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“Doing what?”

“Removing the natural habitat of a threatened animal,” she said.

“Which we don’t have here,” he said.

“You still can’t fill in the prairie dog dens.” She indicated the door behind her, meaning her truck. “I have the paperwork in my truck.”

“I’d love to see it,” he said. “I’m sure you sent everything to Duke, but he doesn’t look at his email more than once a week. Everything needs to go through me moving forward.”

“Noted,” she said coolly. “Now, if you’ll give me your phone number and email address, I’ll get you everything you need.” She folded her arms and leaned her weight on her back foot. “Again.”

Caroline felt like she’d been carrying a half-dozen horses on her back since she’d left her house that morning. She hadn’t felt this tired since she’d had walking pneumonia several years ago, and she just wanted to eat, shower, and take to her bed.

She put her box of files on the kitchen table and moved over to the freezer. She had plenty of dinners there, and she tried not to feel pathetic as she looked at her selections for that night. Lasagna. Chicken parmesan. Chicken pot pie. Some more chicken.

“I’m so sick of poultry,” she said as she reached for a bowl of beef and Spanish rice.

She eyed the files she’d brought home for the weekend while her dinner rotated in the microwave, and she decided to do things a little bit out of order. She went down the hall to her bathroom and stripped out of her gross half-khaki, half-mustard-colored uniform.

Caroline had thick, blonde hair in need of a trim, so she pulled it up and hid it beneath a shower cap, unwilling to deal with it tonight. She’d sent all of the material to Dawson Rhinehart that she’d sent to his older brother, and he’d already responded and confirmed receipt of them.

She had his phone number, and she tried to think of a reason she’d need to call or text him while she scrubbed away the awfulness of today. For the most part, Caroline loved her job, but her office here in the Panhandle had been extraordinarily busy this summer.

“I just need a break,” she muttered to the sudsy water as it went down the drain.

What she really needed was someone to spend evenings with. She had a couple of friends from her office, but they all had boyfriends or husbands. Caroline had played the third wheel—or sometimes the fifth or seventh wheel—and she’d grown tired of it.

She finished showering and dressed in a pair of pajama shorts with ice cream cones all over them and an oversized sweatshirt with the Texas star on the front of it. Back in the kitchen, she refilled Gondola’s water bowl and opened a can of her favorite cat food.

Her feline rewarded her with her presence then, meowing once as Caroline took too long to empty the contents of the can into Gondola’s food bowl. She did love her cat, but they weren’t the same as dogs, always eager to see her when she got home.

But her job didn’t allow her to bring a dog with her to work, and she couldn’t stomach leaving the canine home alone all day long. Cats seemed to like that, and so Caroline pretended Gondola was overjoyed and thrilled to see her when she got home from work.

“She is,” she told herself. “Because she wants her dinner.”

The microwave had stopped heating a while ago, and she hit the minute button to get things hot again. As her Spanish rice rotated, she looked at her phone, praying for a miracle that Dawson had needed something and texted her for help.

She didn’t have any messages, not even from her mom or sister. That wasn’t super unusual, except for her older sister had been going through some things in her marriage, and she usually sent an update several times each day. Caroline read or listened to them as she was able, because sometimes she didn’t want to hear about Bella’s drama when she’d been through her own and had no prospects for a second chance at love, marriage, or family.

“A lot of that is by your choice,” she said to her silent device. And it was.

Caroline had made a lot of choices to be where she was right now, and she didn’t know how to undo the past to have a different present.

“But you could have a different future with different choices,” she murmured. And then she started typing out a message to Dawson, a prayer running constantly in her head that she wasn’t about to make a fool of herself.

Again.

Chapter Seventeen

Finn Ackerman stepped into the farmhouse he shared with his wife, Edith, and called, “I’m back.” Since they both worked from home—right here on their small one-man ranch—he never said, “I’m home.”

When she came in from her she-shed, she said the same thing he’d just called. I’m back.

Finn stepped over the kitchen sink to wash up. He’d shower before the birthday party tonight, but he had to get the muck off his hands to even do that. Over the running water, he heard Edith call, “In the bedroom! Come back here when you get a sec.”

“Okay!” He finished rinsing the soap off and grabbed a kitchen towel to dry his hands. Behind him on the island countertop sat a birthday cake and dozens of small, brightly wrapped presents, and he smiled at the pile of them. He’d celebrated his thirty-second birthday with his family a couple of nights ago, on the actual day. Tonight, he and Edith were hosting some of their friends for dinner and games, something they’d never done on their small ranch yet.

It felt like a big milestone for him, and he couldn’t wait to see Link and Misty, Alex and Nicki, Dawson and Brandon Rhinehart, and Henry.