Prologue
Five years ago...
James should have been startled to find Alice standing in the doorway of the barn.
At least, he would have been if he didn’t know her so well. His friend hovered there, looking small and frail.
But again, he knew better.
His best friend Dax’s little sister might have been small, but she was hardly frail. She was one of the strongest people he knew. Also, one of the most honest. Which was how he’d known she wouldn’t leave for college in the morning without confronting him head on about whatever this was between them.
Nothing, he reminded himself. It was nothing. It could only ever be nothing.
“What are you doing up?” he asked.
That’s right, talk to her like a child. Maybe if he did, he would remember that she practically was still a kid. Oh, she was technically an adult at eighteen, as she liked to remind him, but that didn’t change the fact that she was still his friend’s little sister.
She ignored the question, walking fully into the dim lighting of the barn until he could make out her straight, chin-length blonde hair and the soft, sweet features he loved so much.
He loved her, he could admit that. He’d known her his whole life and he’d always loved her. But these days it was getting harder and harder to remember that he loved her like a friend, nothing more.
All the more reason it was for the best that Dax was driving her to Bozeman in the morning for school.
“I leave tomorrow, you know,” she said, coming to stop in front of him. She held on to the door to Edward’s stall. Edward was her horse and when she rode him she was a sight to behold. So graceful and so at ease, as befitting a young woman who’d been raised on a ranch, he supposed.
He kept brushing his horse. “I know.”
The silence grew thick with unspoken words. He kept his focus on the horse beneath his hands, not trusting himself to turn around and face her. Not yet. This ache in his chest had grown worse with each passing hour this last week. As time ticked by he knew he’d have to say goodbye, they’d have to end…this.
And thank goodness. It was for the best, he knew that. It wasn’t like this could last.
“Aren’t you going to say goodbye?” Her voice sounded off-key, and he knew without looking that she was fighting tears. Or maybe she was crying outright. He didn’t want to know.
“I’ll see you off in the morning.” He kept his tone light. Normal. He tried not to let her know how much he hated the fact that she was leaving.
They’d always been close. Always. Even when they were kids he’d looked out for her, and as she’d grown, they’d gotten closer. He was four years older, but after the death of her parents, that age difference had no longer mattered.
She’d been an immature teenager when the accident occurred, but overnight she’d grown up. After that they’d started to talk as equals. They’d become true friends, no longer Dax’s little sister and his ranch hand friend.
And then this summer…well, this past summer their relationship had shifted again. Nothing had happened between them, but there was no denying that the nature of their relationship had changed. He blamed himself for that. If not for the actual change, he blamed himself for not stopping it when he should have. Instead he’d let their conversations get too intimate, their talks last too long. And though he might not have acted on the physical attraction between them, he hadn’t done anything to stop their emotional connection from growing…complicated.
“Is that it?” Alice said.
He heard the impatience in her voice. So very Alice. She’d never had much patience, especially with him. When she was little she used to tease him by saying that he was the tortoise to her hare. He’d then remind her who won in that fabled race, and his response never failed to make her laugh.
He stopped brushing down his horse but he didn’t turn around, the sound of whinnies and the smell of hay at once comforting and heartbreaking. This was their place. This was where he’d taught her to mount her horse on her own, and where most of their late-night talks had occurred. She’d come to help him after supper and next thing he knew they’d be sprawled out on some hay talking and laughing like it was the most natural thing in the world.
But now she was leaving.
This