Epilogue

 

The next day….

 

Watching them put his father in the ground was the hardest thing James Parker McKenna had ever done. Against the advice of everyone that mattered to him, he stayed until the last shovel of dirt was in place, and his father was nothing but a heavy hole in his heart.

No. He was a lot more than that. He was the leader of their family, and Parker would be damned if he’d let anyone forget it.

Now what? What happens now?

Parker stood fast against a brisk summer breeze coming down the north. Looked like there was a storm on the horizon. “You keep living,” his dad would have said. “You get up every day, put your boots on, and you go to work.”

Work is better therapy than any goddamned shrink, James McKenna always said.

“And that is what I’m going to do. Work.”

He turned, wincing at the ache in his gut. His daddy was gone. That meant he, Parker, had to pick up the reins. He was the oldest. The senior member of the family now at thirty-five years of age. And he’d keep running McKenna Ranch just like his father had run it for the past forty-five years.

It was his legacy. It was his duty.

Thank God he had Callie and Murphy at his side.

He stopped dead in his tracks as he reached the side of his truck. There was only one thing wrong with that line of thinking, and he knew it.

Knew it better than he knew the back of his hand.

Liz.

 

THE END