Page 80 of Tough Love

“It’s fine. You know what, Harry was right. And that’s the part that scares me the most.”

“I can see that. Harry can be scary.”

“Your father isn’t scary, Hudson; he’s direct, smart, and loyal. Like his oldest son.”

“Yeah, well . . .”

“I—”

“Tell me, Adeline.”

“Tell you what?”

I don’t dare look at him or roll over to face him. My heart hammers in my chest. I have no idea what he wants me to say. I hold my breath.

“Tell me your plans for your veterinary career. What are your dreams? You must have them. I know you well enough now to know you would have a plananda backup plan.”

A soft smile blooms over his face, but it never reaches his eyes. I blow out the breath. I can’t be anything but honest with this man. “After my internship, the plan was to take six-to-twenty-four-month contracts in various equine clinics andsectors and grow my experience. One day, I was hoping to have my own clinic. But the backup plan was always returning to the clinic outside New York. Some of my friends are there. My parents still live there. And Joe, he was such an amazing mentor. Possibly had a lot to do with him being my dad’s best friend. But still, I was happy there.”

“And now? Are you happy now?”

Now I roll over and face him. I trace a finger over his jaw and push up a wobbly smile. “Right now, I am.”

He nods and closes his eyes.

“Hudson?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s kind of early for bed . . .”

He smiles and cracks one eye open. “What did you have in mind?”

I push up on one elbow and kiss the side of his mouth and cup his jaw with my free hand. He rolls quickly and pulls me over him. I stifle a squeak, and he chuckles. “You are going to have to be really, really quiet.”

“With you? Never, Hudson Rawlins.”

“Addy—” His breath hitches and something like grief flashes through his eyes. “I’m not going to make you choose between me and your dreams, sweet girl.”

He pulls me down to him and claims my mouth, the weight of what he said not getting a chance to sink in before the words fly from my head. The cold that has sunk into my bones from a day of riding through the snow melts.

God, the things you do to me, Huddy.

Chapter Twenty-Three

HUDSON

The snow drifts through the sparser canopy as we ride higher and higher. Addy is doing brilliantly. Ned is a huge fan already. Mick has always been quiet, so I don’t expect him to warm up to her. And to be honest, I have been preoccupied by the task at hand. This has to go well.

Harry needs every last head of cattle to have the funds to buy out the clinic and purchase the next property on his acquisition list. Reed will need a ranch of his own one day, as will Mack. I’m assuming he won’t be a soldier for the next forty years. I pray for Ma’s sake that he won’t.

We always talked about the properties we would run when we grew up when we were boys. But life takes you in different directions, and while Lawson is good at making decisions and left after high school to go to college, Reed, Mack, and I hung around doing various apprenticeships and jobs between working on the ranch.

And staying, making this life your own, is a lifelong commitment. I’ve never wanted anything else. I know what it is to have a dream that you have held onto your entire life. I won’t let mine slip away. And I am going to make damn sure that Addy gets to keep hers.

Rocket falters on the icy ground, and I steady him up. Ahead is the mob of cattle, grazing on the few green shoots they can find poking through the snowy ground. Spread out, their woolly winter coats make them look like moving boulders between the trees. And I count around one hundred, at a quick estimate. With the twenty we have plus these, I am hoping we find an even bigger mob in the hollow, a dip before the mountains’ last peak. Every year I take the western sector, and every year that’s where we find most of them.

Addy rides up alongside me. “They’re warm, at least.”

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