Hudson Granger was mine for one summer. And one summer was enough to ruin me for anyone else.



On my father's ranch, we worked side by side. Rode hard. Kissed harder. Between sunburns and sweat, he became my everything.



I told him I loved him before I left for university. A month later, he married a woman and built a family.



I should've let him go. But the land keeps us tied together. Now we speak in silences sharp as barbed wire. Every glance feels like a bullet. Every day, I hate him a little more. Every day, I remember how it felt to love him.



Then his world falls apart—wife gone, a three-year-old depending on him, and Hudson barely holding himself together. And just like that, I'm caught in his gravity again.



Four years ago, we loved each other at the wrong time. It nearly destroyed me. Now, with a child between us and old wounds ripped open, do I dare to trust him again?



Contains mature themes.