Page 9 of Ranger Devotion

She hesitated. “Haven is designed as a safe space for kids who’ve struggled with bullying. We work with school counselors and social workers to identify kids who could benefit from our program. Some families find us directly too. It’s amazing to watch them transform over the summer. The kids go from barely making eye contact to leading group activities.”

Something twisted in Tate’s chest. A painful realization of how deeply he’d wounded this woman standing beside him. It’d been easy, with time and distance, to pretend that what’d happened was minor. A stupid prank. Tate hadn’t allowed himself to consider the damage he’d caused.

Shame burned hot beneath his skin. He caught Annie’s elbow, pulling her to a stop underneath the decorated fir. The light played across her face. “What you’ve built is incredible, Annie, and it’s clear that you love what you’re doing.” He made himself hold her gaze. “You turned something painful into service, but I wish…well, I wish I hadn’t put you through the hurt in the first place. There’s no excuse for what I said, and it shouldn’t matter, but I had no idea Preston was recording me at the time. And I didn’t know they planned to embarrass you at the prom. I’m truly sorry.”

He would never forget the look on Annie’s face. The shock, the betrayal, and the hurt. She’d stood stiff, shoulders back, but tears had glimmered in her eyes when she’d looked at him. In that moment Tate realized what an awful mistake he’d made. It was made worse by his failure to apologize right away.

Twenty years. His remorse was twenty years too late, but Annie deserved to hear the truth. All of it. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t mean it. What I said to them about you.”

Annie said nothing for a long moment. “Then why?”

“I was too much of a coward to tell them the truth. That I really liked you. Doing so would’ve made me the butt of their jokes and…” Tate shook his head, disgusted with himself. “Growing up in a military family, moving around so much…It was exhausting to start over all the time. Raven Hills High School was the first place I felt like I belonged. I was afraid to lose that, especially since I was still grieving my parents.”

The car accident that’d killed his parents had thrust Tate into a new life. His grandmother had been a warm and caring woman, but she’d also been in her eighties and wholly unprepared to take on a seventeen-year-old struggling to find his place in the world.

Annie frowned. “But you left town.”

He had. Two days after the graduation bonfire, he’d marched into the nearest Army recruiter’s office and enlisted. “That was a spur-of-the-moment decision, born out of what happened. I didn’t like who I’d become, and joining the military was a way of rediscovering the man my parents raised me to be.”

She scrutinized him. “And did you?”

“I’d like to think so. Faith, service, commitment, honesty…they’re the foundation I’ve built my life on. Still, nothing excuses what I did to you. It was wrong, and I hope—and have prayed often—that one day you’ll be able to forgive me.”

She searched his face as if weighing his sincerity. Then her guard dropped. “I forgave you a long time ago.”

Something loosened in his chest, and he could breathe again.

Annie’s gaze drifted across the wide grassy expanse to the activity center. Holiday music and chatter spilled out. “Opening the summer camp wasn’t just about what happened between you and me, Tate. The bullying had been going on for years before that.” She lifted her chin toward Kayla, visible through the open doors. She was hanging on Preston, laughing. It was a familiar sight. The prom queen and the high school quarterback. They’d dated in high school, their relationship volatile and sometimes mean-spirited.

“Kayla and I were friends in elementary school,” Annie continued. “Best friends, if I’m honest. Our whole group was close. And then things turned somewhere in junior high. It was hard to navigate the new dynamics. I wasn’t ostracized, but I wasn’t included either. And I was made fun of. It hurt, but what was worse…I believed some of the things they said about me.”

Oh, that hurt. He’d witnessed firsthand some of the harsh comments. Annie was frumpy, awkward, too focused on her schoolwork. She wore the wrong clothes. Laughed too loud. Most of the rude remarks had been from Kayla and Heather. Tate had told them to shut it a few times, but that had only gotten him teased too. He’d learned quickly to let them say what they wanted. It’d been cowardly. Especially since he’d been friends with Annie.

She sighed. “Do you ever think about Seth?”

A pang went through him. “Yeah. Of course I do.”

The night of the graduation bonfire, Kayla had shown up on Seth’s arm. Preston had been jealous. It’d kicked off an argument that came to blows. Humiliated and injured, Seth had stormed off.

Annie had gone after her friend. Tate had followed her.

They’d exchanged their own heated words. Their first since the prom. He could recite everything she’d said.

Don’t pretend you care. You’re just like them.

Their argument cost them precious time. Seth disappeared into the woods.

His body was found the next day. Lost in the dark and confused by the beating Preston had given him, Seth had fallen down an embankment.

His death—and the words Annie had hurled at Tate—forced him to take a long look at himself. At who he’d become.

“What happened to Seth is another reason I opened up the ranch,” Annie said. “The secret Preston revealed that night—about Seth’s dad being in prison for murder—was such a source of shame and pain that their fight turned physical. Seth’s death was an accident, but it didn’t have to happen.”

Tate nodded. He knew exactly what she meant. Like most tragedies, it’d been a deadly chain of events. Change one thing, and the outcome would’ve been completely different.

“I want my kids to understand their worth,” Annie continued. “That no matter what someone says about you, or even if other people laugh about it, that in God’s eyes you are perfectly designed.”

It was a beautiful sentiment. “And what about when we make bad choices?”