Wander Canyon Courtship. Allie Pleiter

her vague disappointment. It just sort of leaked out.

      She loved Janice and Rita, but Mama’s boasts about how well they were doing had begun to bother Yvonne. She was ashamed at how tales of their shiny, admirable families and their successful husbands grated on her. I chose to stay here. I love the valley and these people. I’m not sorry I didn’t marry Neal, and I’m not incomplete just because I’m still alone. How is it Mama and my sisters can make me feel as if I’ve been left behind?

      She couldn’t yet explain the unfamiliar need to do something else, go somewhere new. It made no sense given Bliss Bakery’s moderate success. Still, the thought of gearing up next spring for another wedding season left her feeling weary rather than excited. And, when she was honest, entirely too single.

      Was that why Chaz managed to capture her attention? Yvonne watched Chaz’s tall frame square itself for father-and-son battle. He looked strong and stomped on at the same time.

      God, bless that curmudgeon and his new dog. The prayer surprised her. Pauline was a woman of faith and would never marry Hank if he wasn’t, as well. Did that mean Chaz believed in God’s sovereignty over a thorny situation like this? I don’t know where Chaz is going to go from here, so I hope You do.

      * * *

      Even though part of him wanted to put a hundred miles between himself and his stepfather, Chaz crossed the street and headed up the stairs to Dad’s hotel room. His anger seemed to boil back up with every step closer. They were going to have this out. Might as well do it here and now.

      The door opened even before Chaz raised his fist to pound on it. Dad had bumped his head on the van’s door pillar, and now a long black bruise arched over Dad’s eye. It clashed with the wary look in the old man’s eyes.

      Dad shrugged as he caught Chaz’s stare. “You should see the other guy.” It was a standard crack they’d made anytime Chaz or Wyatt or anyone came home with a black eye. While Chaz had done it only a couple of times, Wyatt made it a regular habit.

      The use of the family joke just made everything worse. “I am the other guy.” Chaz made no attempt to lighten his words as he walked into the room.

      “Would you have really socked me?” Dad’s question needed no further explanation.

      “Might’ve.” It wasn’t really true. It’d be lying to say the urge to haul off and punch his father hadn’t risen up—he was that angry about the ranch’s succession to Wyatt—but Chaz would never have actually hit the man. Even a betrayal this large couldn’t untangle years of respect.

      Well, not yet, at least.

      “You sore?” Dad asked.

      “Some.”

      “I expect so.”

      Suddenly Chaz wasn’t sure why he’d come here. Dad had clearly made up his mind. What was the point in talking about it further?

      “I kept the dog.”

      Dad scoffed. “You what?”

      “I kept the dog. I have him here. Well, out in a cabin at Bruce Lohan’s place because the inn doesn’t take pets.” Pets. He had a pet. Another wave of the What just happened? storm surrounding him lately.

      Dad looked at him as if that was the most startling thing that had happened last night. “What are you going to do with a dog?”

      Out of nowhere, a spurt of anger that Dad failed to recognize he’d always wanted a dog burned through Chaz’s chest.

      “Clearly not keep it on Wander, now, will I?” he shouted.

      It was a stupid statement. Dad hadn’t said a word about putting him off the land. As far as he knew, he was perfectly welcome to continue living in the house he called home. And Cecil, too, for that matter. As of last night, however, Chaz felt irrationally homeless. As if the land beneath his feet had been yanked out from under him—which wasn’t so far off the truth.

      “Settle down, Chaz. You’re taking this wrong.”

      How else was he supposed to take this? Dad offered no explanation or defense. His silence told Chaz what he already knew: it was done. “Why?” He didn’t bother to soften the edge of his tone.

      Dad met his glare with a hard stare of his own. “It was time.”

      Chaz tossed the bag he’d been holding down on the coffee table. The bowls and leash clanged as they met the wood. He didn’t apologize for the loud noise. He walked past his stepfather and stood in front of the windows that looked out over the town. The street scene was what most people would probably call charming, but right now Chaz found the whole place suffocatingly happy. His eyes wandered to the cheery window of Bliss Bakery. Matrimony Valley may be fine for the likes of Yvonne, but he couldn’t stomach such an onslaught of happily-ever-afters. This place would only ever be the spot where his future imploded.

      “I’ve been telling you it’s time to handle the succession for years.” Chaz turned back toward his stepfather. “So you pick here? Now?”

      Dad’s back stiffened. “You’re telling me this would have been easier back in Colorado?”

      The man had a point. Still... “In front of her? In front of both of them?”

      Dad scratched his chin. “I doubt you’ll understand this, but maybe I wanted to hand down the hardest decision of my life with the woman I love by my side.”

      Somehow that idea just made the whole thing worse. It connected him to Yvonne because he’d heard the toughest news of his life with her next to him at the table. The idea made his skin prickle.

      Dad defiantly held his gaze. “You’re stronger than how unfair you think this is.”

      Unfair? It was unfair that the man he had come to love like a father didn’t know what that land meant to him. Unfair that Dad failed to realize that he wanted Wander Canyon Ranch more than anything else in life. Or—even worse—did know it and denied him ownership of the ranch anyway.

      Out of nowhere, Chaz’s mind raced back to the Sunday-school story of the prodigal son and the fit thrown by the loyal son at the party thrown for the wayward one. Unfair was absolutely the right word.

      Chaz jabbed a finger at his stepfather. “Wyatt can’t do it, Dad.”

      He waited for Dad to argue that, but instead Dad sighed in agreement. “Not without you he can’t. Not yet.” To Chaz’s surprise, he added, “But you could do it without Wyatt, couldn’t you?”

      What on earth was that supposed to mean? As far as Chaz was concerned, he’d been running the ranch half without Wyatt from the start. He wanted to shout “Absolutely!” Only that seemed to be exactly what Dad wanted to hear, and Chaz wasn’t about to give him that satisfaction right now.

      “I could,” he muttered instead.

      “I know that.”

      Chaz glared at him. “This isn’t right. None of it.”

      “I know you see it that way.”

      Dad’s simplistic answers were infuriating. “I should just get on a plane back to Wander right now.”

      “I hope you don’t.”

      Chaz wanted a fight. He wanted to have it out with his dad right now, to yell and argue and maybe even throw something. The low boil that had started in his chest last night at dinner was itching to spill over and do damage. There was probably a very good reason Hank put a thousand miles between him and Wyatt right now—Chaz couldn’t say what he’d do to his infuriating half brother if he was within arm’s reach at the moment.

      Chaz paced the room, flexing and fisting his hands while his breath came in pants worthy of Cecil.

      Dad planted his feet in the center of the room. “Go walk it off, Chaz.”

      How