Page 19 of Branded Mine

The simple certainty of his answer stole the breath from my lungs. “And no matter what, you would’ve kept doing it anyway?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” I felt like I was grasping at straws, but they kept slipping between my fingers.

His jaw tightened. “You keep asking questions you already know the answers to.”

“But I don’t. Everything has been so damn confusing since coming back here. Nothing makes sense.”

Ryder suddenly stood and walked to the porch railing. He braced both hands against the wood and stared out at the darkening fields. I watched the tension settle across his shoulders but didn’t dare say anything. I’d let him open up to me on his own.

“I couldn’t do shit when we were younger,” he finally said quietly. “Couldn’t stop him from drinking. Couldn’t stop him from hurting you.” I saw the way his knuckles turned white as he tightened his fingers around the railing. “Every time I saw you scared, knowing you were hiding until he passed out….” Hestopped speaking, but I saw the way his jaw clenched hard. “I wanted to fucking kill him so many times, Lila.”

For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The evening breeze drifted across the porch, carrying the scent of dry grass and earth. Ryder stood with his back to me, broad shoulders rigid beneath the fading light.

Then he spoke again. “Dad died when I was twenty-two. Heart attack while he was out checking fences. Mom followed him a few years later.” His gaze shifted toward me. “By then, I was already running most of the ranch anyway. There wasn't any place else I wanted to be.”

My breath caught. “Oh, Ryder.” Guilt hit me so hard I could barely swallow around it. “I'm so sorry. I didn't know.”

“Didn't expect you to.”

I looked down at my hands. “After I left, I cut myself off from all of it. This town. The ranch. Everybody.” I glanced back at him. “I didn't stay in touch with anyone. I thought if I put enough distance between myself and this place, I could pretend none of it had ever happened.”

His expression softened.

“I should've known,” I whispered.

“No, sweetheart, you shouldn't have.” He took a small step closer. “My folks kept to themselves, and so did I after they were gone.” He glanced toward the pasture, his gaze following the fence line in the distance. “There wasn't any place else I wanted to be,” he said quietly. “I grew up here. Learned this land the same way I learned my own name. By the time Dad died, I was already running most of the ranch anyway, so I just kept going.”

His gaze was trained so hard on me it felt like a physical touch.

“Although this was always my home, it was missing the most important part.”

I held my breath.

“You.”

I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t let all my emotions control me, not now. In private… that was another story.

“You left, but I knew one day you'd come back. Maybe not in a year or five years, but eventually.” His jaw tightened. “I wasn't leavin' when I knew exactly where you belonged.”

My heart was pounding so hard I could barely breathe. The boy I'd left behind had lost both of his parents while I was gone, and somehow he was standing here telling me he'd stayed because of me.

I finally exhaled sharply. “I did, too,” I admitted quietly. “About my father. I thought about that and more, Ryder. But we were kids. You gave me somewhere safe to be.” Just being with him, even if we sat behind the barn and watched the sun set, had meant more to me than he'd ever know.

“Wasn't enough.”

“It was to me.” I still didn't move, afraid if I did it would break whatever was passing between us right then.

He shook his head. “You still had to go back home. Still had to deal with that motherfucker.”

I decided to hell with worrying about breaking anything. I rose from the swing and moved closer, stopping behind him. “Ryder.”

“He ran you off,” he continued, his voice lower now. “Put you on that bus and made damn sure you believed there was nothing here worth coming back for.” I could hear creaking, gripping and releasing the wood under his hands. “I couldn’t change that. Couldn’t make you stay. And you never reached out. Not once in fourteen years. That broke my fucking heart, Lila. But I understood, and I knew why you had to stay gone.”

I swallowed against the ache climbing into my throat. “I had to leave, and I couldn’t reach out… because every time I thought about you, it hurt too much. You were the only good thing I hadhere. If I let myself hold on to you, even from a distance, I was afraid I’d never be able to stay away, and I needed to, Ryder. So with every year that passed, I built another wall around everything associated with Rootstown Creek. Around this place, my piece of shit father, and you. I almost convinced myself none of it could still touch me.” The words were rough, but I was glad they were finally out in the open.

Ryder fully turned then, and the look in his eyes made my chest hurt. “I couldn’t keep you from disappearing, but I could make sure this place—what was rightfully yours—still stood. So that’s what I did.”