RomanJames pulls up the long gravel drive, and the ranch stretches out ahead of us, quiet and worn, a few outbuildings already stripped bare, equipment gone from where it must have sat rusting for years before all this.I spot Rebecca near the fence line before she spots me, bent over one of the horses, carefully working something loose from its hoof. She looks up when she hears the car, and something crosses her face, surprise, maybe, before she manages to smooth it over.I get out and walk toward her.“I didn’t think you were going to come,” she says, straightening, wiping her hands on her jeans.“I said I would.”“You didn’t have to. If you didn’t want to.”“If I didn’t want to be here,” I say, “I wouldn’t be.”She studies me for a moment, like she’s trying to decide whether to believe that, and something in her posture softens slightly when she does.“I don’t know how to be a father to you,” I admit, because there’s no version of this conversation where pretending otherw
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