Hawkin's Ranch

River Hawkins knew he was getting close to Silver Creek when the mountains began to look familiar.

He had spent most of the drive telling himself they didn't. Five years was a long time, and Montana had more mountains than any one man could remember, but as the highway curved through the valley and the late afternoon sun stretched across miles of open land, he knew exactly where he was. Another twenty minutes would take him through Silver Creek. Another fifteen after that, and he'd reach the turn for Hawkins Ranch.

Home.

River tightened his hand around the steering wheel. He hadn't called it that in years.

His phone sat in the cupholder beside him, connected to the rental truck but silent for the first time since he'd landed. Work had already called twice. He'd ignored both calls, which wasn't like him, but nothing about the last six days had been normal.

Six days since his father's name appeared on his phone.

Six days since River stared at it long enough to nearly let the call go to voicemail before finally answering.

Harlan hadn't wasted time with hello.

"Coty's dead."

Even now, River could hear the words exactly as his father had said them. There had been no emotion in Harlan's voice at first...nothing River could grab onto and make sense of. Then he'd heard his father breathe, and for the first time in his life Harlan Hawkins had sounded old.

River had sat down behind his desk. "What?"

"Your brother's dead, River. There was an accident."

Nothing after that had stayed as clear. River remembered asking where, remembered Harlan saying something about a ranch road and a truck, but the details had blurred together beneath the sound of blood rushing in his ears.

Then came the silence.

Five years of it sat between them, filled with everything River had said the night he left and everything he hadn't said since.

"Come home, son."

So River came home.

He passed the first sign for Silver Creek and shifted in his seat, glancing toward the empty passenger side as though there might be something there to distract him. There wasn't. Just his suit jacket tossed over the seat and the leather bag he'd carried onto the plane. His suitcase was in the back, packed with enough clothes to get him through the funeral and whatever came after it.

He hadn't decided how long he was staying.

His company knew he'd had a death in the family. They knew he was taking bereavement leave, and they knew he might need additional time afterward. What they didn't know was that River had no idea what he would find when he walked back onto Hawkins Ranch.

Coty had been running most of it.

River knew that much because even when he'd cut his family out of his life, he hadn't managed to completely cut Hawkins Ranch out of it. Their name traveled. Horses bred on Hawkins land competed all over the region, and cattle contracts had a way of crossing desks River never expected them to cross. Every once in a while, he'd hear something through somebody who didn't know enough to realize River Hawkins was one of those Hawkinses.

His younger brother had apparently been good at what he did.

River had never doubted he would be.

That had been part of the problem.

The outskirts of Silver Creek came into view ahead, and River's stomach tightened as familiar businesses began appearing along the highway. Some had changed. Others looked exactly as they had when he was twenty-one and couldn't get out of town fast enough.

Bennett Hardware & Supply still occupied its corner on Main Street.

River looked away before he could stop himself.

Lilly.

He hadn't allowed himself to think about her since Harlan called, which was a lie so ridiculous he almost laughed. He'd thought about her plenty over the years. He'd simply gotten good at stopping himself whenever the memories went too far.

He didn't know if she still lived here.

Five years was enough time for a person to build an entirely different life. She could be married by now...hell, she could've moved to another state, and River wouldn't know because he'd made damn sure nobody from Silver Creek could reach him unless he wanted them to.

At twenty-one, that had felt like freedom.

At twenty-six, driving home to bury his little brother, it felt different.

River turned his attention back to the road as the light changed, refusing to follow that thought anywhere useful. He wasn't here for Lilly. He wasn't here to dig through every decision he'd made when he was twenty-one and angry enough to burn his whole damn life down just to prove he could survive without it.

He was here because Coty was dead.

That was enough.

Silver Creek disappeared behind him, and the farther River drove, the more familiar the land became. Cottonwoods followed the creek through the valley while fenced pastures stretched toward the foothills, green fading into late-summer gold beneath the Montana sun. He remembered riding some of this country before he was old enough to drive, usually with Coty somewhere behind him complaining because River had gotten the better horse.

Coty had always complained.

River smiled before the memory could hurt.

"You cheated!"

"I won."

"You cheated and won!"

"Still won."

Coty had been eleven, maybe twelve, his face red beneath a crooked cowboy hat while River sat on his horse laughing at him. Harlan had been repairing fence nearby and told both of them to shut the hell up before he gave them something worth fighting about.

They'd been such idiots.

River's smile faded as the road curved.

The Hawkins Ranch sign stood ahead.

He saw the stone columns first, then the heavy timber stretched between them and the iron lettering his great-grandfather had commissioned decades before River was born. He knew every piece of that entrance. He'd helped repaint the sign twice as a teenager, bitching the entire time while Coty deliberately dripped paint on his boots.

Nothing about it had changed.

River slowed the truck until gravel crackled beneath the tires, then stopped before crossing the cattle guard.

For five years he'd imagined coming back more times than he would ever admit. Sometimes after a bad day, when Texas felt too crowded and the life he'd worked so hard to build didn't feel quite as satisfying as it should. Sometimes after a few drinks when he found himself scrolling too far back through old pictures on his phone. Once, after he'd closed the biggest deal of his career, he'd sat alone in his house and wondered what Harlan would say if he knew.

He'd never imagined coming back like this.

River rubbed a hand over his face, then shifted the truck into drive and crossed onto Hawkins land.

The ranch opened around him slowly...pastures first, then cattle grazing beyond the fences. Black Angus cows barely lifted their heads as he passed, and farther out he could see horses near one of the stock ponds. His eyes moved over them automatically, picking out shapes and movement before he realized what he was doing.

Some things apparently didn't leave a man just because he left them.

The main ranch sat farther in, surrounded by land his family had worked for eight generations. River had grown up hearing that number as though it were something sacred. Eight generations of Hawkinses had survived drought, brutal winters, cattle crashes, bad markets, debt and just about everything else so the next Hawkins could inherit the privilege of doing it all over again.

Harlan had called it responsibility.

River had called it a sentence.

Coty had called it home.

His throat tightened, and River swallowed against it.

The barns appeared first as he rounded the final bend, followed by the working pens, equipment sheds and the outdoor arena where River had spent more hours than he could count. Permanent grandstands rose along one side, empty now, but he could almost hear them anyway...the announcer over the speakers, cattle bawling behind the chutes, boots against metal, Coty yelling something smart-assed from behind the fence while River backed Storm into the box.

River's gaze moved toward the horse pastures.

He wondered if Storm was still here.

Fourteen now.

That didn't seem possible.

River had raised the blue roan from a colt, trained him himself and spent enough hours in the saddle that there had been a time when Storm knew what River wanted before River ever touched the reins. Leaving him behind had been one of the few things River almost couldn't do.

Almost.

Anger had made a lot of things easier that night.

The main house came into view, and River's foot eased off the accelerator. Trucks were parked near the barn and along the side of the house, more than there would normally be this late in the day. Some he recognized and some he didn't, but that didn't surprise him. Five years had passed here whether River had been around to see them or not.

He parked beside the house and turned off the engine.

For a moment, he stayed where he was.

His childhood bedroom was up there. The window faced the horse pasture, and when he was sixteen he'd climbed through it more than once because Harlan had grounded him and River had never been particularly gifted at accepting consequences.

Coty usually covered for him.

The memory slipped in before River could stop it...Coty standing in the hallway in his underwear, barely fourteen, whispering that Harlan was still awake while River tried to climb through the window without knocking over a lamp.

You're gonna get caught.

Then move.

Dad's gonna kill you.

Only if you don't shut up.

Coty had shut up.

He always had River's back when it mattered.

River closed his eyes. "Fuck."

He grabbed his phone, shoved it into his pocket and climbed out of the truck.

The front door opened before he reached the porch.

Harlan Hawkins stepped outside.

River stopped beside the truck.

He had prepared himself for this...at least he thought he had. He'd spent the entire flight imagining what he would say when he saw his father again, but every version disappeared the second Harlan came through that door.

His father looked old.

Not elderly. Harlan would probably knock him on his ass for even thinking it, but five years had carved themselves into a face River remembered differently. His hair had gone mostly gray, and he'd lost weight through the shoulders and chest. There was a tiredness around his eyes that River didn't remember either.

Coty had been taking care of their sick father.

River knew that. He just hadn't known what those words actually looked like.

Harlan came down one porch step and stopped. Neither of them spoke for several seconds, and River wondered how two people who had once been able to fight for three straight hours could suddenly have nothing to say to each other.

Finally, River cleared his throat. "Hey, Dad."

Harlan's jaw tightened slightly. "River."

That was apparently all they had.

River nodded and glanced toward the house, then back at him. "How're you feeling?"

The question was out before he could reconsider it.

Harlan's expression changed. "Don't come home after five years and ask me that like you give a damn."

There he was.

River almost laughed, though there wasn't anything funny about it. Somehow his father's anger was easier to look at than the tired man who had walked through the door.

"I do give a damn."

"You've got a funny way of showing it."

River looked away. He could fight with him. Hell, fighting with Harlan came more naturally than breathing some days, and there were still things buried between them that River had every right to be angry about.

But Coty was dead.

"I didn't come home to fight with you."

"No?" Harlan stepped off the porch. "Why'd you come home, River?"

River stared at him.

Harlan looked toward the barns, and whatever anger had hardened his face disappeared almost as quickly as it came. "Because your brother died."

The words settled between them.

River shoved his hands into his pockets. "Yeah."

"He asked about you."

River's head lifted.

Harlan still wasn't looking at him.

"When?"

"Plenty."

Something sharp twisted beneath River's ribs. "That's not what I asked."

His father finally met his eyes. "Before he died? I don't know. Couple weeks before, maybe. He'd ask every now and then if I'd heard from you."

River looked toward the barn because he didn't know where else to look. "You hadn't."

"No."

Of course he hadn't.

River had changed his number less than a year after leaving Montana. New phone, new address, new job...then another job after that. He'd blocked the old numbers eventually because every call from home dragged him back into an argument he'd been determined to win.

He'd won, too.

That was the hell of it.

He'd left Hawkins Ranch with almost nothing that belonged entirely to him, and five years later he'd built the career Harlan swore he couldn't build without the Hawkins name. River had learned business from the bottom up, worked longer hours than everyone around him, earned promotions men ten years older than him were still waiting for and turned himself into somebody nobody could dismiss as a rancher's spoiled son.

He had proved his father wrong.

Standing in the driveway six days after Coty's death, River couldn't remember why proving it had mattered so damn much.

"Where is he?" River asked quietly.

Harlan frowned. "What?"

"Coty." River forced the words past the tightness in his throat. "Where...where is he?"

His father's face softened for the first time. "Funeral home's got him. Service is tomorrow morning."

River nodded, staring past him toward the family barn. He knew that. Harlan had told him on the phone, and the funeral information had been sent to him twice. Still, some stupid part of River had expected Coty to be here.

Maybe that was why none of it felt real yet.

A horse called from one of the nearby pastures, and another answered farther out. River turned instinctively toward the sound, his gaze moving across the fence line until a blue roan lifted his head near the far end of the pasture.

River stopped.

Storm stared toward the driveway.

For several seconds neither horse nor man moved, then Storm raised his head higher, ears forward, and River felt something inside his chest give way.

"Well, I'll be damned..." He walked toward the fence without thinking, leaving Harlan behind as Storm started toward him.

The gelding wasn't young anymore. River could see that as he came closer, but he was still beautiful...powerful through the shoulders, smoky roan body darkening toward nearly black legs and that familiar head River had rubbed a thousand times.

Storm reached the fence and pushed his nose straight into River's chest.

River laughed, but the sound broke somewhere in the middle. "Yeah...I know."

He lifted both hands and rubbed along Storm's face, feeling the gelding lean into him as though five years were nothing. No anger. No punishment. No questions about why River left or why he hadn't come back.

Just recognition.

River rested his forehead against Storm's. "I missed you too, buddy."

Behind him, Harlan remained quiet for a long moment before saying, "Coty wouldn't let me sell him."

River closed his eyes.

Of course he wouldn't.

"He said you'd come back for him someday."

River's hand stilled against Storm's neck.

The ranch went on around them...cattle calling somewhere beyond the barn, a truck starting near the equipment shed, horses shifting through the pasture while the wind moved softly through the cottonwoods near the creek.

River opened his eyes and looked toward the house where he'd grown up, then toward the barns his brother had spent five years running while River built a life twelve hundred miles away.

Coty had believed he'd come home.

River just wished he'd done it while his brother was still here to see it.