The teen’s voice was high and clear, so I had no problem hearing her over the thump of the horses’ feet and the occasional snort and whinnies they let out. Cy’s gruff voice was too low and rumbled too deep for me to hear his responses, which drove me nuts because the determined young woman had no qualms about asking him if he had a girlfriend. I wanted to know the answer to that particular question as well. The man didn’t wear a wedding ring and shared his home with a knockout woman who seemed very nice and could really, really cook. If he was playing house with a woman like the beautiful Brynn, there was no way in hell he should be even mildly attracted to someone like me. Regardless of how cute my ass was.

To distract myself from the conversation happening ahead of me, I turned my attention back to the girl’s mother and decided it wouldn’t hurt anything to give her a little push in the direction of caring that her kid was chasing after a man who was old enough to be her father.

“You seem pretty comfortable on that horse. You must ride a lot.” The woman turned and looked at me over her shoulder and immediately her mouth pulled into a frown as she looked past me. I turned to look over my own shoulder and rolled my eyes when I noticed that the woman’s husband had worked his way up so that he was riding right next to Em, even though the trail was way too narrow to be riding side by side. Emrys had on dark sunglasses, so I couldn’t catch her eye but her mouth was twisted into a tight line and her shoulders were stiff. I could tell she was annoyed by the attention and the man’s lack of concern for his or her safety, since he didn’t seem to have the best control over the horse he rode.

Meghan snapped her attention back to me, and I watched as whatever lingering hope she had that this trip would bring her and her family closer together fall from her face. It was what defeat looked like and it made my heart hurt for her.

“I actually grew up in a place very similar to the ranch the brothers run. My dad was a cattleman and my mother ran a small shop in the town we lived in up in Montana.” A wry grin twisted her mouth and she looked from me back to her husband. “I hated all of it. I hated the horses and the cows. I hated that my high school only had a hundred kids, at most. I couldn’t wait to leave. I graduated and headed to New York and never looked back. I wanted to live a better, more glamorous life than I could have back home. I met Marcus in college and he made that happen for me.”

Boss made a noise underneath me and I reached down to pat the side of his neck. I could have sworn he leaned in to my touch and that made me smile softly, even though the animal couldn’t see me.

“Your kids seem pretty comfortable around horses, as well. You must have made sure they were in touch with a little bit of where you came from.” She was an easy read. She wanted more but when she got it she realized it wasn’t ever going to be enough to fill up that empty place inside of her. She was the kind of consumer my clients would kill for. Easily swayed with tons of disposable income lying around. She shopped for the small thrill it gave her because nothing else in her life satisfied her.

She shook her perfectly coiffed head and let out a sigh. “No. Marcus insisted the kids go to an exclusive boarding school in Massachusetts. They learned to ride there. He wasn’t pleased when I made him take time off this summer for this trip.” Again, her gaze slid to where her husband was trying, very unsuccessfully, to impress and amaze my best friend.

“If you don’t get to see your kids much, I’m surprised you aren’t keeping them closer. Don’t you want as much time with them as possible before they go back to school?” I mean my mother wouldn’t want that but I figured most normal mothers would. As an adult, one with a new appreciation for the people who had always loved me and had been there for me even when I wasn’t the easiest person to be around, I wanted to take back all of the time I had wasted chasing after love I would never get. I wanted to invest more in the relationships that mattered. I’d spent a lot of time watching where I stepped and I could see now how that dance had kept me just outside of reach of the people who wanted to hold me close.

The woman gave me a startled look over her shoulder and turned her attention toward the front of the line. Her daughter was still rambling on to Cy and her son was sitting sullen and unenthused on a pretty, tan Tennessee Walker in front of Lane.

I cleared my throat a little, inclining my chin toward the ardent teenager. “She should be bonding with you and her brother, not chasing after him. He’s too old for her, and honestly, he doesn’t seem like the type who will be careful with those kinds of tender feelings. She’s going to end up hurt and embarrassed. This trip is going to be nothing more than a bad memory for her if that happens.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at me and once again looked over me toward her husband. Her mouth tightened and her already stiff shoulders got even more rigid and taut. “Evan wanted to spend the summer in Saint Thomas with some of her friends and Ethan wanted to go to a baseball camp in the Poconos. Neither one of them are thrilled to be here. Evan has been acting out more and more lately. They are both growing up so fast and I feel like I’m missing their entire lives.”

I shifted in the saddle and bit back a groan as the back of my thighs burned. My ass was going to be a thousand shades of purple and blue by the time I climbed off this horse and there wasn’t a single place to get a massage within a thousand-mile radius.

“You know the reason she’s focused on a guy old enough to be her dad is because of what is going on with her own father, right? You might think the tension between the two of you and the way his eyes wander is harmless, but it isn’t. Kids know when one or both of their parents aren’t happy, and if you only see your kids occasionally, then all they know when they see their family together is that tension. It bleeds onto them. Kids are far more perceptive than people give them credit for.” I always knew my mom didn’t want me, no matter how many times my grandparents tried to convince me that she simply wasn’t ready for me. I might’ve bought into that bullshit if the woman had bothered to give any inclination that she was interested in how I was doing once I was old enough not to need her anymore. She didn’t care and she never had. Meghan cared, but about the wrong person. She needed to stop trying to salvage a marriage that clearly meant more to her than it did to her husband. There was still time for her to put all her focus on her kids before they were old enough to make their way in the world without her.