Prologue

The flight to Virginia allowed Austin the opportunity to reflect on his time in Texas. For some reason, the time he’d spent on the ranch seemed like a few days, not a couple of months.

A lot had happened in a short amount of time. Austin had gone from working a real cattle ranch in Montana to being an outcast when he moved to Groesbeck, Texas. Since he was a cowboy through and through and therefore different, the kids at his new high school didn’t accept him.

Even the ranch kids—Maverick, Nora, and Travis—never really accepted Austin. Mav, two years older, had his own group of high school juniors he hung out with, while Nora was embarrassed to be seen in public with Austin. Travis lacked the confidence to risk being associated with him, even though Austin sensed that, given time, they might’ve eventually become friends.

In the end, Mrs. Houston, Kelly, seemed to be the only person who liked Austin—and only in private. She appeared to have a thing for ranch hands, for which he could never thank her enough. She’d taught Austin how to please a woman. But it all blew up when he learned Kelly and his mother were roommates and friends in college. When that came to light, Austin was smart enough to realize Kelly would treat him as just an employee and that he should keep his mouth shut.

Being isolated, he didn’t have anyone to talk to about his feelings, including his father, who’d gotten married and inherited a new family. Austin tried to move in with his mother—who’d asked him to do so in the past—but she didn’t want him, either. She was making him move in with a grandmother he’d met once, when he spent a long weekend with her, maybe six or seven years before.

Before he left, Austin made himself a vow to work to fit in better in Virginia. He’d gone so far as to get his hair cut and a new wardrobe. Austin hoped those would eliminate the barriers created when he’d worn his cowboy hat and boots to school in Texas. Being the new kid was bad enough; Austin didn’t want people making negative judgments simply because he looked different.

He’d also decided to take it slow with the girls because none of the ones he’d met in Texas had wanted more than some meaningless sex, or so it seemed. With Kelly’s lessons under his belt, he’d met his first girl, Lucy—who later became his stepsister—when she visited the ranch for a weekend. At the time, neither of them ever expected to see each other again.

There’d been a handful of others like her, girls on brief vacations who’d wanted to have some fun with the farmhand they expected never to cross paths with again.

Nora and Tina were the two he’d thought might turn into more. Nora had made Austin ask her to a school dance only because she wanted to avoid Luke, Groesbeck’s star quarterback and playboy—but once at the dance, she avoided Austin. Tina, his tutor, was older and clearly out of his league. If he were being honest, he knew from the start that neither of them would ever date him.