Not that they physically sent their anatomy, but pictures of them.
Still, she was on the road to getting out of Gold Valley, to getting away from the winery—without setting it on fire—and getting away from Jericho once and for all.
That was part of the problem. The proximity was killing her. She still lived at Cowboy Wines. And she felt surrounded—absolutely surrounded—by her father’s perfidy.
So she was going to run away to Portland. Take a job at a different ranch. Maybe lose her virginity to Donovan.
No, she was definitely going to lose her virginity to Donovan.
For Christmas.
And she would forget all about Jericho and the fact that she thought he was hot. And the fact that he had devastated her by buying the winery. The winery that had been her only dream, her only goal for as long as she could remember. She’d knuckled down and worked the land, worked it till her knuckles bled, the same as the rest of them, for years. And now it was gone.
To add insult to injury, she still thought he was hot. Even while furious with him. Even while he took a new woman into his bed practically every night. Which didn’t matter.
She didn’t care about that. She didn’t care. Because she didn’t actually want to date him. She just wanted to climb him like a tree.
And who didn’t? Honestly. He was incredibly beautiful. Tall, broad and well muscled. Sin in cowboy boots. And in a cowboy hat. And a tight T-shirt. And as much as she would like to actually be sick of cowboys, it was kind of her aesthetic.
She’d lost her mother when she was only thirteen, and it had stuck with her. There was something about the loss that was a lot like the bottom of the world had fallen out, and she’d done her best to cling to what she could.
She had her dad, she had her brothers and the most important thing to her had been to fit in with them.
She knew that dealing with her in her grief had been hard for her dad so she’d done her best to be more stoic. She’d pushed off her desire to experiment with makeup or clothes or anything like that.
She’d become the cowgirl she needed to be.
But it hadn’t gotten her anywhere. Now she was ready for something else.
To see what else she could do and be.
Donovan was different. He was sophisticated. The place he ran was an equine facility. It wasn’t a ranch. She wouldn’t be a ranch hand. She would be a horse trainer. She would be fancy. She would be free.
She would not be a virgin.
If her father didn’t think that she needed a winery, then she didn’t need to be around them.
That made her heart clench tight. She wasn’t... She wasn’t going to fall out with her family. Not entirely. Her mother had died when she was so young, and her father had taken good care of her. But he just didn’t understand having a daughter. He loved her. She knew that—no matter how difficult things had been around the time of her mother’s death, she did know that. But it didn’t occur to him that she might want a piece of this place. Even though she had worked it most of her life.
And her brothers... They were pains in the butt. They really were. But they loved her. She needed distance though.
She so badly needed distance.
And she had a plan to get it.
She picked up her phone and looked at the message.
What’s your estimated date of arrival?
I was thinking the week of Christmas.
She was actually thinking she’d leave tomorrow. That was what she was thinking. Leaving tomorrow. Getting out. Getting gone. Pulling off the Band-Aid.
She had never missed Christmas with her family before. But this was part of her defiance. She wasn’t going to consult them on her leaving. She was going to just... She was going to go. She was going to do whatever she wanted.
She didn’t need to ask their permission, and she hadn’t. She hadn’t told them any of what she was thinking, or let them know how furious she was, because why would she?
Her dad didn’t want to deal with her emotions anyway.
Plus he was rarely around anymore. She had no idea what was going on with him, but he was never home. Her brothers were married now—and to the Maxfields at that. Which meant they would be off doing things at their fancy winery. Or worse. Expecting her to join them.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like her sisters-in-law. They were just...a lot. A whole lot. Cricket was her age—she supposed they ought to be friends. It was just... She had a difficult time thinking about how she was going to cozy up to a girl who was sleeping with her brother. Ew.
That would work just fine. I’ll have a room ready for you.
She hoped that it would be a room with him.
She had to do something. To erase this place, her pain, her stupid, pointless attraction to Jericho, the man who had stolen her whole future from her. The man who owned way too much space in her head.
Her stomach twisted in defiance of that thought.
She did hope there was a room ready for the two of them to share. She did. She was ready. She was ready for this. For a change. For something new. For a chance to be different.
She was going to make her way in the world. And she did not need Cowboy Wines to do it.
* * *
Jericho was tired. Down to his bones. And he only had a day or so before he had to leave for the Dalton family Christmas.
He would love to resist it. Hell, he would love to be an asshole and just stay away entirely no matter how many times the Daltons reached out. But two months ago, he was contacted by West Caldwell, who was apparently his half brother, telling him about his connection to the Dalton family.
Apparently Hank had expected Jericho would be too mad to speak to him, considering it had come out that his various half children were under the impression he’d known about them and denied them, even though that wasn’t true.
West had been the voluntary envoy, meeting him down at the Gold Valley Saloon, explaining the situation and how he himself had come to be in Gold Valley and come to be part of the Dalton clan.
The thing was, Jericho had already known about his connection to the Daltons. He’d known about it from the time he was old enough to understand that everyone had a father—it was just that his own didn’t give a fuck.
But it turned out he’d gotten that wrong.
Hank Dalton hadn’t known. The infamous retired rodeo cowboy was apparently the father to a whole passel of kids he didn’t know he had. Owing to his wild years, when he had been philandering and cheating on his wife—and apparently not understanding condom usage—he had a spread of kids in their thirties. Some of whom were with his wife, Tammy, others of whom were not.
Apparently, he was the last one who hadn’t been tracked down, owed to the fact that Hank hadn’t known his first name, and his last name was so common.