon he’d built over the past three years.

Safe. Comfortable. Predictable.

That was all he had left to protect now.

Chapter 2