“You have amateur written all over you.”

MITCH CASSIDY PULLED to a stop at the entrance to the ranch. Although he’d grown up here, he hadn’t been back in nearly nine years. He’d expected a few changes-life had a way of moving forward whether he wanted it to or not-but not this.

He stared at the words over the open metal gates. The gates, connected to nothing, were just there for show. “Cassidy Ranch. Home of certified organic beef and free-range poultry.”

“What the hell?”

He wasn’t sure what offended him the most. The phrase “certified organic” or the word poultry.

“Chickens? We have goddamn chickens?”

He hated chickens. They were loud and messy. And this was Texas. His family ran beef. They had for nearly a hundred years. It was the source of the Cassidy fortune. If some ranch wife wanted to raise a few chickens for eggs or deep frying, the stupid birds were kept out of sight and never talked about. They weren’t bragged about in a sign.

His left foot ached. He reached down to rub it only to remember a half second later that he didn’t have a left foot anymore. The below-the-knee amputation was the reason he wasn’t a SEAL these days. It was the reason he’d finally come home.

He swore again, put the truck in Drive and headed for the main house. In a perfect world, he would quietly reappear at the ranch, easing into a normal life, without anyone noticing. However, though life was a lot of things, it wasn’t perfect.

He drove down the nearly mile long private road. White fences lined both sides. There were horses on the right and prize bulls on the left. Prosperity on the hoof.

He rounded a curve, past a grove of trees and saw the house where he’d grown up. It was a sprawling two-story structure with a wraparound porch. Flowers grew waist high, swaying gently in the breeze. It could have been a picture from a postcard. Mitch almost wished it was.