He'd ended up at the bunkhouse. It sat empty for most of the year, only used during calving and haying season. Or when one of his cousins and their wives needed alone time, hence the nickname the nookie shack.

It wasn't easy to get to, especially not in a snowstorm. Equipped with food, water and a bunkbed, Brandt figured he could crash a couple days before anyone thought to look here.

He fired up the wood stove and set a pan of snow on the top to melt. He'd need to clean himself up since his wounds were starting to sting. But his adrenaline rush was history and he crashed. He hit the bed with his boots on, his clothes on, his gloves on, in too much pain to do anything but groan before he passed out cold.

Brandt dreamed of Luke.

The old Luke. The brother he'd laughed with and worked with and worshipped his whole life. The brother he'd mourned more than anyone other than Jessie had ever known.

They sat around a campfire, drinking icy cold Fat Tire, staring at the black sky overloaded with stars. The silence between them wasn't awkward, as it'd been the last few years.

Brandt sipped his beer, taking in the wide-open space. It wasn't anywhere he and Luke had ever been. Everything about it seemed...too perfect. He looked at his brother. "So, is this heaven? Or hell?"

Luke shrugged. "Neither, really. I guess you'd call it neutral ground."

"Why are we here?"

"You tell me. It's your dream, bro. I'm dead."

Brandt winced. He wondered how much this dream brother knew about what'd happened in the past few months.

"I know about you and Jessie," he said softly.

"Then you know I love her."

"You've always loved her."

"Did you really hate me for that, Luke?"

"No. I felt guilty. I should've let you have her that first night. I shouldn't have tried so damn hard to prove that I was the better man. When it's always been obvious that you are the better man. In all respects. It kinda pisses me off." Luke smirked, and flicked the cap of his beer bottle at Brandt, like he always used to.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"Old times' sake." Luke's intense gaze didn't waver. "None of that past stuff matters anymore. You are doin' the right thing by her?"

Brandt kept his cool since he'd already lost his temper once today. Granted, he doubted this dream embodiment of Luke could swing back. "Do you really think I'd pick a chunk of dirt over Jessie? Do you really think I'd walk away from her now when I've got everything I've ever wanted?"

Luke shrugged again. "I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask."

"I know what's important. I won't be like you, Luke."

"Good."

"What? No excuses?"

"There wasn't any excuse for what I did. I just wanted to-"

"Give me your blessing?" Brandt poked in the fire with a long stick, close enough he felt the heat burning his knuckles.

"You don't need that from me. Just havin' her in your life will be blessing enough."

When Brandt looked up from the fiery red embers, Luke was gone.

He woke up gasping, coughing from the campfire smoke, his knuckles smarting from being too close to the fire.

But as he pushed himself upright, he remembered where he was. In the bunkhouse, which accounted for the smell of smoke. He glanced down at his hands, hot because they were still encased in gloves.

That explained it.

But still...What a weird fucking dream.

Brandt tossed another log on the fire, downed four aspirin and returned to the bunk. His clothes were stuck to his body with a mixture of blood and sweat, but he couldn't muster the energy to clean himself up. He managed to toe off his boots. As he took off his coat, something pinged on the wooden floor. Despite the shooting pain in his arms, he reached down and caught the circular object on the tip of his finger.

A metal cap from a bottle of Fat Tire beer.

No. It couldn't be.

He spun around the room, half-expecting to still be in that alternate reality, praying everything today had been some kind of twisted dream. His father gleefully cutting him out of his heritage. Losing his mind in a fit of rage in front of Jessie and hurting her. Hoping the walls of the bunkhouse would disappear and he'd see his brother, sitting by the campfire, drinking beer and grinning at him. Just like old times.

But nothing changed.

Took Brandt really long time to fall asleep after that.

Chapter Twenty-Five.

Day 1 Brandt hadn't stopped by. He hadn't called. Jessie went about her Sunday routine as usual. Cleaning. Washing clothes. Paying bills. Feeding the animals. Cooking a pot roast with all the trimmings-enough food for two.

Day 2 Brandt hadn't stopped by. He hadn't called. Jessie took advantage of the Monday holiday to work with her horses. Then she fed the animals. She drove to the store for ice cream. She watched TV. She called her mother. She fell into bed alone.

Day 3 Brandt hadn't stopped by. He hadn't called. Jessie couldn't face going into work at Sky Blue so she called in sick. And she was heartsick. She curled up on the couch with Lexie. She drank tea and ate toast. Between the bouts of sniffles, she checked her phone to make sure the damn thing was working. She fed the animals. She heated up a can of soup and shuffled off to bed alone.

Day 4 Brandt hadn't stopped by. He hadn't called. Just how much time did the man need? But Jessie couldn't face Skylar or India or Kade or Kane or Ginger or Simone without breaking down completely. She needed another day. Despite the guilt, she called in sick.

Jessie assumed the person rapping on her door at ten a.m. would be Skylar. Jessie considered ignoring it, but it'd be easier to 'fess up here, rather than in an official capacity at Skylar's office. She shushed Lexie and opened the door.

Joan McKay stood on her porch. She looked different but Jessie couldn't put her finger on what it was about her that was off.

It hit her. Jessie grabbed Joan's arm. "Has something happened to Brandt?"

Joan shook her head. "As far as I know Brandt is fine."

She sagged against the doorframe. "Thank God."

"Haven't you heard from him?"

"Not at all."

Sorrow flickered in Joan's eyes. "Can I come in?"

"Ah sure." Jessie poured two cups of coffee while Joan took off her coat and settled on the couch. She handed her a cup. Did she sit next to her former mother-in-law? Or keep her distance, like she always had?

"I imagine you're wondering why I'm here."

Jessie sat beside Joan on the couch. "You never were one just to stop by to chat."

"How sad is that? Anyway, I wanted to clear a couple of things up before I..." She set her cup down on the coffee table with a resounding thud. "Actually, I want to apologize."

"For what?"

"For not standing up to Casper after Luke died. I've convinced myself I was so lost in grief I wasn't thinking straight. But the truth is, making waves wouldn't have changed anything, Casper does what he wants and to hell with everybody else. That was how I justified my 'head in the sand' behavior when it came to you and everything else in that situation. I'm sorry."

Jessie didn't know what to say. She watched Joan struggle, this woman she'd always seen as torn between her duty as a wife and as a mother.

"And I should've tried harder to have some kind of relationship with you, Jessie, after you and Luke got married. Casper didn't like you, and I figured after you lost the baby early on, he'd do everything to break you and Luke up." She distractedly rubbed the center of her forehead. "I felt bad for you, but us being friends would've just pissed Casper off even more and he would've taken it out on both of us. And Luke. Trust me."

"Know what I never understood? Why Casper hated me so much in the first place."

Joan drained her coffee and walked to the kitchen. Almost on automatic, she poured herself another cup, but it sat cooling untouched on the counter for several excruciating minutes while she stared out the front window.

Jessie followed her, a feeling of dread settling in her bones. "Joan? Is everything all right?"

"No. I can't even begin to tell you how wrong it is. All of this." She braced her hands on the counter in front of the sink. "Casper hated you because your bun-in-the-oven marriage to Luke reminded him of me. Of us."

Okay. That was news. Luke had ever mentioned it. Or maybe Luke hadn't known. "Yours was a shotgun wedding?"

"Yes. Are you shocked?"

Jessie had to tread lightly. This was the most Joan had ever opened up to her. "Yes. I am."

"Because Casper ended up with someone like me?" Joan asked, not bothering to hide her petulance.

"No. The opposite. I can't fathom how a woman like you ended up with a man like him."

"You really are sweet," Joan murmured. Then she sighed. "The truth is, at one time, Casper was considered quite a catch. He came from a good family. His future was set as part of the ranching McKays. He was good-looking, charming, fun, wild as hell, but that bad boy side is always so appealing, isn't it? Why do women have this overwhelming desire to tame a bad boy? Then we're shocked when that taming doesn't happen. Or worse, when it does stick we lament the man they used to be."

Joan seemed lost in thought so Jessie stayed quiet. But she hadn't seen Luke as the bad boy to tame. Brandt was the polar opposite of a bad boy, so it wasn't a female mindset she understood, but she'd seen friends drawn to that type of man again and again and it rarely ended well.

"Anyway, I wasn't particularly pretty. I wasn't particularly charming. I wasn't particularly clever. I was actually pretty plain. I knew plain, shy and boring would never catch the eye of a dynamic man like him. And I wanted him more than anything on earth."

As hard as she tried, Jessie couldn't make the connection between that man Joan was describing and the Casper she knew.

"Casper had half a dozen girls on the string at any given time. So I became the type of girl he couldn't resist." She paused for effect. "Easy. He'd come to me after his pretty, clever, charming little girlfriends wouldn't put out. He came to me often because I'd do anything in bed he wanted. Any time, any place.

"This went on for about six months. At first I believed I could get him to fall for me. That our bedroom romps would make him like me. Would make him willing to have me on his arm in public, instead of just his dirty little bedroom secret. I dreamed he'd take me dancing. Or out for dinner. But like most nineteen-year-old girls, I was naive. I'd heard a rumor from my friends that Casper was getting serious with a woman from Spearfish. One night I snuck into his favorite bar and watched them. She was one of those beautiful blondes, curvy body, perfect face, life of the party. She was everything I wasn't. I knew Casper was head over heels in love with her. I knew after the first time he took her to bed I'd never see him again."

Jessie held her breath.

"So I lied. I told my father I was pregnant. Told him I'd been sneaking around with Casper McKay for months. My father went directly to Jed McKay and demanded his son do the right thing and marry me."

"And he did."

"Yes. I was happy. Obviously Casper was not. I'd hoped I'd get pregnant for real right away and ours wouldn't be a relationship based on a lie. When four months passed and I wasn't showing, I faked a miscarriage. It was a lot easier to do in those days. Ten years passed before I got pregnant and by year five Casper figured out I'd tricked him."

She felt sick. Everything was clicking into place but it didn't make it easier to accept or understand.

Joan reached for her coffee and drank before continuing. "He flew into a rage and said I'd ruined his life, which was probably true. It was the only time he ever hit me. He left and didn't come back for a week. And when he came back, he was a different man entirely.

"I was so...grateful he hadn't thrown me out and so relieved he still wanted to bed me, that I lived solely for him to make up for the lie and the trouble I'd caused. Like any man, he got used to using me doing everything for him, never questioning him. By the time we started having the boys, he'd turned into bitter. He took out his frustration with how his life turned out on them-as a punishment to me, not to them, because he knew how much I loved our sons. He ostracized his brothers. And I was still too afraid that he'd leave me, proving every fear I'd ever had about my worth, so I did nothing. I kept my mouth shut. For years."

"What changed?"

"Luke died. And Casper has become more bitter, if that's possible. When we found out about Landon..." Joan turned around but she wouldn't look Jessie in the eye. "It sliced me to the quick to discover that Brandt didn't trust me with Luke's child. Not because I'd be cruel to the boy, but because I wouldn't stop Casper from being the same way to Landon that he'd been to his own sons."

God. This was so ugly. So unnecessary.

"These are my mistakes, Jessie, and I've owned up to them. But the final straw? When Casper told Brandt to choose between the ranch and you. When he told me that our child would never be welcome in our home again. When he told me he never wanted to see Brandt again." Joan lifted her head and met Jessie's gaze. "I won't lose another son. I won't lose Tell or Dalton either. I can't do this anymore."

Was Joan looking for a place to stay? Or just moral support? Jessie wasn't sure and didn't want to make a misstep with Brandt's mother after she'd reached out to her. "What are you going to do?"

"I've already done it. I've left my husband."

Jessie's mouth fell open in shock. "What?"

"I should've done it long ago. So when he raced over to talk to his brothers after cutting Brandt off, I packed up and lit out."

"Where did you go?"

"I've been bouncing between Carolyn's, Kimi's and Vi's. They've rallied around me, which has been nice. But..." She sighed. "It's time I moved on. We've been miserable together for so long, maybe we have a chance to find happiness if we're apart."

"But where will you go now?"

"I'm going to Casper." Joan expelled a nervous laugh. "Funny, huh? That I'm leaving Casper to go to Casper? After I found out about Samantha and Landon, I visited Samantha in jail a few times. Poor thing doesn't have anyone in her life she can rely on. She needs help and she's accepted my offer to be there for her and Landon. He's such an unexpected joy. I haven't had much joy in my life lately. At sixty-two years old I feel I'm due."

"Will you be living with them?"

She shook her head. "Close by. I've got a cousin who's agreed to let me stay with her temporarily. I don't know how long I'll be staying there. Luckily I won't need to get a job, not that I'm qualified for more than cookin' and cleanin' anyway, because I've got the 'mad' money I've been saving."

"Mad money?" Was that like...egg money or something?

"Every time Casper got mad about something, I put a dollar in the jar. You can imagine I've got a tidy pile after forty years."

That did cause Jessie to smile. Until she realized she might be the first one Joan had confided in. "Does Brandt know you're leaving?"