“You think I wasn’t? I hated Idaho, too,” Olivia told her. “I was odd man out all through my school years—I couldn’t wait to get home most days because that’s when I got to hang out with you. Until you left.”
“Olivia—”
“Here’s the thing.” Olivia talked right over her. “I forgave you for that a long time ago. I understood how unhappy you were, how mad you were at Mom and how you wanted to start your own life. I wanted to cheer you on from the sidelines, but it was hard to do that when you cut me out completely. You left town—but you didn’t have to leave me. You know that, right?” She picked up her phone from the table. “You could have called. Emailed once in a while. Texted. Instead you walked away and never looked back. I didn’t deserve that. And now you’re planning to do it again, aren’t you? You’ll stick around just as long as you have to, and then you’ll light out for greener pastures and we’ll never hear from you again.”
“That’s not true. It’s different this time—”
“How?”
“I felt guilty back then. Every time we talked I felt so bad—”
“And you don’t now?”
Tory couldn’t meet her gaze.
“Thought so,” Olivia said. “You know, if that’s your plan, I don’t think you should stay with us at Thorn Hill any longer. Find your own place, Tory. We don’t need our hearts broken all over again.”
She pocketed her phone, stood up and left. Tory watched her go. Turned in spite of herself to look at Liam again and saw him answer his phone. He listened a minute. Straightened.
Smiled.
Said something and then nodded several times as he listened some more.
“Thank you,” she heard him say just before he cut the call. He stood a moment as if savoring a victory.
Then turned her way.
Their eyes met, and he gave her a thumbs-up. “I passed,” he called. “The preliminary requirement for certification! I passed!”
“Congratulations,” she called back. She knew she should go over there. Shake his hand. Or hug him.
But Maya and Stella had already mobbed him, and now other people were gathering around, listening to his news, shaking his hand up and down.
She was happy for him. All his hard work had paid off, and the fundraiser was a success. The Turners would get another check mark in their race to win the Founder’s Prize. He’d win the Ridley property. He’d get to keep his ranch. He’d create a niche for his family’s beef and raise their income with any luck.
Meanwhile, she’d get her degree and head for greener pastures, like Olivia had said. Leaving Montana didn’t mean she couldn’t be part of her family—or keep in touch with the people she left behind in town.
But as she watched Olivia, Lance and Enid add their congratulations to everyone else’s, she felt very far away from her family—and everyone else in Chance Creek. They all belonged to something bigger than themselves.
She belonged to nothing and no one.
Chapter Twelve
A few days after the fundraiser, Liam was sitting on the back porch with an unopened bottle of beer when Noah walked up from the barn. The last few days had been bittersweet. After the fundraising event, the receipts had been tallied and the event had been deemed a success. His mother had made sure to call the press and alert them that he would be presenting a check for the funds to the hospital, and once the news was blasted from newspapers, radio shows and the local TV station, Jill reported that the money, along with the united front presented by the hospital’s doctors and nurses, had convinced the administration to keep the dialysis wing open after all.
Which meant his family was closer than ever to winning the Founder’s Prize.
And he still couldn’t quite believe he’d gotten the go-ahead that he was on the right track to get the Flying W certified organic. Everything was going well—
Except he’d lost Tory.
Hence the beer.
When he’d gotten the call from the certification people, he’d been so taken by surprise he’d turned to Tory before he thought better of it. He could still see the way she’d lit up when he called out that he’d passed the preliminary inspection. She’d been just as thrilled as he was.
Then she’d held back, not coming to shake his hand like everyone else, and his victory had felt hollow, just like saving the dialysis unit—and his ranch—did now. He wanted to be happy. To celebrate with his family.
Nothing felt right with Tory out of his life. What was the point of pulling himself up by his bootstraps, struggling to fix the problems he faced, when at the end of the day he still lost the woman he loved?
He looked at the bottle of beer. Knew it would taste damn good on a hot day like this. He’d already drained one, though. That was his limit. Opening a second one was admitting defeat.
“Have you seen the creek?” Noah asked when he reached the porch. He stopped on the steps.
“Pittance Creek? Sure,” Liam said.
“Today?”
Liam shook his head.
“Come take a look.”
Liam grabbed the bottle of beer, got up and followed him across the pastures to where the creek divided their land from the Coopers’ spread. Liam sucked in a breath. “Shit.” The creek had been getting lower all summer, but he’d never seen it like this before. A narrow trickle of water wound through the center of the creek bed, leaving nothing but dry, cracked mud to either side.
“I’ve never heard of it getting this low,” Noah echoed his thoughts. “Asked a few of the older men in town; they’ve never seen it like this, either. We need rain.”
“There’ve been droughts before,” Liam said feebly. It felt like another punch in the gut to face this kind of adversity just when things were going so well. He couldn’t say he was surprised, though. There hadn’t been rain
