Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sun in Amarillo did not rise gentle. It broke over the city like a brand pressed to flesh—hot, merciless, without apology. Beth Dutton walked through it as if the heat belonged to her, her heels biting against the concrete in a rhythm that dared anyone to interrupt her stride. She had killed the last of a cigarette outside the doors, the taste still sharp on her tongue, and she carried a paper cup of coffee in her hand like it was a weapon, not a comfort.

The badge was waiting on the reception desk when she entered: BETH DUTTON, the letters set in black, square and certain. She clipped it to her jacket without ceremony. No small talk. No softening. She did not thank the girl behind the desk because Beth had never believed in thanking people who would have you skinned alive if it kept their job secure.

The hallways smelled like polish and money. Watercolor cattle stared out from gilt frames, their pastel bodies a lie compared to the stink and mud Beth knew clung to the real thing. Awards gleamed in a glass cabinet, surnames etched beneath them like gravestones for men who mistook respect for permanence.

She found the room without being shown. The door was already open. Wolves often left their den unlocked when they thought no other predator existed.

Four figures sat inside. At the head of the table, Cole Hart rose to greet her. His suit was expensive, the color of dried blood; his hair cut with the precision of a scalpel. His smile was the kind that gave nothing, save the certainty that he believed this land was his.

“Mrs. Dutton,” he said smoothly, extending his hand.

Beth let her gaze rest on the hand, then on the man. She did not take either. She slid into the empty chair at the far end of the table as though she were lowering herself into a throne. “Cole Hart,” she said flatly, giving his name back to him without the courtesy of warmth.

On his left, a young man whose tie seemed too tight for his throat. On his right, a woman behind a laptop, typing already, though Beth hadn’t yet spoken. And near the window stood a girl—seventeen, maybe eighteen, her dark hair pulled back, her posture too steady for her age. She did not fidget, and she did not look away when Beth’s eyes found hers.

Hart sat last, as men who fancy themselves kings are trained to do. “We like to handle things neighborly here in Texas,” he said.

Beth leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, the movement deliberate. She let her coat fall open just enough for them to imagine what she might be carrying. “Neighborly?” Her smile was a blade. “That what you call cutting my fences? Setting my calves loose in the dark? Tying little notes to my gate like a boy with a crush?”

The young man flinched. The woman’s typing stuttered. Hart’s smile held, but his eyes narrowed, flat as steel hammered cold.

“That’s a bold accusation,” he replied, the tone even, practiced. “We’re here to discuss permits.”

Beth reached for the folder that lay before her, flicked it once with her finger, then pushed it aside as though it were already irrelevant. “Permits don’t spook cattle. Permits don’t trespass in the night. You can save the paperwork for someone who still believes paper makes a man powerful.”

Hart’s voice deepened. “Montana follows you, Mrs. Dutton. That’s the trouble. People here know the stories. They know what you did there. The fire. The chaos. That kind of noise doesn’t fit in Texas.”

Beth laughed, soft and cutting, her head tilting as though the sound itself amused her more than his words. “You bored me halfway through that sentence.”

Hart didn’t flinch. He leaned forward, steepling his hands in that old lawyer’s pose, voice sharpening. “Your cattle are crossing county lines. You don’t pay into the associations that manage those routes. And there are questions about where those herds came from before Texas. Inquiries.” He let the word linger. “Billings is already asking.”

The name hit Beth like a nail through an old scar. She gave no sign, save the faintest tightening at her jaw.

Her smile returned, slow and dangerous. “Say it,” she whispered. “Say bones. That’s what you’re digging for. Say it out loud.”

Hart did not. Men like him never did. They let other men dig holes and wrote the ledgers after.

Instead, he smoothed his suit jacket with his hands. “We’ll buy you out. You can leave with money enough to call it a choice. Or we can drag Montana into the light and let its ghosts do the work for us.”

Beth stood, smoothing her coat, her movements slow and exact. “I’ve buried worse than you,” she said, “and I slept fine afterward.”

Hart tilted his head, a predator teasing its prey. His smile sharpened. “Beth Dutton,” he said, then let the words linger. “No—Beth Dutton-Wheeler. That’s who you are now, isn’t it?” He said the name carefully, like a man showing a knife he’d been hiding. “Funny how hard that second name is to find on paper. But it’s there. Means you’re hiding something you don’t want found.”

Beth’s smile widened, her teeth white and cruel. “I keep both names,” she said, her voice steady as stone, “so men like you remember exactly who you’re dealing with.”

Hart’s mask slipped for just a moment before he gestured. “Security.”

The door opened. Two men filled the frame, broad enough to be hired for muscle, not thought. One reached for Beth’s arm.

She looked down at his hand, then up into his face, pity glinting in her eyes. “You got a mama?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am—”

“She’ll miss you,” Beth said, shaking his grip loose with a sharp flick of her arm.

They flanked her anyway, guiding her toward the door. Hart’s voice followed her down the hall, smug and certain. “Leave Texas, Mrs. Wheeler. Before Texas leaves you.”

Beth stopped in the doorway. She turned her head, her hair catching the light, her smile cold as a knife. “Careful, Cole,” she said softly. “You keep talking like that, and you’ll find out what it feels like to get trampled in a stampede.”

She walked out into the heat.

She didn’t notice the phone left glowing on the table, the line still open. On the other end of that call, Rip Wheeler was listening, every word branding itself into his silence.

Rip Wheeler had been quiet all morning. That was nothing new.

He and Lloyd had the new hands working the south pasture fence, sun already dragging sweat down their shirts. Barbed wire doesn’t mend itself, and Texas ground wasn’t as forgiving as Montana soil. The dirt here baked hard, cracked in places that felt like scars. Rip said little as he worked, his hands moving in that steady, brutal rhythm he was born with.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, muffled by denim. He would’ve ignored it—calls in the middle of work were almost always trouble—but the screen lit with a name he never let go unanswered: Beth.

“Yeah?” His voice was low, flat.

But Beth didn’t answer him.

Instead, her voice came through faint at first, then sharper—the sound of her fury cutting across a room. Rip froze, one hand on the wire spool, the other holding the phone tight to his ear. He heard her spit out words about burned fences, calves let loose. Then another voice: smooth, male, deliberate. A voice Rip didn’t recognize, and that made it worse.

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just listened, jaw tightening with each syllable.

“…we can drag Montana into the light…”

Rip’s hand closed around the pliers until the metal bit into his palm. He knew Beth’s tone—she was goading the bastard, pushing him to show teeth. And when Hart finally said it—Wheeler—Rip felt the ground shift beneath him. He’d heard enough.

Without a word, he shoved the pliers into Lloyd’s hands, turned on his heel, and stalked toward the truck parked by the fence line. The phone was still at his ear, Beth’s voice sparking through the speaker, but Rip had stopped listening. He already knew.

“Rip?” Lloyd called after him, brow furrowed.

Rip didn’t answer. He climbed into the truck, engine roaring to life, dust boiling up behind the tires.

Carter was twenty yards off, helping the female ranch hand—Jessie—wrestle a stubborn post into the ground. He saw Rip’s face—saw that look—and his chest tightened. He dropped the post and ran, boots slamming dirt, shouting before Rip could slam the door.

“What happened? Is it Beth?”

Rip’s voice was ice. “Get back, boy.”

But Carter didn’t stop. He caught the truck door as Rip pulled it shut, leaning in. His eyes were wild, desperate, but there was a defiance under it too—the kind Rip had always hated because he recognized it.

“If it’s Beth, it’s my fight too!” Carter’s voice cracked with the truth of it.

“Not this one,” Rip growled, shoving the door closed. He gunned the engine.

Carter’s heart pounded in his chest. He didn’t think, didn’t weigh. He just ran. As Rip peeled out, Carter sprinted alongside and at the last second vaulted into the bed of the truck. Metal slammed beneath him as he hit, dropping low before Rip could notice. The engine roared, tires spitting dirt, and the truck shot down the road toward Amarillo.

Back at the fence line, Sage had seen the whole thing. She broke into a run before Lloyd caught her by the arm.

“Hold it, youngin’,” Lloyd muttered, voice rough but steady. His grip was strong enough to stop her, even if her small frame strained against it.

“But Beth—”

“They’ll handle it,” Lloyd said. He watched the truck vanish in a storm of dust, his eyes narrowing. “If it’s Beth, hell’s about to open.”

Sage’s chest heaved, her fists tight. She wanted to run, to follow, to do something. Instead, she stood by the old cowboy’s side, staring at the empty road, the sound of the truck fading into silence.

The others were still watching too, as if the dust might settle into an answer. Jessie McClure was the first to move, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist. She caught sight of Sage’s eyes, wet now, her lip trembling despite how hard she pressed it shut.

Jessie dropped her shovel into the dirt and walked over. “Hey,” she said, softer than anyone had ever heard from her. She crouched just enough so Sage didn’t have to tilt her head so high. “Don’t let it get to you. Rip’ll be back before the sun moves an inch, you’ll see.”

Sage blinked, but the tears slipped free anyway. “What if Beth’s not?” she whispered.

Jessie glanced once at Lloyd. The old hand didn’t say a word, just shifted the brim of his hat, his eyes still pinned to the road like he was waiting for the horizon itself to make a sound. That silence was answer enough.

So Jessie reached out, quick and awkward, and gave Sage’s arm a squeeze. “That woman? She’s a damn hurricane. You can try to throw her out of a room, but you can’t hold down weather. She’ll walk out smiling just to make the man who shoved her wish he hadn’t been born.”

A tear rolled down Sage’s cheek, but her mouth twitched like she almost believed it. Jessie gave her a half-smile, patted her shoulder once, and stood.

“Alright,” she said, tugging her gloves back on. “Fence ain’t gonna fix itself.”

The others followed her lead, turning back to their work, the rhythm of posts and wire filling the silence. Sage stayed close to Jessie now, eyes still darting to the road, carrying the comfort of those words like a small stone in her pocket.

Beth Dutton’s heels cracked against the tile as the guards walked her down the corridor. They thought they were escorting her; she knew she was letting them. Cole Hart’s voice still lingered in her ears, smug and venomous, “Leave Texas, Mrs. Wheeler. Before Texas leaves you.”

Her mouth twisted into a smile that could’ve cut glass. He thought he’d rattled her. Men like Hart always did. But Hart didn’t understand that Beth’s fury was fuel, not weakness.

The glass doors of the lobby swung wide and heat rushed in, wrapping around her like a dare. Amarillo in full daylight—no shade, no softness. She stepped out into it with her chin high, the guards flanking her like bookends to a story that wasn’t finished.

On the curb, she stopped. They tried to guide her further, but she shrugged them off. “Don’t touch me,” she said, calm, almost sweet. “Unless you want to go home with less fingers than you came with.”

The guards hesitated, unsure if she was joking. She wasn’t.

Beth lit another cigarette with steady hands, dragging the smoke deep into her lungs. She needed it. She needed the taste, the sting, the little reminder that life burned and kept on burning.

And then she heard it.

The sound of tires screaming against asphalt, a V8 growling like a wild thing set loose. Every head on the sidewalk turned. A black Dutton truck came barreling around the corner, throwing gravel like spit, sun flashing off its hood.

Beth’s lips curled. She knew that sound.

The truck skidded to a stop at the curb, dust still swirling in its wake. The door swung open hard, and Rip Wheeler stepped out.

His face was stone. Eyes flat, mouth tight. He wasn’t yelling—Rip never needed to. He was a storm that announced itself by silence.

The guards straightened instinctively, muscles tensing. One reached for Beth’s arm again, a reflex. She didn’t move. She just looked at Rip, her cigarette hanging from her fingers, smoke curling up between them.

“You took your time,” she said.

Rip didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

That’s when the bed of the truck banged, and Carter came scrambling over the side, hitting the pavement with a thud and a curse. He straightened fast, breathless, eyes wild.

“Beth!” he called, shoving past Rip before the older man could stop him.

Rip’s eyes cut to him, sharp, furious—but Carter was already moving, already on Beth’s side like he’d been born there.

Beth’s smirk deepened. “Well, don’t you look heroic,” she said, smoke trailing from her lips.

The guards stepped forward, uncertain now. Rip moved then, closing the space in three strides. He didn’t shove, didn’t swing. He just put himself between Beth and the men, his presence alone pressing them back a step.

Carter mirrored him, raw where Rip was refined, shoulders squared though his hands trembled. He looked like the shadow of the man beside him.

Beth flicked her cigarette to the pavement, grinding it out with the heel of her shoe. “Alright, boys,” she said to the guards, her voice dripping with contempt. “If your boss wanted me rattled, he should’ve picked someone who doesn’t make threats in daylight. Now move.”

And for a moment, under the weight of Rip’s stare and Beth’s fire, they actually did.

Cole Hart stood at the window, one hand in his pocket, the other resting on the back of his chair. From six floors up, he could see everything. Beth Dutton on the sidewalk, cigarette smoke curling from her fingers like a flag. Rip Wheeler stepping out of that truck, every inch of him dangerous silence. And then the boy—Carter—scrambling over the side of the bed, raw and unpolished but there all the same, squaring himself like he belonged.

Cole’s jaw flexed, though his face remained calm. This was what he’d expected. Beth Dutton never came alone. But seeing them together—the storm, the hammer, the boy—wasn’t a comfort. It was a problem.

Behind him, the clatter of typing slowed. His associate, the woman with the laptop, cleared her throat. “You think that’s all?” she asked carefully. “The threats, the talk, the… theater? You think she’ll actually fold?”

Cole didn’t move from the glass. “Beth Dutton doesn’t fold,” he said flatly. “She burns. And she brought the fire with her this morning.”

A beat of silence. Then a voice, softer, steadier. “They didn’t flinch.”

He turned slightly. His daughter was still standing by the window, her eyes on the same scene. She hadn’t spoken much during the meeting, but now there was something in her tone—measured, precise. “The boy,” she added after a moment. “He looked scared, but he didn’t run. Neither of them did. Not even when the guards pushed her.”

Cole’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t answer.

The conference room door swung open before the silence could stretch further. A burst of perfume and chatter entered with it. Hannah Hart breezed inside, her floral dress too bright for the room, her hair styled like she was headed anywhere but here. She was smiling, though it was the distracted kind of smile people wear when they’re late to a dinner party.

“Lord above,” Hannah said, fanning herself with one hand. “What on earth is going on outside? You can’t even get into this building, Cole. Traffic’s backed up, horns blaring—it’s a mess.” She laughed lightly, almost musical. “You’d think the President had come to Amarillo.”

Cole rolled his eyes, turning back to the window. “Not the President,” he muttered. “Worse.”

Hannah set her purse down on the table, humming to herself as though the tension in the room wasn’t thick enough to choke a man. She glanced toward her daughter with a warm smile. “Did you see them too, sweetheart? That truck nearly ran a man off the crosswalk.”

The girl nodded once, her expression unreadable.

Hannah laughed again, softer this time. “Well, whoever they are, they sure know how to make an entrance.”

Cole exhaled sharply, irritation edging the sound. But Hannah only tilted her head, her eyes lingering on her daughter, gentler now. “Don’t let your father’s scowl scare you. All this ruckus will pass. It always does.”

The girl didn’t answer, but something flickered behind her eyes. Hannah reached over and squeezed her daughter’s hand, a small gesture, absentminded maybe—but there was warmth in it, real warmth.

It was the kind of warmth her daughter carried, quietly, even when she hid the rest.

Cole Hart rolled his eyes again, muttering, “Christ, Hannah,” but he didn’t stop her. He never did.

The heat on the Amarillo sidewalk shimmered, the kind that made the horizon dance. Beth stood between the guards, cigarette smoke curling from her lips. Rip was three steps away, all silence and stone. Carter was already at her side, raw and shaking with adrenaline, a boy trying to be a man.

“Move,” Beth said, her voice sharp as broken glass.

One guard snorted. “Lady, you’re lucky Mr. Hart didn’t have you arrested in there.”

“Arrested?” Beth let out a low laugh. “For what—hurting his feelings?”

The guard didn’t like that. His hand shoved out fast and caught Carter across the chest, knocking him hard to the pavement. Carter’s breath whooshed out as he hit the concrete, palms scraping against it.

Beth’s eyes flared, but she didn’t get the first word in—Rip did.

Rip was on him in an instant, one massive hand slamming into the guard’s collar, the other driving him back against the brick wall with enough force to rattle teeth. “Touch him again,” Rip said, his voice low, flat, the kind of sound men remembered when they woke up sweating at night.

The guard gagged, trying to pry himself free, but Rip didn’t loosen his grip. Beth’s smirk twisted into something darker, pleased and hungry all at once. Carter pushed himself up to his elbows, stunned, but already moving to rise.

And that was when the reinforcements came.

Three more guards spilled out of the building, weapons in their hands. Two pistols. One shotgun.

The man in front—the lead—carried the shotgun like it was an extension of his arm. He stepped forward, the barrel rising slow, deliberate, until it aimed square at Beth’s chest. His mouth curled into a smirk.

“Guess you brought the family reunion,” he drawled. “Shame if it ended right here.”

Beth didn’t flinch. She smiled, slow and poisonous, like she’d been waiting all morning for this exact line.

Rip’s hand slid to his holster, the motion calm but clear. “You point that thing at her one more second,” he said, voice steady, “and I’ll take it from you and bury it where your mama won’t find it.”

The lead guard only chuckled, pressing the stock to his shoulder, barrel never wavering. “Big words for a man already outnumbered.”

Carter pushed himself higher, anger flashing across his face. As soon as his hand touched the ground to stand, one of the pistol men swung his weapon, the muzzle now aimed at Carter’s head.

Rip froze. His jaw clenched hard enough to crack, but his hand came off the gun, open now, hovering just above his hip. The air was leaden with heat and silence.

“Alright,” Rip said, his tone like gravel dragged over steel. “You had your fun. But you listen good, all of you—every man standing here. If she so much as leaves this sidewalk with a bruise, there won’t be a corner in this state you can hide from me. And when I come for you, you won’t get a warning twice.”

The shotgun man smirked wider, teeth bared. “Then let’s hope you keep her under control.”

Beth’s laugh cut the air like a whip. “Control me?” She stepped forward half a pace, daring the barrel to follow. “You better pray he does. Because if he doesn’t…” Her eyes locked on the guard’s, her grin feral. “…it won’t be Rip you’ll have to worry about. It’ll be me.”

The silence cracked then, sharp as lightning, the scene balanced on the edge of a blade.

Rip’s hand stayed loose, away from his holster. Carter froze where he was, eyes locked on the pistol aimed at his head. Beth’s grin hadn’t faltered, but her cigarette burned low between her fingers, ash dropping at her boots.

Rip spoke first, his voice a growl of thunder held tight. “Beth. Carter. We’re leaving.”

Carter’s face twisted, raw with anger. “But—”

“Now.” Rip’s tone cut him off, no room for argument.

Beth exhaled, smoke streaming from her lips. She flicked the cigarette to the ground, grinding it out under her heel as though the guard’s smirk lived there. She didn’t look at the shotgun, didn’t look at the men with their weapons drawn. She looked at Rip. Then she nodded, the smallest movement, and turned on her heel.

Rip stepped back, releasing his grip on the first guard, shoving him away like trash. His stare lingered on the shotgun man, a promise in silence. Then he moved with Beth, one hand brushing Carter’s shoulder, steadying him, guiding him toward the truck.

Carter’s fists were tight at his sides, his breath still hard, but he followed. They climbed in. Doors slammed. The engine growled.

The guards didn’t lower their weapons until the truck rolled away, tail-lights shrinking against the heat haze of the Amarillo road.

From six floors up, Cole Hart stood at the window, watching the black truck shrink into the shimmer of the road. His daughter lingered at his side, her face unreadable, while Hannah hummed as she dug through her purse, oblivious to the heat still burning in the street below.

Hart’s reflection stared back at him in the glass—calm, sharp, patient. He spoke as if noting a fact, not a threat.

“The hammer. The storm. The boy,” he said evenly. “One breaks. One burns out. And the other’s still soft enough to shape.” He paused, watching the truck vanish in the haze. “Montana made her a legend. Texas will make her a memory.”

Chapter Text

The gravel popped beneath the truck tires as Rip pulled into the yard, the rumble of the engine dying slow. The ranch sat quiet, golden light spilling over the roofs and fences — too peaceful for the kind of day they’d had. Carter climbed out before the dust even settled, his jaw tight, one hand rubbing his shoulder where the guard had shoved him down.

He didn’t say a word. Just headed straight for the house, his boots heavy on the porch steps.

Inside, the air was cooler, dim. He opened the fridge, grabbed the first thing cold enough to numb — a can of soda — and pressed it against the side of his face, wincing when the metal met skin.

“You look like hell, cowboy.”

The voice came from behind him — low, amused. He turned to find Rae Collins, Beth’s most trusted hand, leaning in the doorway. She was maybe mid-thirties, sunburnt, confident, with a kind of calm that came from surviving both cattle drives and corporate meetings with Beth Dutton.

“Thanks,” Carter muttered, setting the can on the counter. “Wasn’t exactly a day at the spa.”

Rae tilted her head, studying him. “You gonna tell me what happened, or am I supposed to guess from the limp and the look on Rip’s face?”

“Beth’s meeting went sideways,” he said finally. “Some prick thought he could—” He stopped. The words felt heavier than he expected.

Rae crossed her arms, her tone softening just a touch. “And Rip?”

Carter gave a dry laugh. “Rip’s… Rip. You know how that goes.”

“Mm,” she said, a knowing sound. “So, which one of you’s bleeding worse — him or you?”

Before he could answer, the door swung open, light spilling in. Sage came running in barefoot, her hair a mess of wild curls, Lloyd on her heels.

“Carter!” she called, but stopped short when she saw his face — the scrape, the stiffness. “You okay?”

“Yeah, kid. Just took a tumble, is all.”

Rae knelt down and brushed a bit of dust off Sage’s knee. “Go grab that lemonade we made earlier, sweetheart,” she said. “I think Carter could use some.”

Sage dashed off toward the kitchen nook, small feet thudding across the hardwood.

Rae’s eyes followed her before turning back to Carter. “Beth trusts you,” she said quietly. “That’s not something she hands out easy. Don’t go losing it ‘cause you think you gotta prove something to Rip.”

He didn’t answer — just nodded, jaw tight again.

Through the window, Rip’s shadow moved across the yard — slow, deliberate. Beth stood near the fence, talking low, gesturing toward the horizon like she could bend the world if she pushed hard enough.

Rae’s voice came again, soft but certain. “You three carry too much fire for one family. Just… don’t burn each other down before it’s worth it.”

Carter swallowed, eyes fixed on the glass. “You know,” he murmured, “sometimes it feels like that’s all we ever do.”

Outside…

Rip’s boots crunched over the gravel, a dry, honest sound in the wide silence of the yard. The sun sat low and hard on the Texas plain—no Montana haze here, just bright light and the sharp smell of dust. He walked slow, the kind of slow that keeps every muscle ready, and when he stopped a few feet from the fence Beth didn’t look up. She was already there, one boot hooked on the bottom rail, a cigarette burning between two fingers, the ember a tiny defiant sun against the afternoon glare.

For a moment they simply stood facing the pasture, two silhouettes against a land that didn’t suffer soft edges. Carter had gone inside—the screen door’s thunk still vibrating in Rip’s ears—and the yard was wide enough that silence could hold a thing for a long time. Rip felt the silence like a weight. He had a habit of pacing it first, talking later, letting the anger rattle itself into something less jagged.

Those were the last few steps of cooling down. He stopped and drew a slow breath. “Those weren’t rent-a-cops,” he said finally, voice low enough that the cattle in the distance didn’t twitch. “They moved like they’d been drilled.”

Beth didn’t startle; she hardly ever did. She dragged smoke deep and let it out slow, blue ribbon floating and disappearing. “You think Hart’s got professional muscle now?” she said, half a question, half a cutting observation.

Rip watched her face for the flinch that never came. “Not ‘professional’ like we’re used to,” he said. “Not the cowboy types. Men who stand like soldiers. Clean draws. Who read one another without talkin’. That ain’t the kind you hire off a rancher’s ad.”

She rolled her eyes, the corner of her mouth tilting in that small, dangerous smile she had when she’d smelled trouble and already planned the funeral. “Cole Hart doesn’t rent muscle. He buys influence so it wears his crest. If those boys were military, they were there because Hart wanted a message sent.”

Rip cursed under his breath, a short, ugly thing. “Figures. He always liked sending the right kind of hurt.”

He moved again, slow, walking a few paces down the fence. The porch light on the main house had just clicked on, a square of domestic warmth against the raw land. Through the open window Rip could see movement—Carter crossing the kitchen in a shadowed line, then ducking through the back door toward the bunkhouse. He kept his eyes on where that figure had been until the boy was a small shape disappearing into the shed’s doorway.

“Boy went inside,” Beth observed. Her voice was softer than his, the kind of voice that could slice but mostly didn’t. “Probably to clean up, maybe to hide from lookin’ stupid.” She smirked, but the smirk had teeth.

Rip shook his head. “He disobeyed me.”

“So you tell him the story of obedience?” Beth flicked ash, watched it fall in the dust. “Rip, you told him to stay put because you thought there was a way to fix it without more blood. He thought you needed him. He’s got your stubborn in him; what did you expect?”

He turned to her then, the afternoon light catching the creases around his eyes. “I never asked for a copy of me to be made in a boy’s body,” he said. “I don’t need him learnin’ the same holes in the world I did. I told him to stay because sometimes staying alive is the right thing. Sometimes being smart is what keeps you here for the next day.”

Beth watched him pace a single step and then fold back to the fence. The small movements mattered to her; she read them quick. “And you think barkin’ at him then will teach him that? You think telling him he’s weak will make him smarter?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Rip said, but it was clumsy. He had always been clumsy when the thing he felt wasn’t a clean strike. “I want him to not be reckless. He’s got too much of me in him. I don’t want him gettin’ cut up by the same stupid pride that nearly cost me everything.”

“Maybe you should stop seeing everything he does as a direct echo of your worst mistakes,” Beth said, and there was no sarcasm in it—only a blade of truth. “Maybe he’s not tryin’ to be you. Maybe he’s trying to be somebody who belongs.”

Rip let that sit. He watched Carter’s silhouette pass the bunkhouse window again as if the glass could teach him the secret of the boy. The boy’s shoulders were squared; his gait had that stubborn, half-learned thing like someone trying to hold onto dignity and not let it fray.

“You taught him to stand up,” Beth went on, voice gentling around the edges. “You taught him that when someone you love is in the bull’s path, you don’t step to the side. That’s in him because that’s in you. You wish he’d learned other lessons first—counting the cost, readin’ the room—fine. But you can’t get mad when he uses the tools you gave him.”

Rip laughed, a short, breathy sound that didn’t reach his eyes. “So I’m a bad blueprint.”

“No,” she said, “you’re a complicated one. Don’t ask the child to be a pared-down version of you. He ain’t a practice run.” She leaned forward then, the way she did when she wanted him to see her clear. “If you keep hammering at him like he’s a rough thing you need to polish by blood, he’ll harden in the wrong places.”

He stared at the rail where she rested her hand. A train of meaning ran through his chest—an ache he didn’t like to name. “He’s gonna get hurt.”

“He already gets hurt,” Beth said. “But not by loving. He gets hurt by us, by not letting him be messy and still keeping him close. You’re afraid of his mistakes because you know how those mistakes sounded when they cost you. But you’re not the only teacher in this cattle lot.”

Rip’s jaw worked. The sun had flattened their shadows long and thin; the land held them like witnesses. He took a breath, slow. “I don’t know how to be soft with him,” he admitted, the words raw and small.

Beth’s hand found his forearm, just a touch. “Good. Then practice. You’ll be awful at first. You’ll call it weakness. I’ll call it survival.”

He let a humorless smirk form. “You’d be patient with a mule.”

“I’d also be patient with you if you lived in my head,” she said, and for the first time the hint of something like a smile softened her mouth. “Just don’t make him pay for your history, Rip. That’s my job.”

He glanced at the house, then at the bunkhouse, then back at her. “He jumped in. He could have—”

“He did what you would have,” Beth said. “He did what he thought would keep us whole. You don’t get to be mad at his core, at his heart, because you once had to learn how to make yours beat steady.”

Rip looked away. Beth’s words landed in the hollow places and grew teeth there. He rubbed a thumb along the seam at the back of his hand—an old nervous habit—and the motion steadied him.

From inside the kitchen, the screen door opened and Rae’s silhouette framed the doorway. She caught sight of Rip and Beth and the two of them in that frozen posture—those two who could kill and still come home for dinner—and she laughed, the sound a bright, practical thing in the afternoon.

“You two gonna stand out there all evening,” she called, “or you gonna come inside and stop scaring my hands?” Her voice carried that easy authority that belonged to someone who’d been trusted with the mundane as much as the flinty.

Beth’s mouth twisted into that dangerous half-smile. “I’ll be in in five. Don’t set the stew on fire without me.”

Rae scoffed. “I ain’t the one who sets the world on fire.” She tipped her head toward Rip. “That’s you, Wheeler. That’s all you.”

Rip offered her the one gesture he’d never been taught to say with words—his middle finger, lifted and casual, blanketing the afternoon in a small, ridiculous defiance.

Rae laughed and disappeared back into the lighted kitchen, humming something under her breath; the sound was ordinary and therefore sacred. Beth watched the porch for a beat, then turned back to him, the cigarette long extinguished and ground into dust with the heel of her boot.

“We’ll handle Hart,” she said finally, the plan already part of her bones. “But handle the boy first. Not with the hammer, with the map.”

Rip nodded slowly, thinking of maps and hammers both. “Maps took me longer to read.”

“Then read harder,” she said. “He’s not a problem to fix. He’s a man to guide.” She stepped closer and, with a little insolence, tapped his chest. “You know what to do.”

He let out a long breath that might have been a laugh, might have been a surrender. The sky folded golden and thin behind them. Carter’s window showed a square of light where the boy lay his head, probably counting the things that made him proud and terrified. Rip watched the glow until the sun dipped—it was still afternoon; there was still work to do.

“Good,” Rip said at last, voice small in the big yard. “I’ll try.”

She looked at him for a long second, seeing his promise for what it was: clumsy, honest, and maybe the best he could give. “That’s all any of us get,” she said.

They stood a while longer, neither of them moving much, two people shaped by the same hard world and now tasked with reshaping another heart. The ranch breathed around them—dry wind, a lowing cow, the steady click of the gate swinging on its hinge—and somewhere inside, a boy who had tried to be brave was learning, already, about the costs and the mercy of it.

The conference room still carried the faint echo of the afternoon’s chaos — whispers from hallways, speculation from staffers, unease hanging in corners. Papers lay scattered across the long polished table like shrapnel. But Cole Hart stood at the head of it with the same unnerving composure he wore to funerals.

Across the room, near the far wall, the girl stood quietly, hands behind her back, posture straight. She had been allowed to stay, which in Cole Hart’s world meant she was expected to listen and say nothing. She excelled at both.

One of the commissioners cleared his throat.

“Cole… heard somethin’ wild went down at the zoning meeting today. Folks been talkin’.”

Cole didn’t look up from the county map he was marking. “‘Folks’ are usually wrong.”

Another man leaned in. “Word is Beth Dutton damn near tore the place apart.”

Cole capped his marker slowly. “She raised her voice,” he corrected. “I shut it down.”

The men shifted, half impressed, half unsettled.

“And Wheeler?” one asked nervously. “We heard he showed up hot.”

Before Cole could answer, Mason Hale — head of security, broad-shouldered, stone-still — spoke from the corner.

“He arrived fast,” Mason said. “Didn’t hesitate. Didn’t posture. Just moved.”

“And the boy?” a supervisor asked. “People said some kid jumped off the truck?”

Mason nodded once. “Teenage. Quick. Loyal. If there was fear, he hid pretty good.”

Cole’s jaw twitched, almost invisible.

“Fearlessness is useful,” he murmured. “Until it gets someone killed.”

The commissioners went quiet at that. Even they knew the undertone.

Before anyone could speak again, the conference door opened.

Hannah Hart stepped inside with her easy warmth, the kind that made men soften even when they shouldn’t.

“Cole, honey,” she said, “I’m headin’ home. Just wanted to tell you before I go.”

Cole’s entire posture shifted by a hair — the hard edges rounded, not softened but restrained. “All right. I won’t be long.”

Hannah smiled at him, then glanced to the girl by the wall.

“You comin’, sweetheart?”

The girl hesitated — just enough for Cole to notice — but stepped toward her mother.

“Come on now,” Hannah coaxed gently, placing a hand on her arm. “Let’s go, Montana.”

The name struck the room like the clang of dropped metal.

A commissioner let out a sharp, amused breath. “Well I’ll be damned. Montana? That’s rich, Cole. You spend half your speeches sayin’ ‘this ain’t Montana anymore,’ and you’ve got one livin’ under your roof.”

A few chuckles.

Short-lived.

Cole looked up — slowly — eyes cutting through the table like wire.

“If this was Montana,” he said coldly, “you boys would’ve been buried under the snow long before dinner.”

Silence smothered the room.

Hannah gently steered Montana out the door, oblivious to the storm she’d triggered.

The door clicked shut behind them.

“Meeting’s done,” Cole said without looking at the men. “Leave the paperwork. I’ll review it.”

The commissioners practically tripped over their chairs trying to exit.

In seconds, only Cole and Mason Hale remained.

Cole set down his pen. “You didn’t need to answer them.”

Mason didn’t move.

“That wasn’t a report,” he said calmly. “It was clarification.”

“You clarify to me,” Cole said, lifting his eyes. “Not to them.”

Mason stepped closer — not confrontational, just steady. “With respect, sir… I’m required to answer to the people above you.”

A thin vein pulsed at Cole’s temple.

“This is my county,” Cole said quietly. “My jurisdiction.”

“And I’m not your employee,” Mason replied. “I’m contracted. Don’t confuse the two.”

Cole held his stare for a long beat. Then he smiled — the sharp, dangerous version.

“You get to walk in my shadow because I allow it. Don’t forget that.”

Mason didn’t blink.

“And you get protection because someone else ordered it. Don’t forget that.”

A colder silence settled between them.

“Get out,” Cole said.

Mason nodded once.

“Sir.”

He left without another word.

Cole stood alone at the head of the table, fingers pressing into the map, jaw tight — a man realizing the ground he thought he owned was shifting under his boots.

The parking garage was cool and dim, the kind of place where sounds echoed just enough to remind you how alone you were. Hannah’s heels clicked across the concrete like she was trying to scatter the tension she’d soaked in back in Cole’s meeting. Montana walked beside her, quieter, footsteps soft and precise.

“Mercy,” Hannah breathed as they reached the car. “I swear, that room back there felt tighter than a jar of pickles. One wrong move and somebody would’ve popped.”

Montana didn’t smile, but her shoulders eased a little — Hannah’s voice tended to do that, even when Montana wouldn’t.

They got into the car. Hannah buckled her seatbelt.

Montana already had hers on.

Hannah still tugged it anyway. “Just checkin’,” she murmured. “I like knowing you’re strapped in.”

Montana stared ahead, patient with the ritual.

Once they pulled out of the garage and hit open road, Hannah exhaled like the air finally belonged to her again.

“Oh, I missed this,” she said. “Your father keeps tryin’ to put us in the back of those big fancy cars with drivers who look like they swallowed a mop. But drivin’ myself makes me feel…” She tapped the wheel. “…uncontained.”

Montana turned her head. “You feel contained?”

Hannah paused, smile thinning. “Sometimes.”

The moment hung there.

Not sad — just honest.

Then Hannah brightened like she’d flipped a light back on.

“So,” she said in that motherly sing-song, “that young soldier at the elevator? The tall one with the confused haircut?”

Montana sighed. “Mom—”

“What? He nearly broke formation when you walked by.” Hannah grinned. “Nearly stared a hole straight through you.”

“He was probably looking at someone else.”

“No, he wasn’t,” Hannah said simply. “And I know flirting when I see it.”

Montana didn’t respond.

“So I asked Mason later,” Hannah continued, “and apparently that boy asked your age.”

Montana’s eyebrows shot up. “He did?”

“Mmhmm! And when Mason said seventeen—oh, sorry.” She waved a finger. “Seventeen and eleven months—”

“Mom,” Montana muttered, heat creeping up the back of her neck.

“—the boy backed off like he heard the word ‘run.’ Guess he realized he’s nineteen and you’re… well. You.”

Montana folded her arms, staring out the window. “I don’t care about some soldier staring at me.”

“I know you don’t,” Hannah said, her tone slipping softer. “You never have.”

Montana’s eyes flicked toward her mother — just for a moment — before turning away again.

“You’re hard to read sometimes,” Hannah added. “Always have been. You keep your cards pressed so close to your chest I’m surprised they ain’t cuttin’ into your ribs.”

Montana didn’t deny it.

Hannah drummed her fingers lightly on the wheel. “You know… I saw you watching today.”

Montana’s chest tightened, just slightly. “Watching what?”

“Everything,” Hannah said. “Everyone. You look at people like you’re… measuring them. Learning something.”

Montana stayed quiet.

Hannah sighed — not irritated, not pushing, just… longing a little.

“One day,” she said softly, “you’ll meet someone who makes you forget to look so hard at the world.”

Montana’s throat bobbed as she swallowed.

“I’m not looking for anyone,” she said finally.

“I know,” Hannah replied. “But even when you aren’t… sometimes someone still finds you.”

Montana turned fully toward the window — away from her mother, away from the emotion. Her reflection stared back at her, calm on the surface, unreadable underneath.

Outside, the land stretched wide.

Inside, the car hummed with the quiet tension between a girl holding secrets tight…

and a mother who sensed them but didn’t yet know their shape.

The Texas night had settled warm and dark over the ranch by the time Carter reached the porch. The house glowed in that way it always did — golden windows, shadows swaying inside, soft murmur of voices drifting through the screen door. The kind of scene that felt like family even though he still wasn’t sure he had the right to call it that.

He slowed at the bottom step, rubbed at the ache in his shoulder. The place where the guard’s palm had slammed him to the concrete still throbbed. He shifted his weight to hide the stiffness — even though no one was watching yet — then stepped inside.

The dining room was warm and bright, brimming with steam from platters, glassware glinting in candlelight. The long wooden table was set to the edges, food untouched.

They had waited for him.

Beth sat at the head of the table, posture loose but eyes sharp, one hand curled around the stem of her wine glass. Rip sat on her right, shoulders coiled tight beneath a dark shirt, jaw flexing in slow, controlled rhythms. Sage swung her legs next to Beth, humming lightly, hair a wild halo. Rae — crisp blouse, sleeves rolled just twice, the faint perfume of cedar and ink following her — sat beside Rip. She wasn’t a ranch hand. She was Beth’s second brain: business, logistics, strategy. Lloyd anchored the far end, fork in hand, grin already forming because he lived for moments like this.

Every head turned when Carter entered.

A hush, soft but heavy, settled over the table.

Sage lit up. “Carter!”

Beth arched an eyebrow. “Look what the dust blew in.”

Rip didn’t smile. Didn’t blink. His eyes flicked from the scrape on Carter’s cheek to the stiffness in his left arm and stayed there.

“You’re late,” Rip said. Not loud. Not angry. But edged.

Carter swallowed. “Yeah. Sorry. Was… cleaning up.”

Rip leaned back slightly. “You weren’t that dirty.”

Carter’s jaw tightened. His cheek burned where concrete had kissed it earlier. “Felt like I was.”

Beth set her wineglass down. “Well. Now that our resident stray has returned, we can eat. Rae’s about to attack the centerpiece.”

Rae lifted her fruitless fork. “I’m one minute from eating decorative foliage, and I will not apologize.”

Lloyd chuckled. “She’s done it before.”

“That was an edible arrangement,” Rae snapped back. “Which I later found out was notedible.”

Carter slid into the empty chair between Sage and Lloyd. Sage pushed a squished roll toward him like an offering.

“I saved you this one,” she whispered conspiratorially. “It’s the warmest.”

Carter felt something in his chest loosen. “Thanks, bug.”

Rae nudged a bowl of potatoes toward him. “Here. Eat. You look like a failed experiment.”

He huffed a weak laugh, lifting his fork — and a sharp pain shot through his shoulder. He winced before he could stop himself.

Beth noticed.

Her eyes narrowed, caught the subtle flinch, then flicked to Rip.

Rip caught the exchange.

The atmosphere shifted.

Rae launched into a story about a chaotic phone call earlier, trying to smooth the tension. Sage narrated her day with Lloyd, full of pony rides and grasshoppers. Beth nodded through all of it, sipping wine, gaze drifting back to Carter every few breaths.

Carter forced himself to move naturally, eat normally, breathe normally. But the pain pulsed under the skin like a heartbeat.

Rip called him out first.

“You get looked at?” he asked quietly, but the quiet made it worse.

Carter froze mid-chew. “Looked at?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Rip said. “Your face. Your shoulder. That hit on the concrete. Someone check you over?”

Carter straightened. “I said I was fine.”

“That ain’t what I asked.”

Rae set her fork down, sighing. “And here comes round two.”

Beth shot Rip a look meant to warn him. He didn’t blink.

Carter lowered his voice. “I can handle a fall.”

“You didn’t fall,” Rip corrected. “You were shoved. Hard.”

Sage paused with her fork halfway to her mouth, eyes wide.

Lloyd grunted. “That guard was a real piece of—”

“Lloyd,” Beth warned.

Rip kept his gaze locked on Carter. “You should’ve never been in reach for that to happen.”

Something sparked behind Carter’s eyes. “What was I supposed to do? Stay back at the ranch while you—”

“YES,” Rip snapped. “Exactly that.”

Beth inhaled sharply. Rae stiffened. Sage whimpered under her breath.

Carter stared at Rip, disbelief burning. “You expected me to just sit there while something was happening to Beth?”

It slipped out — her name, not a title, never a title — and Beth’s eyes flickered.

Rip leaned forward, elbows braced on the table. “I expected you to stay PUT. Because I knew damn well what we were walking into.”

“You could’ve been hurt!”

“So could you.”

“So were you!” Carter fired back.

Rip’s jaw tightened. “I can handle gettin’ hurt. You—”

“I can handle myself,” Carter said, voice cracking around the edges he tried to hold firm.

Rip’s voice dropped to a razor softness.

“No, you can’t. Not against men like that. Not with guns in your face.”

Sage swallowed, eyes glassy.

Carter’s voice dipped to something pained. “I didn’t run in thinking I was invincible. I ran in because I… I didn’t want anything happen to either of you.”

Rip froze.

Carter looked down at his hands, words barely above a whisper. “Didn’t want to lose… anybody.”

Rae’s breath caught. Beth’s hand tightened around her wineglass. Sage slid her small hand into Carter’s under the table.

Rip spoke after a long, taut moment — but softer, almost hoarse.

“Disobedience gets people killed,” he said. “You think you’re helpin’, but you’re makin’ me choose who to watch. And I can’t—”

His voice broke for the first time.

Carter’s head snapped up.

Rip shut his mouth tight, refusing to finish the thought.

Beth stared at him, something raw flickering across her face — a truth she recognized but rarely heard aloud.

The table went silent.

Heavy.

Charged.

Beth broke first.

“Well,” she said flatly, “this is one hell of a way to start dinner.”

Rip muttered, “He—”

Carter muttered, “He—”

“Don’t finish either of those sentences,” Beth cut in. “I am this close to throwing both of you outside.”

Rae sipped her wine delicately. “Honestly? Might improve the ambiance.”

Sage hugged Carter’s arm tightly. “You’re not reckless,” she whispered fiercely. “The bad man shoved you. That wasn’t your fault.”

Rip exhaled through his nose — not anger this time, but something closer to guilt.

Lloyd cleared his throat. “Well… if anybody wants my opinion—”

“No,” Beth said.

“Yes,” Sage said.

Lloyd smiled. “I think the boy’s heart’s in the right place. Just needs a little… refining.”

Rip glared. Lloyd shrugged.

Beth pinched the bridge of her nose. “Can we please eat like normal human beings for ten minutes?”

“Define normal,” Rae murmured.

Beth rolled her eyes. “Less yelling. More chewing.”

Slowly, painfully, cautiously, everyone returned to their plates.

Rip didn’t look at Carter again.

Carter didn’t look at Rip.

But both of them felt the space between them — stretched, bruised, bleeding with everything unsaid.

Sage kept humming under her breath.

Rae eased the conversation into calmer waters.

Lloyd pushed the mashed potatoes closer to Carter.

Beth kept glancing at Rip like she was memorizing the new fracture lines forming across him.

And Carter sat there, shoulder aching, cheek throbbing, heart loud in his chest — wondering if belonging to a family meant dealing with this kind of hurt.

Because if it did…

he wasn’t sure whether he fit here.

Or whether he was terrified of losing the chance to.

Rip stepped out onto the porch like a man walking away from a fight he hadn’t actually left.

The night pressed in around him — thick, warm, humming with crickets and the distant shuffle of cattle settling in the dark. The porch boards creaked under his boots as he crossed to the railing and braced his forearms on the worn wood. From here he could see the yard, the barns, the truck still parked where he’d left it. The same gravel Cole Hart’s men would’ve tracked if they’d come this far.

He stared at the dirt like it might talk back if he glared hard enough.

The scrape of the dining room chairs and clatter of dishes floated through the open window behind him. Voices blurred: Rae, Sage, Lloyd. Beth’s was sharper, cutting through the others as she directed the cleanup like a general after a skirmish.

He drew a slow breath. Let it out. It didn’t lighten anything.

The screen door eased open, hinges complaining softly. Beth stepped out, the glow from inside painting her in warm gold for a second before the door eased shut and left them both in the softer wash of the porch light.

She didn’t say anything at first. Just came to stand beside him, close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed. She smelled like wine and smoke and that expensive shampoo she pretended she didn’t care about.

“Needed air?” she asked eventually.

“Needed quiet,” he said.

She hummed. “You picked the wrong house for that.”

They stood together, eyes on the yard. The night made everything feel further away and closer at the same time — the barns, the fence line, the memory of Carter on his knees in front of a stranger’s gun.

Beth spoke again, lighter this time. “Rae says if you traumatize one more dinner, she’s bringing HR paperwork to the table next time.”

Rip’s mouth ticked. “We don’t have HR.”

“Exactly,” Beth said. “She’ll build it. In Excel. With color-coding. And you’ll hate every second of it.”

Silence settled again, but it wasn’t empty. It hummed between them like a live wire.

“You hit him hard,” Beth said finally, softer now.

“He scared the hell out of me,” Rip answered. The words came out before he could sand them down.

Beth shifted, angling toward him, studying his profile. “I know.”

“He was told to stay,” Rip went on, staring at the horizon. “Point-blank. Stay at the ranch. Keep his ass outta the way. And then I’m watchin’ some bastard shove him to the ground and put a barrel in his face.”

His fingers curled around the railing until his knuckles whitened. “That gun could’ve gone off. Could’ve slipped. Could’ve twitched. Could’ve—”

He cut himself off, jaw clenched.

Beth leaned her hip against the rail, facing him now. “So you yelled at him.”

“I didn’t know what else to do with it,” he said, voice rough. “All that… whatever it is.” He gestured vaguely at his chest, as if his ribs were too tight. “Fear. Anger. I don’t carry it good. Never learned to.”

She studied him, eyes softer than her voice. “You think he doesn’t know you were scared?”

“Don’t matter what he knows,” Rip muttered. “What matters is he can’t keep doin’ that. I’ve buried enough people I couldn’t stop from runnin’ into bullets. I’m not puttin’ another one in the ground because he wanted to prove somethin’.”

“He wasn’t trying to prove anything,” Beth said. “He was trying not to lose what he finally has.”

Rip flinched like she’d pressed a thumb into a fresh bruise.

Behind them, the murmur of kitchen sounds continued, faint through the door. Silverware clinking, Rae’s low voice, Sage’s lighter one hopping along like a tune.

Beth’s voice dropped. “You heard what he said. He didn’t want to lose me. Or you.”

Rip let his head dip, jaw tight. “I heard it.”

“You reacted like you didn’t.”

“I reacted like a man who saw a gun pointed at a kid he’s responsible for,” Rip said. “And I got no practice bein’ gentle when I’m scared, Beth. I got practice keepin’ people alive. That’s it.”

She watched him for a long quiet moment. The porch light cut shadows across the lines on his face, made him look older and younger all at once.

“You don’t have to be gentle,” she said. “You just can’t confuse the lesson.”

He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You made him think the problem was his love,” Beth said. “Not his judgment.”

Rip’s fingers flexed again, easing and tightening against the rail. “That ain’t what I meant.”

“Doesn’t matter what you meant,” she said softly. “It matters what he heard.”

He exhaled through his nose, a breath that was almost a laugh, almost a curse. “You always this clear after a fight?”

“I’m always this right after a fight,” she corrected.

Through the open door, a voice floated out, raised just enough to be heard.

“Hey,” Rae called from inside. “In case either of you two war generals care — the little munchkin knocked out mid-macaroni. She fell asleep right on Carter’s arm. I’ll carry her up and tuck her in.”

Beth didn’t turn. “No, let him. He’ll want to.”

Rae’s reply came with a smile in it. “All right. He’s on it then. Kid’s already half pillow.”

Footsteps padded across hardwood inside: Sage being lifted, Carter’s low murmur, Rae directing traffic without missing a beat. The domestic sounds threaded through the dark like a promise.

Beth blew out a slow breath. “He didn’t run off to lick his wounds, you know. He stayed. Helped clear. Let a ten-year-old drool on him.”

Rip’s mouth twitched. “She snores like a freight train.”

“You snore like a freight train,” Beth said.

“Don’t.”

“Do.”

Before Rip could argue, the screen door creaked again. Rae stepped out, closing it gently behind her. She carried a glass of wine in one hand and her phone in the other, the picture of someone who handled chaos for a living and still got her steps in.

“Well,” she said, taking them in with one sharp glance, “you two look like a painting titled ‘Marital Regret.’”

Beth snorted. “Shut up.”

Rip huffed. “Don’t you have spreadsheets to torture?”

“Tomorrow,” Rae said. “Tonight I’m here to harass your husband for free.”

She came to lean on the other side of the railing, creating a triangle of bodies and tension and history on the porch.

“Carter’s upstairs?” Beth asked.

“Yeah,” Rae said. “Sage conked out against him like a baby opossum five minutes into me telling her a story.” She smiled. “He didn’t move until I told him he was allowed.”

Rip looked at the yard. “That kid’d let wildfire crawl up his arm before he woke her.”

Rae lifted her eyebrow. “Yeah. Wonder where he learned that kind of loyalty.”

Rip didn’t rise to the bait.

Rae took a sip, then turned fully toward him. “You know, for a man who prides himself on reading animals, you’re real bad at reading your own people sometimes.”

He shot her a look. “You done?”

“Not yet,” she said. “You scared him half to death at that table.”

“He scared me first,” Rip replied.

“Sure,” Rae conceded. “But you’re the adult, cowboy.”

He bristled. “Don’t call me that.”

“Fine,” she said. “You’re the structurally unsound emotional authority figure. Better?”

Beth snorted into her glass.

Rae went on, gentler now. “He’s going to blow it sometimes. You know that. That boy came to you half feral. He doesn’t have instincts for staying put when danger screams.”

Rip stared out into the dark. “I don’t either.”

“No,” Rae said. “But you learned which way to run. He’s still picking a direction.”

Beth glanced at her friend, half irritated, half grateful. “You givin’ my husband advice now?”

“Someone has to,” Rae said. “You’re busy running the whole damn county.”

Rip let the words sit. He didn’t argue with them. The quiet acceptance of that carried more weight than any protest.

Rae tipped her wine toward Beth. “On that note, I’ll see you Monday. We’ve got that glorious circus at the county offices.”

“The hearing?” Beth asked.

“Yep,” Rae said. “More men in bad suits telling us how to use land they’ve never stepped on.” She looked back at Rip. “Try not to kill anyone before then. In the boardroom or at the dinner table.”

Rip’s lip quirked. “No promises.”

“That’s the problem,” she said. Then, softer, “Talk to him.”

She squeezed Beth’s shoulder on her way back to the door. “If he starts growlin’ again, text me. I’ll bring flashcards.”

The door clicked shut behind her, leaving Rip and Beth alone with the insects and the night again.

Beth let the silence stretch a moment.

“You know she’s right,” she said eventually.

“About what?” Rip asked.

“You’re terrified,” Beth said. “And you don’t know what to do with it except bite.”

He exhaled slowly, the fight draining from his shoulders. “What if I don’t know how to teach him how to live through this?” he asked. “I only know how to survive it. And barely that.”

“You show him anyway,” Beth said. “The best you can. The way someone once showed you. Badly. Painfully. Imperfectly. But it stuck.”

“The way you did?” he asked.

She shrugged one shoulder. “I shoved you toward the world and you didn’t fall off the edge. I’m calling that a win.”

The door opened again. Lloyd eased out, hat in hand like he hadn’t bothered to take it off all night.

“Evenin’ again,” he said, as if he hadn’t spent the last hour eating with them.

Beth nodded. “Lloyd.”

He stepped to the rail. “Figured I’d let you know the boy’s upstairs tucking Sage in. Kid’s got a good touch with her. She was out before I finished rinsin’ plates.”

Rip’s gaze stayed on the yard. “He sleepin’ in the big house tonight?”

“Nah.” Lloyd shook his head. “He told her he’d be in the bunkhouse like usual. She made him swear he’d say goodnight twice.”

“That sounds like her,” Beth said, smiling despite herself.

“I’m gonna go wander down that way,” Lloyd added, nodding toward the shadowed outline of the bunkhouse. “Make sure Colt didn’t burn the place down reheating beans.” He gave Rip a knowing look. “You got a window here. Don’t waste it.”

Then he tipped his hat in that old-fashioned courtesy and disappeared back into the dark.

Beth waited a beat, then touched Rip’s arm. “He’s not gonna be eighteen forever,” she said quietly. “He’s not gonna keep coming back to this porch forever, either. Talk to him while he still does.”

Rip didn’t answer.

She studied him, then softened. “I’m going to bed before I say something mushy.”

“You already did,” he murmured.

She ignored that, turned toward the door, then paused. “Oh,” she added, glancing back at him, “by the way? If you crack one more rim on that truck while you’re playing cowboy in the county parking lot, I’m taking your keys.”

He huffed. “You’ll have to catch me first.”

She stepped close enough to smack his chest lightly. “You’re not nearly as fast as you think you are.”

Then she rose on her toes and kissed him — quick, certain, like punctuation more than question. “Don’t be stupid,” she said against his mouth. “With him. Or with you.”

She pulled away, left him standing there with the taste of wine and steel on his lips, then disappeared inside, the door snicking closed behind her.

For a few quiet seconds, it was just Rip and the hum of the night again.

He heard the stairs creak inside, the muffled cadence of Carter’s voice, Sage’s sleepy murmur. Another door shutting gently. Footsteps heading toward the side entrance.

The porch boards groaned behind him.

Rip didn’t turn right away. “What do you want?” he asked.

There was a pause, then Carter’s voice, cautious. “Beth said you wanted to talk to me.”

Rip frowned. “She told you that?”

“Yeah.” Carter stepped up beside him, just inside the circle of porch light. Barefoot, joggers hanging low on his hips, a faint line from a pillow pressed against his cheek where Sage had been. Bare torso, bruises coming in now — yellow already forming under the scrape, purple shadowing his shoulder.

He looked older and younger both. Still a kid. Already a man.

Rip let out a breath. “For the record,” he said, “I didn’t send for you.”

Carter’s face flickered — hurt, confusion, something like embarrassment.

“But,” Rip added, before it could settle too deep, “she wasn’t wrong.”

Carter looked over, waiting.

Rip pushed off the railing and turned to face him fully. “I owe you… something.”

Carter tried for sarcasm, failed. “A less shitty dinner?”

A corner of Rip’s mouth twitched. “That. And an explanation.”

Carter glanced back toward the door, then out at the yard. “You don’t have to.”

“I know,” Rip said. “I’m gonna anyway.”

He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, searching for words that didn’t come easy. “You scared me today,” he said finally, plain and bare. “Not because you got knocked down. That… hell, that happens. But because that man put a gun in your face and I realized if that trigger twitched, I’d be buryin’ you beside a lot of other crosses I already see too clear when I close my eyes.”

Carter swallowed hard.

“And the whole time,” Rip went on, voice low, “all I could think about was the fact that you weren’t supposed to be there. You were supposed to be back here. Safe. Bored. Pissed at me from the porch instead of bleedin’ on the county concrete.”

Carter’s eyes burned. “I couldn’t just sit here.”

“I know,” Rip said. “That’s the problem. Your heart’s loud. Louder than your head. And I… I didn’t know how to shut that down without crushin’ both.”

Carter’s mouth twisted. “You did a pretty good job of crushing, for the record.”

“I know,” Rip repeated. “I went too far.”

He let that sit. Didn’t try to dodge it.

Carter looked at him carefully. “So which part was too far? Calling me reckless? Or saying I shouldn’t have been there at all?”

Rip considered. “You were reckless,” he said. “I’m not takin’ that back. You didn’t know what you were runnin’ into. You didn’t know who those men were workin’ for, what they’re willing to do. And that kind of blind runnin’… that’ll get you killed.”

He took a breath. “What I shouldn’t have done was make it sound like your wantin’ to protect us was the problem. That part—” he shook his head once “—that part ain’t wrong. That part’s the only reason I trust you at all.”

Carter blinked, thrown. “You… trust me?”

“In pieces,” Rip said. “In progress. Enough to leave Sage with you and not worry she’ll disappear. Enough to know you’d step between her and anything ugly without thinkin’. Enough to know if Beth needed you, you’d spend yourself tryin’ to get to her.”

Carter looked down. “I would.”

“I know,” Rip said quietly. “And I got no right to be mad at that part when it’s the same damn engine that’s been keepin’ me alive all these years.”

Wind pushed a curl of hair across Carter’s forehead. He shoved it back absently. “So what do you want from me?”

Rip’s answer was simple. “I want you to live long enough to see that heart of yours be useful instead of suicidal.”

He stepped closer, close enough that Carter had to tilt his chin up a fraction. “So here’s what I’m askin’,” Rip said. “When I tell you to stay, you stay. Not because I’m tryin’ to clip your wings. Because I can see ten moves ahead and you’re still learnin’ the board.”

Carter’s jaw worked. “And if I think you’re wrong?”

Rip’s eyes held his. “Then you ask me. You fight me with words. You don’t jump in the damn truck bed behind my back.”

A reluctant little breath left Carter that might’ve been a laugh. “You’re never gonna let that go, are you?”

“Nope,” Rip said.

They stood there a moment, something easing between them, if not fully healed yet.

Carter took his own breath. “Then I’ll try,” he said. “To listen. Even when I hate it. Even when I feel like I’m standin’ still while everything’s on fire. I’ll try.”

Rip studied him. “That’s all I can ask.”

“And what do I get?” Carter asked, half testing, half serious.

Rip didn’t hesitate. “You get me tryin’, too.”

Carter frowned. “At what?”

“At not treating you like you’re one bad decision away from bein’ a ghost,” Rip said. “At givin’ you room to be… what you are. Not a liability. Not some kid I’m stuck with. Just…” He searched for the right word, found the only one that fit. “…yours. And ours.”

Carter’s breath caught.

Rip pressed on before they both bolted from the weight of it. “I’ll be clearer. Less… hammer, more blueprint. I ain’t promisin’ soft. I don’t know how. But I can promise honest. And I can promise I won’t forget you’re tryin’.”

Carter nodded slowly. “Okay.”

Another silence — but softer now.

Rip jerked his chin toward the bunkhouse. “Go on. Before Lloyd thinks you eloped with Sage and starts writin’ a song about it.”

Carter huffed. “He really would.”

“He would,” Rip agreed. He reached out, hesitated only a second, then set his hand lightly on Carter’s good shoulder. Not heavy, not possessive. Just there.

“Good job with her tonight,” he said. “Sage. She trusts you.”

Carter looked at the hand, then up at him.

“Yeah?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Rip said. “Don’t make me regret sayin’ it.”

Carter’s smile this time was small, but real. “I’ll… see you in the mornin’.”

Rip nodded. “You will.”

Carter stepped off the porch, jogging lightly toward the bunkhouse, the night swallowing him by degrees.

Rip watched until the door opened and shut behind him, a rectangle of light briefly cutting the dark.

Only then did he let himself sag just a little against the rail, the weight of the day settling but no longer crushing.

Behind him, the house glowed — Beth inside somewhere, Rae’s papers stacked on the counter, Sage’s small shoes by the door.

Out there, somewhere beyond their fences, were men with guns and smiles and plans.

In here, at least for tonight, his people were breathing.

He’d take that.

For now.

The hallway light stretched across her carpet when the door opened, thinning into a pale gold stripe. Montana looked up from her bed, where she sat cross-legged, pretending to scroll through her phone like any normal girl winding down after a long day. But her thumb hadn’t moved in minutes.

Cole leaned against the doorframe, arms folded. Not angry. Not gentle. Just… watching her the way he watched everyone, assessing something she could never quite name.

“You doing okay, Monty?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“Long day,” he murmured, stepping inside. His boots thudded softly against the rug. “Those meetings drain the soul out of grown men. Can’t imagine what they do to a seventeen-year-old.”

Montana gave a half-smile. “Mostly made me want a nap.”

Cole huffed a quiet laugh — the rare, real kind that lived somewhere beneath his polished surfaces. He reached out and smoothed a curl behind her ear in a way that was almost tender.

“You handled yourself well today. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t fidget. Kept your head straight.” His thumb brushed her cheekbone, light as dust. “Shows discipline. Shows you’re paying attention.”

Her pulse hitched — not from pride, not from fear. From the weight behind the words.

Paying attention.

She forced a small shrug. “I just watched. That’s all.”

“That’s more than most people did.” He kissed the top of her hair — quick, almost perfunctory, but it still froze her for a second. “Get some sleep, sweetheart. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

She softened her face the way she’d learned to. “Night, Dad.”

“Night.”

He flicked off her overhead light.

The room dimmed into a soft gray.

The door clicked shut.

She sat perfectly still until she heard his steps disappear down the hall… past the study… past the landing.

Only when the house settled back into its night-thick quiet did she move.

Slowly, she reached under the sheet.

Her fingers closed around the folded paper she’d slid there the moment she got home. The edges were crisp; it hadn’t been there long enough to crease. She held it carefully as she pulled it into her lap, like it was something fragile or alive.

She hadn’t meant to steal it.

Not really.

It was just—

She’d seen her father react today.

Seen the anger, the calculation, the satisfaction he tried to cover with a polite smile.

Seen him talk about another family like they were cattle being moved off his land.

And then she saw that file left on the table.

And her hand just… moved.

She exhaled slowly and reached toward the lamp.

Click.

Warm light washed over the paper.

The header stared back at her:

Proposed Strategy:

WHEELER–DUTTON RANCH — Acquisition Notes

Her stomach tightened.

Not fear.

Not excitement.

Something in between — something like understanding dropping into place, cold and steady.

She traced a finger down the page, reading the first lines, jaw setting, expression barely shifting.

Quietly, almost to herself, she whispered:

“…what are you doing, Dad?”

The house hummed around her.

The night pressed close against her window.

And Montana Hart began reading.

Chapter Text

A Year and A Half Ago….

March heat didn’t care what the calendar said.

It pressed against the county building’s glass like a hand, making everything inside feel a little too bright, a little too stale. The air-conditioning worked in theory, not in practice. Paperwork smelled like sweat and old toner.

Beth hated the place on sight.

She walked through the sliding doors with Rae half a step behind her, tablet in one hand, the other wrapped around a coffee she’d forgotten to drink. They were here for a zoning appeal and a permit that an unimportant unnamed rival had slipped through a side door—nothing to do with kids, nothing to do with families.

At least, that’s what Beth told herself.

“Office is second floor,” Rae murmured, already scrolling. “Commissioner’s aide at ten sharp. That gives me eight minutes to get you calm enough not to commit a felony.”

“I am calm,” Beth said.

“You didn’t blink when you said that.”

“Because I am calm,” Beth repeated.

They crossed the lobby. Plastic chairs. Scuffed tiles. A framed poster about “family services” curling at the edges. Beth would’ve kept walking if Rae didn’t pause.

“You see that?” Rae asked under her breath.

Beth followed her gaze.

Off to the side, a small cluster of chairs had been arranged into an excuse for a waiting area. Toys spilled out of a cracked bin. A TV in the corner looped cartoons with the sound off. A social worker in flats flipped through a file with all the interest of someone choosing cereal.

On the floor, propped against the wall like she’d grown there, sat a girl.

Nine, maybe. Ten if the world had been hard. Thin shoulders. Fair skin. Curls pulled back into a ponytail that was trying to escape. A threadbare teddy bear tucked under one arm. A cheap, green backpack half-zipped at her feet. She didn’t fidget. Didn’t kick her heels. Just watched.

Her eyes moved the way Beth’s used to—tracking exits, reading faces, logging who looked angry, who looked bored, who might be dangerous.

Beth’s jaw tightened.

“Come on,” she told Rae. “We’re not here for that.”

They rode the elevator up. Rae briefed her on their rival’s little land-grab stunt, and Beth let the business slide into place over everything else. She knew how to fight that fight. Numbers, code, pressure points. Easy.

They gutted the commissioner’s aide in twenty minutes—politely, with teeth. By the time Beth was done, the man had agreed to “reconsider the language” on three key provisions, which meant that asshole would find out in a week his pretty loophole had been stapled shut.

On the way back down, though, Rae didn’t talk. She watched Beth’s reflection in the elevator doors.

“You’re doing that thing,” she said finally.

“What thing?”

“The thing where you already decided something and are now trying to out-argue yourself.”

Beth snorted. “You give me a lot of credit.”

“Not really,” Rae said. “You’re loud as hell, that’s all.”

The doors slid open into the lobby. The same hum. The same stale air.

The same girl.

Still in the corner. Still on the floor. This time she wasn’t watching the room. She was curled around the teddy bear, chin resting on its ragged head, eyes on a spot somewhere far past the wall.

The social worker had moved on. New file, same boredom. No one’s hand on the girl’s shoulder. No one leaning down to explain what “wait” meant, how long it would last, whether it would end.

Beth’s steps slowed.

“Don’t,” she told herself under her breath.

Rae followed her gaze again. “We gotta go,” she said softly. “If we hit traffic, you’ll be late to your own glorified ambush back at the ranch.”

Beth didn’t answer.

The girl flicked her eyes up.

For a second, they just looked at each other—Beth standing, power suit and boots and sharpness; the girl folded small on the floor, fear worn down into careful politeness.

Then the girl dropped her gaze fast, like she’d been caught staring at something that wasn’t hers.

Beth forced herself to turn away.

“Truck,” she said. “Now.”

The office they’d been in upstairs belonged to Land Use and Development.

The one they were in now had a different tone.

A poster on the wall screamed about “Every Child Deserves a Home” in bright primary colors. The blinds were crooked. The furniture ran in three styles: cheap, cheaper, and whatever they’d taken from a school that got new funding.

The woman behind the desk had lines around her mouth that didn’t come from laughing. She wore a cardigan that had seen better days and a badge that declared her: Angela Cortez – Placement Supervisor.

Beth sat, legs crossed, every inch of her body saying she didn’t want to be there.

“You got ten minutes,” she said.

Angela gave her a look that said she’d dealt with a lot of angry parents and none of them scared her as much as losing another kid in the system.

“First,” Angela said, “this isn’t technically my job.”

“Great. Start with confidence,” Beth muttered.

Rae shot her a warning glance and folded into the chair beside her, tablet balanced on her lap but off for once.

Angela laced her fingers together. “I wouldn’t be calling you in here if I had another option.”

“You always got another option,” Beth replied. “Might not be one you like. But there’s always one.”

“Not for her,” Angela said.

She nodded toward the window. From this office, if you craned your neck, you could just see the corner of the waiting area. That same small form on the floor, now hugging her knees.

Beth didn’t look.

“Her name’s Sage,” Angela went on. “Mother’s been in and out of inpatient treatment the last four years. Meth, pain pills, whatever she could get. Father died in a car accident last fall. She went into care in December right after the funeral.”

“How many placements?” Rae asked.

“Four,” Angela said. “Two emergency, two long-term that didn’t last.”

“Why not?” Beth asked, despite herself.

Angela’s jaw worked. “Because she’s ‘too much’ and ‘not enough,’ depending on who you ask. Too quiet, too clingy. Too upset about being moved. Acts out when she gets scared—nothing dangerous, just… throws things, shuts down, locks herself in a bathroom. These families want gratitude, not grief. Social worker notes are starting to use words I don’t like. ‘Unstable.’ ‘Defiant.’ You know what those mean at her age.”

Beth did. They meant file labels that stuck. They meant getting shunted from foster home to foster home until someone decided group care was easier. They meant aging out with nowhere to go.

“Why me?” Beth asked.

Angela leaned back. “Because you already did it once.”

Beth’s eyes cooled. “I don’t know what you think you know about my life, but—”

“I know enough to know that boy you’ve got out at that ranch was one signature away from being someone else’s problem,” Angela said quietly. “I know he came out of a situation that would’ve blackballed him from half the households in this county. Too old, too angry, too disruptive. And yet, somehow, he didn’t end up shipped off. Somehow, paperwork got nudged just enough that he stayed right where he wanted to be.”

Rae’s head tilted. “You’re saying you—?”

“I’m saying I colored outside a few lines,” Angela replied. “I let someone forget a report on a desk. I didn’t push a judge when a transfer got delayed. I told another family on paper that he’d been placed while I waited to see if you’d make it stick.” She met Beth’s eyes. “If Compliance ever audits that case, I am dead in the water. But the kid is not.”

The room felt smaller.

Beth’s throat went dry. “You trying to blackmail me with my own kid?”

“No,” Angela said. “I’m asking you to look at someone else who’s about to fall through the same cracks.”

“You bring Sage to me as payment for a favor, I walk out.” Beth’s voice was low, dangerous. “You dangle her like leverage, I burn this whole building down around your ears.”

Angela held up a hand. “That’s not what this is. I’m telling you what I’m willing to risk again. For her. I’m telling you I know how rare it is to find people who don’t flinch when a kid comes with a past.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t flinch,” Beth said.

“Maybe,” Angela allowed. “But you didn’t run.”

Beth looked down at her own hands. She saw Carter’s knuckles there, scraped from stupid fights he’d picked before he learned where to aim his anger.

“This isn’t a group home,” she said. “This is a working ranch. We got bulls heavier than trucks. Fences that kill if you don’t respect ‘em. The life we live chews grown men up. I’m not running a halfway house for broken kids. I have one. That’s the capacity.”

Angela’s mouth tightened. “And I’m not asking you to turn the place into a shelter. I’m asking you to consider one girl who, for some reason, has already attached herself to the idea of you.”

Beth blinked slowly. “What?”

“She caught a clip of you and your husband on TV back in January,” Angela said. “Some fundraiser at the rodeo. He hates cameras, you looked like you were about to buy the place and shut it down. She memorized your names. Brought you up twice in interviews. Told her last foster mom she’d picked out where she was going next. Dutton ranch in Texas.”

“That’s not what it’s called,” Beth muttered.

“Doesn’t matter,” Angela said. “In her head, it’s yours. With all the staggering confidence of a child who has no idea how the world actually works.”

“You know what you’re asking me to do?” Beth’s voice just barely shook. “You know what happens if I say yes and we screw this up? If we can’t keep her? If she doesn’t fit? You know what that would do to her?”

“I know exactly what it would do,” Angela said. “That’s why I’m not asking anyone else.”

Beside Beth, Rae shifted. Up until now she’d listened, jaw tight, eyes flickering between them. Now she spoke for the first time.

“What happens if we say no?” she asked.

Angela stared at the crooked blinds for a beat, then back at them. “She keeps bouncing,” she said. “Another temp home. Another. At her age, that usually ends one of two places—group care, or with whatever relative shows up first with a pulse. Sometimes that works. A lot of times it doesn’t.”

Beth looked at the window.

From this angle, she could see Sage better. The girl had turned onto her side on the waiting room floor, back to the wall, teddy bear pinned tight under her chin like it might slip away if she loosened her grip. Her sneakers were untied. One sock sagged around her ankle. Her eyes weren’t closed. Just half-lidded, stuck in that tired limbo between sleep and vigilance.

It hit Beth in a strange, sideways way—the way she’d found Carter years ago: hunched small against a world that had already moved on without him, pretending not to need anything.

“You said her mother’s on drugs?” Beth asked.

Angela nodded. “In treatment now, again. In and out of programs for years. Rights haven’t been terminated yet, but heading that way. Father is… gone.”

“How?”

“Overdose,” Angela said. “Officially tagged as accidental. Pills with whiskey. Probably wouldn’t matter to her either way.”

Beth’s jaw clenched at the mention of fathers gone and mothers who couldn’t show up.

Rae saw it.

“You okay?” she asked quietly.

“No,” Beth said. “I’m not.”

Angela watched her carefully. “I can’t force you,” she said. “If I could, she’d already be in your truck. I’m just—”

“Doing me a solid,” Beth cut in. “Right.”

Angela smiled faintly, humorless. “I’m all out of solids. This is just a shot in the dark.”

Beth stood. The scrape of her chair legs made a harsh sound on the floor. “Well, you took it. I hope you feel better.”

She headed for the door.

Outside the office, the corridor felt narrower. The buzz of old fluorescent lights crawled under her skin. She hit the corner that opened into the lobby and nearly stopped short.

Sage had moved closer to the toy bin. Not playing—just sitting arm’s length from it, as if proximity counted. Someone had left a stack of forms nearby. One had slid to the floor. The girl’s teddy bear had slumped over her knees.

She picked it up, carefully, and hugged it like someone might try to take it.

“Beth,” Rae said behind her.

“Don’t,” Beth said.

Rae stepped up beside her anyway.

They stood there for a moment, shoulder to shoulder, looking down at the little island of quiet in the chaos.

“She looks like she’s waiting to be told who she is,” Rae murmured. “Again.”

Beth swallowed.

The girl, sensing eyes on her, glanced up. She did the same thing she had earlier—assessed them both, decided something she didn’t say out loud, then dropped her gaze. The teddy bear’s ear went straight into her hand. Not mouth—she was too old for that—but fingers rubbing the fabric raw.

Rae’s voice stayed low. “Hey, partner.”

Beth’s eyes flicked over. “Don’t start with me.”

“You asked me to be honest when it counted,” Rae said. “I’m cashing that in.”

Beth stared straight ahead. “We don’t do kids. We do land. Deals. Exploits and clean-ups. You keep us on the right side of just barely legal. That’s our partnership.”

“So we’re gonna pretend you don’t wake up when that boy walks too quietly past your room?” Rae asked. “We’re gonna pretend you didn’t all but threaten to skin that judge a couple years ago when he hesitated on Carter’s placement?”

“That was different,” Beth snapped.

“How?” Rae’s tone didn’t sharpen. It softened, somehow, which made it worse. “Because he came first?”

“Because I wasn’t looking for him either,” Beth hissed. “He fell into my lap, and I already hate myself enough for how long it took me to admit he was mine. I don’t have room to have another thing I can fail at.”

They stood in that for a beat.

Rae let her fingers drum lightly on the tablet at her side. “You know what I see when I look at her?”

Beth didn’t answer.

“I see someone who already thinks the room she’s in is temporary,” Rae said. “Someone who’s learned how to pack fast.”

Beth closed her eyes for half a second.

“She already picked you,” Rae added. “You didn’t ask for that, but here we are.”

“I don’t even know if we can keep her,” Beth whispered, anger gone flat and thin. “Not legally. Not with what that woman is talking about. Not with—”

“I’m a fast learner,” Rae said. “You handle the politics. I’ll start making phone calls. You’re not walking into this alone if you don’t want to.”

Beth looked at her fully then. This was earlier in their story—before late-night drinks and shared curses and Rae telling her to shut up like only family could. Back when they were still technically just associates. Two women who’d figured out they could do more damage together than apart.

“Why do you even care?” Beth asked.

Rae’s gaze drifted back to Sage. “Because I spent three years in group homes before someone decided I was worth paperwork,” she said quietly. “Nobody fought for me like you did for that boy. If I can help you do that again, I’m going to.”

Beth stared at her.

“Just thought you should know what you’re saying no to,” Rae finished.

Beth let out a long, ragged breath. “I hate you.”

Rae smiled, small. “You’ll get used to it.”

Beth turned on her heel and went back down the hall.

She walked into Angela’s office without knocking.

The woman looked up, tired, surprised. “Changed your—”

“We meet her,” Beth said. “That’s it. We meet her, you don’t hang your hopes on anything else. I’m not promising. I’m not signing. I’m not pretending we’re ready for whatever her mess is.”

Angela nodded once. “That’s more than I had ten minutes ago.”

“And if you ever use my son to guilt me like that again,” Beth added, voice low, “I’ll make sure the last thing you ever see is a piece of paper with your own name crossed out on it.”

Angela didn’t flinch. “Fair enough.”

She stood. “Give me a minute.”

Beth went back to the window.

This close, she could hear Sage humming under her breath. Some tuneless, quiet thing. The teddy bear’s fur had been rubbed flat in spots. The girl’s shoelace was still untied.

Angela walked over, crouched beside her, and murmured something. Sage’s head turned. She listened, eyes darting to the hallway, then to Beth, then back.

She stood up, clutching the bear. She wasn’t tall. She wasn’t small. She was right at that age where adults stopped calling you “kiddo” and started expecting you to understand things they never explained.

Angela gestured. “Sage, this is Beth. She… helps people who don’t like being pushed around.”

Sage’s eyes met hers.

“Hi,” she said, quiet but direct.

Beth’s throat tightened in spite of herself.

“Hey, kid,” she said. “You got any idea what you’re doing here?”

Sage glanced at Angela, then back at Beth. Her fingers picked at a loose thread on the bear’s arm.

“They said they’re figuring it out,” she said. “Where I go. Who wants me.”

Beth felt the words like a fist.

Rae stepped up beside her, tablet hugged to her chest like a shield. “Sometimes people don’t know what they want until it’s standing right in front of them,” she said lightly.

Sage’s eyes flicked to her. “Is she your partner?” she asked Beth.

Beth almost laughed at the way Rae’s brows shot up. “In some things,” Beth said. “We’re… working that part out.”

“Oh,” Sage said.

The bear’s eye was missing a bit of stitching. She rubbed it absently.

“You like horses?” Beth asked, because it was the safest question she could think of.

“I like the idea of them,” Sage said. “Never met one.”

Rae’s mouth pulled to the side. “We know a few,” she offered.

Something small lit in Sage’s face at that. Not a smile. Not yet. But the idea of possibility shifted her posture, just a little.

“Alright,” Beth said, more to herself than anyone. “Let’s see what happens when the idea meets the real thing.”

She looked at Angela. “You get the paperwork started. Temporary placement. Nothing permanent. You screw us on this, I bring the building down on your head.”

Angela nodded. “I’ll take the risk.”

Beth looked back at the girl. “You got any bags?” she asked.

Sage lifted the green backpack at her feet. It sagged almost empty. “Just this. And him.” She hugged the teddy tighter.

“You’re coming to my house,” Beth said. “Not because you picked it off a damn TV, but because I decided to let you try it. You understand?”

Sage nodded, eyes huge.

“You don’t have to be good,” Beth added. “Just honest.”

The girl’s lip trembled for just a second, like no one had ever told her that before.

“Okay,” Sage whispered.

Rae exhaled, so quiet only Beth heard it.

“Let’s go then,” Beth said.

She turned, already pulling her phone out, thumb hovering over Rip’s name.

“Hey,” Rae said softly, falling into step beside her. “Partner.”

Beth glanced at her.

“You’re doing the right thing,” Rae said.

Beth swallowed hard. “We’ll see.”

They walked out together—two women who hadn’t yet learned they were building a family, and a girl who’d already decided she belonged to them—even if none of them had caught up to that truth yet.

The truck rolled up the drive in a low growl, tired from the miles and the heat and the weight of animals still lingering in its metal bones. Dust lifted in lazy swirls behind them, catching the last of the afternoon sun and turning the yard into something hazy and gold.

Carter slumped deeper into the passenger seat, boot nudging the empty Styrofoam cup between his feet.

“We should’ve got that red heifer,” he muttered. “The one with the blaze. You saw her hips.”

Rip cut the engine and sat there a second, fingers resting on the worn steering wheel. “She was over-priced,” he said. “You were starin’ at her like a teen boy at a county fair, not like a man about to put his money into her feed for the next five years.”

Carter huffed. “You asked my opinion.”

“I did,” Rip said. “Didn’t promise to take it.”

Carter smirked, turned his head toward the house—

—and the smirk vanished.

Someone was sitting on the front steps.

For a second, his brain refused to make sense of it. It had been a long damn day. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks. A feed sack. A pile of laundry Beth left out to dry.

Then the shape moved.

Small pair of knees. Skinny shins. Sneakers that looked like they’d come from the bottom of a church donation bin. A faded dress. Dark curls pulled back in a ponytail that had lost the battle hours ago.

And in the middle of all that, a teddy bear, clutched so tight its stitched smile looked strangled.

Carter blinked. “What the—”

“I see her,” Rip said quietly.

His voice had changed. Not loud, not sharp. Just dropped a shade lower, like his instincts shifted into a gear Carter didn’t understand.

They sat there a beat, both of them looking through the dusty windshield at the girl on their porch.

She sat just off to the side of the door, on the second step, back straight like some invisible teacher had told her not to slouch. She wasn’t crying. That somehow made it worse. Crying would mean she expected someone to come fix this. She just… waited. Eyes trained on the yard in a way that said she was used to scanning spaces she didn’t own.

Rip opened his door.

Gravel crunched under his boots. Carter scrambled to catch up, his joints stiff from the ride and the hours on metal bleachers.

“Rip,” he called. “You know her?”

“No,” Rip said.

“Then why’s she—”

“Don’t know that either.”

He took the steps slowly, not in that heavy looming way grown men did when they wanted to intimidate, but with that careful, coiled control that said he knew how big he looked and didn’t want to make it worse.

Up close, the girl was even smaller than she’d looked from the truck. Ten, maybe. Nine if the world had been real hard. Her socks didn’t match. A frayed backpack sat at her feet. One strap was ripped and clumsily tied back together.

Rip stopped two steps down from her and crouched, forearms on his thighs, hat brim tipping her into shadow.

“You lost, sweetheart?” he asked.

She lifted her head.

Her eyes were dark and enormous, shielded and assessing in the same second. They flicked past Rip, past his shoulders, taking inventory the way a kid does when they’ve had too many houses, too many strangers, not enough explanation.

Her mouth opened—

The front door flew open hard enough to bang the siding.

Beth stepped out, apron tied over a black tank, hair yanked into an impatient knot, flour dusted up one arm. She had a wooden spoon in one hand and the look of a woman who’d taken out her temper on dough and won.

“Well,” she drawled, taking in the tableau—Rip crouched, Carter hovering, girl stuck between worlds—“surprise. We got ourselves another baby.”

Carter’s jaw dropped. “Another—what?”

Rip’s head turned slowly toward her.

“Beth,” he said, voice too calm. “We can have a word?”

“Sure,” she said, cheerful in the way that meant she was anything but. “I’ve been dying for one.”

Rip jerked his chin at Carter without looking at him. “Stay with her.”

Carter’s brain scrabbled to catch all the pieces falling at once. “Who? With—what—her? Why is there a—”

“Carter.” Rip didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t have to. “You stay. You don’t move. You don’t say nothin’ you can’t unsay. We clear?”

Carter clamped his lips shut and nodded.

Beth had already stepped past Rip, letting the screen door slap shut behind her. Up close, Carter could see a smear of tomato on her apron and a stray piece of dough stuck to her wrist. Somehow that made this whole thing feel even more real.

She gave the girl a look that was half appraisal, half something softer, then cut a line with her eyes toward the corner of the house. “Come on,” she told Rip. “Before you rupture a vein in front of the child.”

They disappeared around the side.

The yard quieted.

Carter swallowed, suddenly far too aware of his own limbs. He’d never been so conscious of how loud his boots were, how tall he was, how much room he took up.

He shifted down a step so he wasn’t towering over her. Sat, elbows on his knees, angle mirroring Rip’s without meaning to.

They existed like that for a beat: him breathing too fast, her barely breathing at all.

“Uh,” he started brilliantly. “Hey.”

She didn’t look at him. Didn’t answer. The bear’s stitched face stared at the yard. Her fingers dug into its fur.

“I’m Carter,” he tried again. “This is… my ranch. I mean, not mine-mine, but I live here.”

Nothing.

Up close, he saw a fading bruise along her shin. A scab on one knee she’d picked half off. Someone had tried to braid a piece of her hair and given up halfway down.

“You got a name?” he asked.

Her chin dipped, then rose a fraction. “Yeah.”

That was it.

He huffed out something like a laugh. “Alright. Mysterious. Cool.”

Silence stretched between them. Somewhere in the barn, a horse stomped. The wind dragged through the cottonwood by the fence, loose leaves ticking like old paper.

Carter’s gaze dropped to the bear. One ear hung by a few threads. The fur around the neck was matted from too much grabbing. The kind of toy that’d soaked up more tears than most shirts.

He pointed, careful to keep his hand a good distance away. “What’s his name?”

Her whole body jerked.

Not big. Not theatrical. Just a tight little flinch, shoulders snapping up around her ears like she’d been hit there before.

Carter pulled his hand back like he’d touched a hot stove. “Hey—no. No, no, I’m not—” He halted, forced his voice softer. “I wasn’t gonna take him. I swear. I don’t mess with other people’s stuff. Learned that the hard way.”

Her fingers slowly loosened, just enough to stop grinding the stuffing flat.

He sat back, reassessing everything he thought he knew about kids—which wasn’t much.

“When I came here,” he said, eyes on the yard instead of her face, “I had this old backpack. Rip tried to throw it out once ‘cause it was falling apart. I almost… I almost hit him.” He huffed. “He kept it. Didn’t know why it mattered. Just knew it did.”

He didn’t know why he was telling her any of this. Maybe because he recognized that look on her face. The one that said all she owned could fit in one bag and still feel like too much to lose.

Behind the corner of the house, voices rose.

Beth’s, sharp and bright. Rip’s, low and solid.

“I walk in and there’s a kid on my damn porch—”

“You brought a kid to my damn porch—”

“You weren’t picking up your phone—”

“I was buyin’ cattle—”

“Do you ever listen to yourself?”

The girl’s breathing hitched. She angled her body toward the door, like she was bracing for someone to come storming out and tell her the mix-up was fixed, time to go, wrong house, wrong family.

Carter heard the fear in it. He remembered that, too.

“They fight all the time,” he said. “Like, all the time. They’d probably argue about how to screw in a lightbulb. It doesn’t mean anything. That’s just…” He shrugged. “That’s just them.”

She didn’t reply, but her hands stopped shaking.

He glanced sideways, caught a flicker of her eyes. They were glossy, not from tears—those hadn’t fallen—but from a tightness behind them, something held back so hard it hurt.

“You scared?” he asked, quietly.

She paused. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

His throat clenched.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me neither. First time.”

She shot him a quick, searching look at that. Like she was testing the edges of what he meant.

Behind the house, the argument dipped, then swelled again.

“You did this without me—”

“I’m not asking, I’m telling—”

“You didn’t even think about—”

“She’s been in four homes in three months, Rip—”

Carter could picture it: Beth standing with her hands planted on her hips, chin tilted, eyes sparking. Rip pacing a line into the dirt, hat off, hair flattened in that way it only got when he was furious and trying not to throw anything.

“You like horses?” Carter asked, because he didn’t know what else to fill the air with.

She blinked. “…Never met one.”

He whistled low. “Damn. You’re in for it then.”

That bought him the smallest curve at the corner of her mouth. Not a smile. Something close.

The argument cut off on a sentence. Not resolved. Just leashed.

A moment later, Rip came around the corner, stride tight, jaw locked. Beth walked beside him, apron smudged, expression unreadable. She stopped a step behind him at the bottom of the stairs. Rip paused midway up, like he’d hit an invisible line.

He looked at the girl. At her bear. At Carter sitting awkwardly beside her, shoulders bunched like he was waiting to be yelled at.

Something unreadable flickered across Rip’s face.

“Well,” he said finally, voice rough, “ain’t this a hell of a picture.”

He tipped his hat down, more to hide his eyes than from sun, and shouldered past Carter into the house.

Carter stared at his retreating back, something hot and ugly twisting in his chest. He didn’t know if it was anger. Confusion. Fear. All of it.

Beth stayed rooted at the bottom of the steps.

Her eyes moved from the girl to Carter. She took in his hunched shoulders, clenched jaw, hands balled into fists on his knees.

“You don’t get to say a goddamn word,” she told him calmly. “Not one. Not ’til I tell you you can.”

Carter bristled. “I didn’t—”

“Not one,” she repeated. “I mean it, baby. Not today.”

The “baby” should’ve softened it. It didn’t. It just reminded him he was being told what to feel by a woman who’d apparently decided to bring home a whole new problem without asking.

He stood abruptly. The girl flinched again at the movement.

“Great,” he muttered. “Awesome. Cool.”

He stepped around Beth, shoulder brushing her arm harder than it needed to, and disappeared inside after Rip.

Beth let him go.

She stood there a moment, staring at the doorway like it had personally offended her, then dragged in a slow breath and turned back to the girl.

The little thing looked smaller now that Carter’s taller shape wasn’t beside her. Alone again on the step, bear smashed to her ribs, her body angled half-toward the yard like she was getting herself ready—just in case someone came out and told her this was over, that it was a mistake, that she had to leave.

“Hey,” Beth said softly.

The girl looked up. Wariness flickered, then steadied.

“You’re not a mistake,” Beth told her, like it was an argument she’d already had with herself and won. “You hear me?”

The girl’s throat bobbed.

“Come inside,” Beth said. “We’ll figure the rest out after food.”

She held out a hand.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then the girl loosened one arm—just one—from the teddy bear, reached out carefully, and placed her small fingers in Beth’s.

Her grip was stronger than Beth expected.

“Good,” Beth murmured. “You hold on like that, you’ll survive anything.”

They climbed the steps together, the porch boards creaking under their combined weight. The bear’s sewn-on eyes stared at the yard as Sage crossed the threshold—still braced, still afraid, still not entirely convinced this wasn’t going to vanish.

But the door closed behind her, firm and sure.

And for the first time in a long time, the house held more than it had that morning.

Late April stretched long across the ranch, that brief window of Texas spring where the air was warm without being cruel. The sun slanted low enough to pour amber light through the bunkhouse windows, catching dust motes hanging lazily in the air like they had nowhere better to be.

Inside, Sage lay belly-down across the old bunkhouse couch, her pencil clutched in one hand, her workbook spread open beneath her. Her small feet kicked in an impatient rhythm, heels thudding lightly against the fabric. Her teddy bear sat upright beside her, patched arm barely hanging on, as if supervising the entire operation.

Carter sat at the small wooden table, slouched in a chair with his ankles crossed out in front of him, flipping through Sage’s homework pages with absolutely no conviction that he knew what he was reading. But Rip had told him to “help the kid,” and Carter took orders from Rip the way clouds took shape from the wind.

Sage groaned theatrically, dropping her forehead onto the page.

Carter didn’t look up.

“What now?”

“I don’t know why I gotta do school,” Sage muttered into the paper. “You never did.”

Carter’s head snapped up. “I did school!”

“You said you ‘kinda’ went,” Sage insisted, lifting her head and fixing him with big unimpressed eyes. “Which means you didn’t.”

Carter sputtered. “What—no—no, that’s not what that means. It means I went sometimes. And sometimes I didn’t. Big difference.”

Sage stared at him like he was explaining long division in ancient Greek.

He jabbed a finger at her workbook. “And anyway, aren’t I helping you? Huh? Aren’t I sitting here instead of—” he sniffed the air and narrowed his eyes toward the house— “instead of eating whatever Beth’s cooking that smells halfway decent?”

Sage blinked. “You’re barely helping.”

“Still helping though,” he fired back.

She crossed her arms tight over her chest. “I hate fractions.”

Carter leaned back, resting the back legs of his chair on two creaking points. “Everyone hates fractions. Even Jesus would’ve hated fractions.”

Sage wasn’t impressed. “I’m done.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I AM done.”

Before he could stop her, she slid off the couch with a soft plop, grabbed her bear by one limp arm, and marched toward the door with the confidence of a general abandoning a war she considered beneath her status.

“I’m finna go play.”

Carter squinted. “Who taught you that word?”

“Rae,” she said proudly. “She says it all the time.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she does.”

She yanked open the door—and paused, throwing one last threat over her shoulder:

“Don’t eat without me!”

The door slammed behind her hard enough to rattle the hinge.

Carter dropped forward onto the table, forehead thunking against the wood.

A laugh drifted from the back corner of the bunkhouse.

“You’re gettin’ bossed around by a nine-year-old,” Lloyd said, stepping into the light with a slow, amused shake of his head.

“She’s relentless,” Carter mumbled into the table.

Lloyd walked over, lowering himself into the chair across from him with the stiff creaking joints of a man who’d lived a life and then some. His weathered hands folded in front of him, elbows on the table.

“You alright, kid?”

Carter didn’t answer at first. His eyes stayed on the grain of the wood, tracing the scratches and knots as if they could distract him from the swirling confusion he didn’t want to admit was there.

“I’m fine,” he said finally.

Lloyd made a sound between a hum and a sigh. “That’s usually what people say when they ain’t fine.”

Carter sat up straighter, suddenly uncomfortable. Lloyd wasn’t supposed to be this perceptive. Not today.

Before Carter could respond, Sage’s laughter drifted into the bunkhouse from outside—the wild, unguarded kind that only came out when she forgot to be afraid. He watched the doorway as her footsteps pattered across the yard, her voice bright as she called something to Rip near the barn.

His chest tightened.

Lloyd followed his gaze and exhaled through his nose. “Mhm. There it is.”

“There what is?” Carter said defensively.

“That look,” Lloyd murmured. “The one you get when somethin’ feels like it’s slippin’ and you ain’t sure how to grab hold of it.”

Carter stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lloyd didn’t press. He didn’t need to.

Before Carter could escape the conversation, a pair of voices drifted in from the open bunkhouse window—the kind of urgent, hushed voices people use when they think no one else is within earshot.

Beth’s voice first—sharp, furious, breaking on the edges:

“They’re coming next week, Rip. They want to put her back with her mother—at least do a damn evaluation.”

Rip’s voice came next, low and dangerous:

“She ain’t ready. Her mama ain’t ready. Hell, the whole damn thing ain’t ready. I’m not lettin’ them take her.”

Carter went utterly still.

Beth’s voice again, softer now, pained:

“Rip… we can’t stop them. Not like this.”

“We can fight it,” Rip insisted.

“With what?” Beth snapped. “With what? We can’t adopt her on a whim. And what does that look like to Carter, huh? We never—”

The sentence broke off. Like it hurt too much to say out loud.

Carter’s world tilted.

He didn’t hear the next words. Not clearly. His brain roared around them like a storm rolling through a canyon.

He only caught fragments:

“…not official…”

“…never filed…”

“…not fair to him…”

“…she needs someone…”

“…Rip, don’t do this to him…”

Carter pushed back from the table so suddenly his chair scraped loud across the wood.

His chest constricted like someone had cinched a rope under his ribs.

Lloyd straightened, concern flashing in his eyes. “Carter?”

Carter shook his head hard. “No. No. It—whatever. Doesn’t matter.”

“Kid—”

Carter shoved to his feet. “I gotta go.”

“Carter—”

But the boy was already halfway out the door, shoulders stiff, breath sharp, eyes burning with something he didn’t want anyone to see.

Lloyd stood slowly, watching him walk across the yard toward the main house, toward anywhere he could hide before the weight of what he’d heard crushed him.

When Sage’s small shadow darted past Carter’s path—running toward Rip with her bear flailing behind her—Carter veered away, avoiding both of them entirely.

Lloyd watched it all with a long, aching exhale.

The spring air moved through the bunkhouse, warm and soft and heavy with change.

And Lloyd murmured to the empty room:

“Lord help us… this family’s gonna break and rebuild itself a thousand times before summer.”

Mother’s Day on the ranch arrived wrapped in a kind of soft sunlight that should’ve felt peaceful. The morning glowed over the fences like warm honey. The breeze was gentle. Even the cattle moved slow, like the earth was trying to offer mercy.

But inside the Wheeler-Dutton household?

Mercy had been absent for weeks.

Carter came storming out of the back door just before noon, the screen slamming behind him with a crack that made Beth close her eyes on the porch for half a beat.

Rip stood in the yard, hands on his hips, watching the boy stalk across the gravel like he meant to grind every stone underfoot.

Rip muttered beneath his breath, “Here we go…”

He didn’t raise his voice yet. He just called out, “Hey.”

Nothing.

“HEY.” A little louder this time.

Carter didn’t stop.

“Boy,” Rip warned. “You slam that door again, and I’ll make you rehang the damn thing.”

Carter tossed back a flat, hollow, “Whatever,” without turning around.

That was it. That was the moment Rip’s patience finally cracked clean through.

He started toward Carter with long, heavy strides — the kind that warned anyone with sense to step aside.

Beth took one long sip of her coffee and sighed. “Rip. Don’t.”

Rip didn’t stop. “No, ma’am. I’m done whisperin’. It’s Mother’s Day and he can’t even look at you. I ain’t lettin’ it slide.”

Beth flinched inside in the smallest, quietest way — because she’d felt the absence too. Carter keeping distance. Carter keeping quiet. Carter barely meeting her eyes all morning.

But she still said softly, “Let him be.”

Rip swung around, incredulous. “Let him—? Beth, he ain’t even said Happy Mother’s Day to you. He hasn’t said a damn word.”

Carter froze at the fence line.

Rip took that as his cue and kept going, voice sharpened with frustration. “What kind of man can’t walk ten feet to say somethin’ decent to the woman who’s fed him for years?”

Carter turned slowly.

Oh, this wasn’t going to be a conversation.

This was going to be an explosion.

“Rip,” Beth murmured, but Rip couldn’t hear softness anymore.

“You got a mouth on you every other day,” Rip said, voice rising. “But the one day — the ONE DAY — meant for her? Nothin’. Not a card. Not a word. Not even a ‘hey Beth, thanks for raisin’ my ass.’”

Carter blinked, expression blank, almost eerie.

Beth exhaled, heart thumping hard now, because she saw it before Rip did:

The boy was shutting down or about to blow open.

Carter stepped closer, slowly, like gravity had him by the throat.

“You wanna know why I didn’t say anything?” Carter asked, voice low, stretched thin.

Rip folded his arms. “Enlighten me.”

Carter inhaled through his nose — a sharp, quick, painful breath.

AND THEN HE DETONATED.

“BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE A MOTHER!”

The words tore out of him like something ripped loose inside.

Beth’s mug slipped in her hand.

Rip’s brows jerked upward.

Carter didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

“My mom is DEAD!” Carter yelled. “Gone! Just like my dad! Just like everyone else who ever gave a damn about me!”

His face crumpled — not crying yet, but on the edge.

“And every damn year,” he said quieter, shakier, “Mother’s Day reminds me that I don’t have one.”

Beth’s heart shattered in silence.

Her fingers trembled around the mug.

Rip’s entire posture changed — chest softening, eyes sharpening with something like regret.

But Carter wasn’t finished.

“And then Sage shows up,” he said, his voice breaking in the middle of her name, “and she gets everything I never had. She gets a house before I did. She gets attention I never got. She gets you,” he jabbed a finger at Rip, “lookin’ at her like she’s your whole world.”

Rip’s throat tightened. “That ain’t—”

“And she gets Beth,” he snapped toward the porch. “Because Beth is good at pretendin’ she doesn’t care but she CARES. And I see it. I see the way she looks at that kid. Like she’s scared she’ll break.”

Beth’s breath hitched. She hid it behind her hand.

It didn’t work.

“And you wanna know the truth?” Carter whispered. “It hurts. It hurts ‘cause she doesn’t look at me that way anymore.”

Rip stepped toward him. “Carter—”

“NO,” Carter barked. “NOT DONE.”

Rip froze.

And then Sage appeared.

A little tornado of curls and bare feet and sunlight, holding a piece of paper with both hands like it was fragile treasure.

“Carter!” Sage chirped. “Look what I—”

She stopped at the sight of their faces.

The drawing fluttered in her hand — a big wobbly western sunset, five stick figures in front of a barn.

Beth with hair like a gold explosion.

Rip with a big black rectangle for a hat.

Carter tall and skinny.

Sage small, holding someone’s hand.

And Lloyd — big smile, wrinkly lines.

Across the top: MY FAMILY

Rip swallowed hard.

Carter stared at it like it punched him in the chest.

Beth covered her mouth, eyes wet.

Sage looked confused, then anxious, then heartbroken.

“I made it for Mother’s Day,” she whispered. “I made it for Beth. And for everybody.”

She walked toward Beth first — timid, sweet, hopeful — holding the drawing up like an offering.

Beth crouched down, blinking fast, taking the paper with the softest touch she’d used in years.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she said, voice thick. “It’s… it’s beautiful.”

Sage’s shoulders relaxed — just an inch — before she turned to Rip, beaming.

“I made you real tall,” she giggled. “Because you’re real tall.”

Rip cracked the smallest smile he’d shown all day.

Then Sage turned to Carter.

“I put you in the middle,” she said shyly. “’Cause that’s where you belong.”

Carter broke.

Just for a second — chest collapsing, eyes wet, breath gone.

Rip saw it.

And Rip said quietly, like he was speaking the truth Carter refused to see:

“See.”

Just that.

See.

But the universe wasn’t finished kicking them.

A white CPS SUV turned off the road and into the drive.

The gravel crunch sounded like a gunshot.

Sage froze.

Beth straightened in an instant.

Rip’s face drained of color.

Carter’s stomach dropped through the earth.

Angela stepped out, clipboard in hand, the younger worker behind her.

“We’re here regarding Sage.”

Sage immediately ran behind Rip’s leg, gripping the back of his jeans with both hands.

Angela cleared her throat. “We’ve been ordered to place her back into the system. She needs to collect her belongings.”

Sage whimpered — then wailed.

Not loud.

Not tantrum-loud.

It was the kind of cry that lived in the bones of a child who’d been abandoned too many times.

“No,” she sobbed, arms wrapping tight around Rip’s waist. “No, no, no—I wanna stay. I wanna stay HERE.”

Rip instinctively cupped her head, pulling her against him.

The younger CPS worker stepped forward. “Ma’am, sir, she has to—”

Beth cut in, voice sharp enough to slice the air. “Why the hell is she going to the system and not back to her mother?”

The worker looked down at his notes.

And that hesitation said everything.

“Her mother overdosed last night,” he said softly.

The world snapped open and hollow.

Beth staggered back half a step.

Rip froze like his blood turned to ice.

Sage went silent — trembling so hard her little body shook against Rip.

Carter felt something inside him rupture — like a wound he’d stitched shut years ago tore clean open.

He dropped to a crouch, heart hammering.

“Sage,” he whispered. “Sweetheart. Hey. Look at me.”

She didn’t.

He gently brushed her arm. “Sage… I know what that feels like.”

Her head lifted a fraction.

“I know what it feels like to lose your mama and your daddy,” Carter said, voice breaking in places he hated. “I know what it’s like to think you’re gonna be alone forever. I know every piece of what that feels like.”

Tears streamed down Sage’s cheeks.

“And nobody — NOBODY — is takin’ you from this ranch,” Carter said, standing up slowly. “Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

Angela stiffened. “Young man—”

Carter stepped forward, eyes blazing through tears.

“You’re leaving,” he said. “Right now.”

“Carter—” Beth warned, but softly, lovingly.

“No,” Carter said, voice shaking. “She’s not leaving with you. If you try, you’re gonna meet every single one of us in your way.”

The younger worker paled.

Angela opened her mouth—

But Beth beat her to it.

Beth walked forward, shoulders squared, Sage’s drawing still clutched to her chest like a vow.

Her voice was low. Deadly calm.

“We’ll take her.”

Angela blinked. “Mrs. Dutton—”

Beth’s eyes narrowed. “I said”—

a beat —

“we’ll take her.”

Rip held Sage tighter.

Carter wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, breath unsteady but solid.

Lloyd murmured, voice thick:

“Well. That settles that.”

And it did.

Right there.

On Mother’s Day.

Where a family was tested — and rebuilt in one explosive moment.

June 9th came in hot.

Not the kind of heat that knocked you flat yet—that was July’s job—but the kind that settled on your shoulders and reminded you that spring was officially dead and gone. The sky over the ranch was a hard, clean blue. The dust on the drive already wanted to rise.

Carter stood by the truck in a shirt Beth said made him look “almost respectable” and jeans that hadn’t seen actual work in at least twenty-four hours. Seventeen today. He didn’t feel older. Just taller and more aware of how big his boots sounded on the courthouse floor they were about to walk across.

Beth shut the front door behind her and came down the steps, heels ticking on wood. She’d put on a dark dress and a blazer that made her look like she’d come to sue God and win. Rip followed in a pressed shirt with his good hat, looking like he’d lost an argument about tying his tie.

Sage came last.

Nine years old, curls tamed as best Rae could manage, wearing a simple yellow dress Beth and Rae picked out together. She held her teddy bear by the arm, the bear wearing a crooked bow like he’d been forced into formal wear too.

“Okay,” Beth said, pausing in the yard, scanning all of them. “Everybody got their heads screwed on tight?”

Rip snorted. “Define tight.”

Beth shot him a look, then turned to Carter.

She studied him longer than she meant to—much taller now, shoulders broader, jaw stronger. Seventeen. Somehow he’d gotten there while she was busy fighting the rest of the world.

“Hey,” she said, voice dropping. “Before we go in there…”

He shifted, pretending to adjust his belt. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry it fell on today,” she said. No preamble, no sugar. Just the truth. “They gave us one date. I tried to move it. Couldn’t. I know it’s your birthday. I know this could… feel like it’s eclipsing that.”

Carter blinked at her, then looked away toward the road. For a second, she braced for the shrug, the “it’s whatever.”

Instead, he huffed out a small breath. “Beth… it’s fine.”

“Fine,” she repeated slowly, testing the word.

He nodded, eyes lower now, voice honest. “No, I mean it. If something good’s gonna happen on my birthday for once, I’d rather it be this. I’d rather her be safe. That’s… that’s a good thing to share a day with.”

It hit her harder than she expected.

For a moment, Beth couldn’t speak. She just reached up, smoothed a wrinkle out of his collar that didn’t need smoothing.

“Okay,” she said, voice softer. “Good. ’Cause this is happenin’ no matter what you say.”

He smiled, crooked. “There she is.”

Sage edged closer to Carter, bumping his arm with her shoulder. “So… we birthday buddies now?” she asked. “Adoption buddies?”

He glanced down at her. “Guess so. You’re stealin’ half my thunder, kid.”

She grinned, gap-toothed. “You can have the candles. I just want the last fry.”

“You always want the last fry,” he said.

“That’s ‘cause I’m the youngest,” she said with the absolute authority of someone who’d decided so.

From the porch, Lloyd called, “You all gonna stand there philosophizin’ or you gonna get to that courthouse before they close up and change their minds?”

“On it,” Beth called back.

They piled into the truck. Rip drove, big hands steady on the wheel. Beth rode shotgun, one leg crossed over the other, files on her lap. Sage and Carter squeezed into the back, Sage leaning her head briefly against his arm like if she didn’t touch someone, she might float away.

The county courthouse in town was the same ugly concrete box it had always been, no matter how many flags they stuck outside to disguise it. Inside, the AC was overcompensating. The air smelled like old paper and too much coffee.

They sat on a bench outside a small courtroom with a number on the door and no soul behind it. Sage’s legs swung anxiously. Her bear wore his bow like a noose.

Rip shifted beside her. “You nervous?” he asked.

She nodded.

“You scared they’re gonna say no?” he pressed gently.

She nodded again.

He leaned down, resting his forearms on his knees. “Look at me.”

She did.

“They ain’t sayin’ no,” he said. “You understand? This is a formality. That means it’s already decided. This is just paper catchin’ up.”

“Paper’s slow,” she muttered.

“Yeah,” he said. “World’s full of slow paper and fast bullshit. But today? Today paper’s on our side.”

Beth eyed him. “You rehearsed that?”

“Nope,” he said. “Came with the tie.”

Carter snorted.

The bailiff opened the door. “Dutton?”

Beth’s hand twitched at her side. She stood, smoothed her jacket. “That’s us.”

Inside, the courtroom was smaller than the kind you see in movies. No jury box, just a raised bench, a few rows of wooden pews, a state seal on the wall that had seen better polish. Judge Harper sat up front—late fifties, gray hair, the flat stare of a man who’d heard every kind of lie.

Angela was there, too, on the side, arms folded over a thin folder. For once, her face didn’t look tired. It looked… hopeful.

They all took their places. Sage sat between Beth and Rip at the little table, feet nowhere near touching the floor. Carter sat just behind them with Lloyd and Rae.

The hearing was short by legal standards and long by Sage’s.

Questions. Confirmations. Dates. References to her mother’s death. Words like “terminated parental rights” and “best interests of the child.”

Sage didn’t understand all of it. She understood enough.

She understood when the judge asked, “And is this what you want, Sage?”

Her voice shook, but it was clear. “Yes, sir.”

“You understand this means Beth and Rip will be your legal parents,” he continued. “Same as if you’d been born to them. Same rights. Same responsibilities. Same headaches.”

A tiny smile flickered.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I want that.”

Judge Harper shifted his gaze to Rip. “Mr. Wheeler, you understand what you’re signing up for here?”

“Yes, sir,” Rip said. “Too late to scare me off.”

“Mrs. Dutton?”

“He’s not half as scary as I am,” Beth said. “We’re ready.”

The judge’s mouth tugged, almost a smile. “I don’t doubt it.”

He shuffled the papers, pulled out a pen, and then, like he was reading a sentence that might rewrite the world, said:

“From this day forward, the court recognizes Sage… Dutton-Wheeler as the lawful daughter of Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler.”

Sage’s breath hitched.

For a moment, Beth thought she might burst apart right there on the bench.

Then Sage threw her arms around Beth’s waist and clung tight. Beth, who did not cry in front of government employees as a rule, fought down the sting in her eyes and hugged her back, one hand cradling the back of the girl’s head.

Rip cleared his throat like something was lodged there. His hand covered both of them, big and rough and steady.

Behind them, Carter swallowed hard.

Something unclenched in his chest he didn’t know he’d been holding since the day she sat on their porch with that bear in her arms.

This was it. No more “if.” No more “maybe.” No more “temporary placement” or “we’ll see.”

She was his family. On paper now, not just in his heart.

When the judge banged the gavel, it wasn’t dramatic. It was almost gentle.

But it sounded like a door locking on the right side for once.

That night back at the ranch, the yard glowed with string lights Rae had bullied Rip into letting her hang up between the porch and the fence. The smell of grilled steak and corn drifted through the air. Someone had put on old country music low on the radio; no one had claimed responsibility.

There was a cake on the table—chocolate, frosted crooked—with “HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARTER / HAPPY GOTCHA DAY SAGE” squeezed on top in icing that tried its best.

Sage loved it immediately.

“It’s so ugly,” she breathed. “I love it.”

“Language,” Rae said, laughing. “It’s rustic.”

They’d already done the adoption paperwork toast—Rae pretending to clink soda cans like champagne, Lloyd saying something quiet and meaningful that made Beth pretend she had dust in her eye.

Now it was time for the other part of the day.

Carter’s part.

Seventeen candles flickered on the cake, heat gathering in a soft glow. Sage insisted on crowding right next to him at the table, elbows knocking his.

“You ready, old man?” Rae teased.

“Shut up,” he grinned.

Beth lit the last candle, stepping back. “Alright. Make a wish.”

Carter looked around the table—Beth, hair falling from her braid; Rip, tired but softer than most days; Sage, practically vibrating; Rae, smirking; Lloyd, smiling like his heart was full; even Angela had stayed for the food, hovering near the back with a plate in her hand, looking like she’d wandered into someone else’s happiness by accident.

He thought about what he’d wish for if he didn’t already have too much of it.

He inhaled and blew all seventeen candles out in one long breath.

Sage whooped like he’d just won a rodeo. “He did it! That means it’s real.”

“That what that means?” Rip asked.

“That’s the rule,” she said.

“Who made that rule?”

“Me.”

“Fits,” he muttered.

Presents came after.

Beth reached under the table, pulled out a box wrapped in paper that looked like it had been through a minor war.

“From me,” she said, sliding it toward him.

Carter tore it open in that half-reluctant, half-hungry way teen boys do.

Inside was a leather jacket—dark, broken-in but not worn-out, lined for warmth, sturdy.

He ran a hand over it, fingers catching on the stitching. “Is this…?”

“It was mine,” Beth said. “Back before this place and long before you. I wore it every time I thought I might break something I couldn’t un-break. Figured you probably got a few of those days ahead of you. Better it catches it than you.”

He swallowed hard. “Beth…”

“You don’t gotta say it fits,” she said quickly. “You just gotta wear it when you’re trying not to do something stupid.”

He laughed, choked. “So… every day.”

“Exactly.”

Rip cleared his throat. “Alright. My turn.”

He dug in his pocket and tossed something toward Carter.

Keys.

They landed in his palm with a soft jingle.

Carter stared at them.

For half a second, the world shrank to that small pile of metal and promise.

“No way,” he breathed. “No… way.”

He looked up, eyes wide. “You got me a truck?”

Beth smirked into her drink.

Rae bit her lip, trying not to laugh.

Sage clapped. “You got a truck?!”

Rip took his time.

“Nope,” he said.

The silence that followed was so absolute you could hear the wind change direction.

Carter blinked. “What?”

Rip tipped his chin toward the barn. “Those are the keys to the south feed shed, the ammo locker, and the new gate locks. Means if I ain’t here, you’re the one in charge. You’re responsible. Food, stock, security. Whole stretch of this place is yours now, officially. Foreman-in-training.”

Sage snorted a laugh she couldn’t hold in.

Rae cackled. “Oh, his face—”

Beth’s lips curved. “You really thought we’d buy you a truck before we finished payin’ off the last one Hart’s bull destroyed?”

Carter stared at the keys. At Rip. Back at the keys.

“That’s not funny,” he muttered. “You can’t toss a man keys on his birthday and not expect him to think—”

“Hey,” Rip cut in, grin edging his mouth. “Look again.”

He nodded toward the table. There, half-hidden under napkins, sat a small black fob—the kind that didn’t belong to any shed.

Carter’s heart kicked. “What’s that?”

“That,” Beth said, plucking it up and tossing it toward him, “is for the beat-up, ugly-as-sin ranch truck you’ve been beggin’ to drive without me in it. Don’t get excited—it’s still mine on paper. But it’s yours in practice. You bend it, you fix it.”

Carter caught it, stunned.

“You’re serious?”

Rip nodded once. “You’re seventeen. You’ve been driving it anyway. This just means we’re acknowledging reality. And trusting you not to put Sage through any fences.”

Sage gasped. “I get rides?”

“No,” three adult voices said at once.

She crossed her arms. “Rude.”

Carter looked down at the keys in his hands—shed, locks, truck. Responsibility. Trust. Weight.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

Beth looked at him for a long moment.

“You know, some kids get cake and socks,” she muttered. “You get legal guardianship of a little sister and half a ranch to worry about. You’re welcome.”

He laughed, a full sound this time.

Sage leaned her head on his arm, exhausted from the day and sugar and feelings. “Hey, Carter?”

“Yeah?”

“Best birthday?”

He looked around again—the lights, the cake with messy icing, Beth watching him like she’d memorized his face, Rip leaning back in his chair like his bones finally loosened, Lloyd content, Rae buzzing, Sage warm against him.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Best birthday.”

Out past the string lights, the pasture rolled into darkness, the kind that held things rather than swallowed them.

And somewhere in that soft summer night, the future—the older, harder version of him who’d stand in this same yard at eighteen, facing new storms—took note of this exact moment.

The day the papers caught up.

The day his sister got her name.

The day his keys stopped meaning “you can leave” and started meaning “you belong here.”

The last day, for a long time, that felt this simple.

Present Day…

Evening settled over the ranch in a slow, honey-gold fade. The sun slipped low behind the cottonwoods, stretching long shadows across the yard where Sage chased dust motes with a stick, humming some tune she never finished. The air was warm, easy, harmless.

For a moment, it felt like a peaceful Texas night.

Then Beth’s voice drifted from the porch — faint, distracted — speaking with Rae about paperwork spread across the table. Rip was somewhere near the barn finishing up with a loose latch Carter forgot to tighten. Carter himself was just stepping out of the bunkhouse, rubbing the back of his neck, thinking about dinner.

No warning.

No shift in the wind.

No sound of a truck approaching.

Just a man’s silhouette suddenly appearing near the horse shed, framed by dying sunlight. Crouched. Low. Too close.

Talking to Sage.

Carter froze.

Sage’s humming stopped.

The man’s voice was gentle, almost bright. “Hey there. You lost, sweetheart?”

It should’ve sounded kind.

It didn’t.

Not to Sage.

She stiffened. Her fingers curled around her stick like it was something that could save her. She took half a step backward.

The man eased closer, balanced on his heels, smiling like he was doing her a favor. “Easy. I just wanna talk. You look familiar.”

From across the yard, Rip turned — casual, at first. Then his eyes locked on the scene. A stranger. Crouched. Talking to HIS girl.

Everything in him went red.

“Sage!”

His voice cracked the evening in half.

Sage jerked around. Her stick dropped. Her breath hitched.

Rip ran.

Not a jog, not a stride — a full sprint that kicked up dirt and sent birds scattering out of the trees. His boots thundered against the ground.

“Get back!” he yelled. “SAGE, GET BACK!”

Carter’s legs moved before his brain did. He bolted toward her, heart slamming against his ribs. The man straightened slowly as they came, like he had all the time in the goddamn world.

Sage backed away from the stranger — trembling, wide-eyed — until her back hit something solid.

Carter.

He yanked her behind him in one motion. She clung to the back of his shirt, tiny fists gripping the fabric like she could vanish inside him.

“It’s okay,” he muttered, breathless, though nothing felt okay. “I got you. Stay behind me.”

Rip reached them seconds later and planted himself between his kids and the intruder. He was trembling with rage. The kind of trembling that came from a man ready to kill and bury the body before breathing again.

“You,” Rip growled, teeth bared. “Stay the hell off my ranch.”

The stranger didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Didn’t show even a ripple of fear.

He just smiled — slow, thin, deliberate.

“Afternoon, Rip Wheeler,” the man said. “It’s been a while.”

Rip’s blood went colder than stone. “Hart.”

Carter blinked, finally seeing the man’s face. Cole Hart. The man Beth had faced down at the civic hall. The man who started this.

Beth was already storming from the porch, Rae at her heels, both of them sprinting full speed. But Rip never took his eyes off the intruder.

“I said get off my land,” Rip warned. “Now.”

Cole Hart dusted off his knees like Rip had interrupted something casual. “Relax, Wheeler. I was just talking to the little one.”

Rip stepped forward so violently Carter felt Sage flinch behind him. “You don’t talk to her. You don’t LOOK at her. You don’t breathe in her direction.”

Cole lifted a brow. “Funny. You always did guard what wasn’t yours.”

Carter’s jaw tightened. Beth sucked in a sharp breath behind them but kept her stride even.

Cole clicked his tongue. “So you got yourself a daughter now? That how this works? Take in strays, glue ‘em to your hip, call it family?”

Rip didn’t blink. “She’s mine.”

Cole’s smile widened. “Is she?” He crouches slightly, studying Sage behind Carter. “Ah… so that’s the ember.” He stood straighter, the smile on his face turning into a movie villain smirk. “Small spark like that? Men start wars over less.”

He turned his eyes — cold, pale, almost amused — toward Carter.

“And what about that one? Yours too? Or just another metaphorical pet project?”

Carter bristled. Sage’s grip on him tightened, shaking. Rip moved like he was going to take Cole’s head clean off, but Cole lifted a hand in mock innocence.

“That’s not judgment,” he said lightly. “Believe me. I understand.”

He paused. His face shifted. Darkened.

“I’ve got a kid of my own.”

Beth froze mid-step.

Cole’s voice dropped low, too calm.

“And I would end the world for her. Every inch of it. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re the only man who’s ever been willing to bleed for someone small.”

Rip’s hands curled into fists.

Carter felt Sage bury her face into his back.

Beth reached them — chest heaving, eyes burning holes straight through Cole — but Cole didn’t even look at her yet. He kept his gaze on Rip, as if the two of them were the only people in the whole damned yard.

“Consider this a courtesy,” Cole said softly. “I’m tellin’ you to keep your family close. Things get messy when they wander.”

“Is that a threat?” Rip spat.

Cole tilted his head. “No. That’s a fact.”

Beth stepped between them, voice sharp enough to slice steel. “Leave.”

Cole finally looked at her. Really looked. The smirk returned, thin and practiced.

“Well,” he murmured, “if it isn’t the storm herself.”

“Get. Off. My property,” Beth said.

Cole stepped back once. Twice. Calm. Hands in his pockets. As if this was all a friendly visit.

“You should teach your little ones not to talk to strangers,” he said. “Though in fairness—”

His eyes slid toward Sage.

“—I’m not exactly a stranger, am I?”

Rip lunged, but Beth caught his arm with both hands, anchoring him through sheer force of will.

Cole didn’t wait for more.

He turned. Walked to his truck parked just off the road. Climbed in without hurry. Carter hoped the engine would sputter or choke or explode, but it purred to life like nothing was wrong in the world.

Cole pulled away slow, gravel spraying beneath his tires until the dust swallowed him whole.

Silence fell — choking, thick, wrong.

Sage’s breath hitched into a sob.

Rip spun around instantly, crouched low, hands gentle despite the fury raging beneath his skin. “Sweetheart. You okay?”

She shook her head and launched into him. Rip caught her and held tight, one hand cupping the back of her head like she was something breakable.

“He scared me,” Sage whispered.

“I know,” Rip murmured. “He won’t touch you. Ever.”

Beth’s eyes glistened, jaw clenched tight enough to crack. Carter stood beside them, chest heaving, shaking with leftover adrenaline.

“What the hell was that?” Carter whispered.

Beth looked toward the empty road, full of dust and threat and something worse:

Recognition.

“The beginning,” she said.

Rip stood, Sage in his arms, Carter at his side.

None of them said another word.

They didn’t need to.

Because every one of them felt it —

something had shifted tonight.

And Cole Hart had just made it clear:

he wasn’t done with them.

Chapter Text

The morning didn’t arrive so much as linger into existence, hesitant at first, then settling in.

First it was just a seam of pale color along the far fence line, a hint of light thinning the darkness over the mesquite and the rusted gate. Then it crept forward, catching on metal, warming the tops of fence posts, turning the dust in the yard into a faint shimmer. It wasn’t soft light, not like Montana’s had ever been; Texas morning came in clear and blunt, leaving nothing to hide behind.

Rip Wheeler crossed the yard like he always did, coffee still too hot in his hand, eyes doing their own kind of work. He checked the latch on the south gate, gave the hinge a testing shake, let his gaze run along the hard-packed dirt where the drive met the road. Old tire tracks were baked into the surface in overlapping arcs. No new ones. No fresh prints. Nobody had come through while they slept.

Didn’t mean nobody was circling.

He turned toward the bunkhouse, boots scuffing in a rhythm the place knew by now. The small building sat squared up against the morning, weathered and stubborn, just like the men and women who lived out of it. A faint glow pressed against one window shade—someone up, someone not.

The door creaked open before he reached it.

“Morning, boss,” Jessie said, stepping onto the top step and hugging a hoodie closer around her shoulders. Her hair was twisted back in something that had started life as a bun and lost the fight somewhere around 3 a.m. She squinted out past him at the field, then back. “You lookin’ for Caleb?”

“Should be up by now,” Rip said.

Jessie huffed. “If he is, he’s real committed to lying flat.”

Rip went past her without another word, hand wrapping around the knob only long enough to get out of the way of his boot. The kick landed low and precise, rattling wood and frame, the sound cracking through the bunkhouse like a shot.

“Ortiz,” he called, voice carrying without effort. “World’s up. You ain’t.”

There was a thump and a muffled curse from inside, followed by the drag of blankets and the squeak of mattress springs as someone flailed upright.

Jessie bit down on a grin, watching from the porch as Caleb’s head finally appeared over the edge of his bunk, hair in every possible direction, eyes wide and disoriented.

“I—uh—what time is it?” he croaked.

“Too late for that question,” Rip said. “Ten minutes. Be ready to work or be ready to explain why you ain’t. Your choice.”

He let the door swing mostly shut and stepped back into the strengthening light.

Jessie shook her head, amused. “You’re gonna give that boy a complex.”

“He’ll live,” Rip replied. “Or he’ll learn to set an alarm.”

He moved away, and Jessie hopped down from the step, heading in the opposite direction toward the pens, the tails of her hoodie flapping behind her.

The yard felt bigger with the sun moving up. Shadows stretched long from the corners of buildings, and the stillness had that thin, expectant quality it got before the noise of the day truly began. Somewhere behind the house, a bird tried out a half-hearted song. Somewhere further off, a lone cow lowed, impatient for feed.

The screen door banged open behind him.

“Rip!”

He turned just in time to see Sage fly off the last porch step like it had offended her. Her curls were a wild halo around her face, pajamas twisted from sleep, bare feet slapping the boards. In both hands, she clutched a mug big enough that it took her whole focus to keep it level.

“Careful,” Rip said, already closing the distance. “You break my coffee and we’ll have words.”

She skidded to a stop in front of him, chest heaving. “I didn’t spill,” she said, holding the mug up like proof in a trial.

It was Beth’s mug, the thick white one with a crack running through the handle—filled almost to the brim with dark coffee. Rip took it from her and checked; not a drop on the rim.

“You walk it all the way from the kitchen?” he asked.

Sage nodded, curls bouncing. “Beth told me not to run.”

“And you listened?” he asked, deadpan.

Her eyes slid to the side automatically. “I walked… a little.”

He gave her a look—the one that said I see you and you’re not in trouble at the same time. “You drink any?”

“No,” she said quickly.

“You sure?”

“Yes.” The word came out sharp, offended. “I swear I didn’t, Rip.”

He let the silence stretch for three long beats, watching the way she clutched her bear in one fist—the poor thing dragged from somewhere behind her, one ear bent, stuffing starting to knot along the seams. Then, finally, the edge of his mouth eased.

“I know,” he said. “You smell like toothpaste, not coffee.”

She grinned, all teeth.

He took the mug in his right hand and, with his left arm, scooped her clean off the ground, settling her against his side. She squealed, wrapping an arm around his neck, the bear trapped between them.

He pressed his lips to her freckled cheek, more habit than decision. “You ask Beth before you come chasin’ me out here?”

“I asked her if I could bring it,” Sage said. “She said if I didn’t spill it.”

“Guess we’re all still alive then.”

Sage pointed toward the barn. “Can I feed the horses with you today? Not just watch. I wanna dump the buckets too.”

“You can help,” Rip said. “You listen, you keep your hands where I tell you, and you don’t get under their feet.”

“I won’t.”

“You said that last time,” he reminded her.

“That was different.”

“It wasn’t.”

She laughed, the sound bright in the open yard, and laid her head against his shoulder like that was the only place it fit.

From inside the house, Beth watched them through a sliver between the blinds. She hadn’t meant to; she’d just gone to pass by the window, mug in hand, and there they were—Rip with his hat tipped back, Sage jabbing her finger toward something only she could see. Concrete. Sunbaked. A man who, twenty years ago, would’ve walked past a kid that age and barely looked down, and a girl who believed he could catch anything that might fall.

Beth’s lips twitched—something caught between a smile and a wince. She watched just long enough to feel the ache and then snapped the blinds shut with a practiced flick.

The living room looked like it had spent the night exhaling. A throw blanket sagged over one arm of the couch, Sage’s crayons were scattered on the coffee table around an unfinished drawing, and Beth’s laptop sat open where she’d left it, cursor blinking in the middle of a half-written sentence.

She dropped onto the couch, pushed her hair out of her face with one hand, and pulled the laptop closer with the other. The email waiting on the screen was from a man whose job title was three words longer than his actual usefulness. Something about permitting, easements, and “ongoing discussions related to adjacent properties.”

She typed for a while, fingers flying faster when she got annoyed. When she was done, the reply was three sentences and carried the weight of a threat even without a single curse word in it.

Her phone buzzed.

She snatched it up without looking at the ID and hit accept. “Talk,” she said, settling back against the cushions.

A voice on the other end launched into detail—numbers, dates, names. Beth listened, gaze drifting to the edge of the doorway where she could see a slice of kitchen tile. She didn’t have to be looking to know what the rest of the house was doing. The place had its own rhythms now, and she’d learned how to hear them sideways.

Right on cue, there was a dull thud from the kitchen, followed by a sharp, very sincere “Ow.”

A beat later came a quieter, guilty, “Sorry.”

Beth closed her eyes and let her head tip back for a fraction of a second. “Hold on,” she told the caller, pulling the phone away from her ear. “Keep it down in there,” she called, not raising her voice. “Some of us are busy keeping this pile of wood and glass from being taken in court.”

“Yes, ma’am,” floated back, from at least one person and possibly two.

She lifted the phone again. “Go on,” she said evenly, and the report continued.

In the kitchen, the war with the sink was ongoing.

Travis lay on his back half under the cabinet, boots out, knees bent, the hem of his t-shirt riding up enough to show a faint line of a scar along his side. His hands worked by memory, fingers searching for the right joint, the right angle, the right place to tighten until the drip stopped for good. A small bowl sat off to the side, catching the last few drops from earlier. The towel under his shoulder smelled like cleaner and old water.

Carter crouched a couple feet away, holding the flashlight at what he thought was a helpful angle. His right hand had a good grip on it; his left arm rested across his knee, shoulder subtly tucked in, protecting itself without his permission.

“Little higher,” Travis said. “And don’t blind me unless you’re tryin’ to interrogate me.”

Carter adjusted, moving the beam. The motion pulled on the injured shoulder, a slow drag of ache that sank right down to the bone. He kept his face smooth, but the muscles along his jaw shifted.

Travis didn’t see his expression from under the cabinet, but he saw the jitter in the light. “You’re stiff again,” he said. “That mean what I think it does?”

“It’s fine,” Carter muttered.

“Cool,” Travis said. “That not being what I asked and all.”

Carter exhaled through his nose.

Doctor Kline’s voice still lived in the back of his head, annoying and calm: soft tissue trauma, no permanent damage as long as you don’t push it, you’re lucky. Rest. Slow movement. Don’t be stupid.

Rest, on a working ranch, was a theory more than an option.

“I can hold a flashlight,” Carter said. “Relax.”

“I am relaxed,” Travis replied. “This is me relaxed. This is me gorgeous and relaxed, saving your plumbing.”

“You’re not the one shot at.”

“Yeah, and I’m tryna keep you off that repeat experience. Which is why you listen when people tell you not to snap your damn shoulder back together out of pride.”

The pipe gave a short metallic groan as Travis twisted the wrench. The slow drip hit the bowl once. Twice. Then paused. He waited, counting, listening. Nothing.

He slid himself out from under the sink with a grunt, sat up, and shook out his arms. “All right,” he said, almost to the house itself. “Let’s see if you want to behave.”

He twisted the faucet handle. Water burst forth in a clean stream. He shut it off. Nothing leaked anywhere it shouldn’t.

Travis leaned back on his hands and smiled, not wide, but satisfied. “There,” he said. “You hear that?”

“Hear what?” Carter asked.

“Exactly,” Travis said. “Silence. Blessed, non-dripping silence.”

Carter let the flashlight fall across his knee. The absence of the drip made the rest of the sounds in the house stand out more—the distant murmur of Beth’s voice, the faint creak of floorboards, the birds starting up properly outside, Sage’s half-humming somewhere in between.

The side door clicked open.

Sage slipped through first, hopping onto the tile with bare feet, hair even messier than when she’d gone out, a smear of something suspiciously like dirt across one cheek. Rip’s larger frame filled the doorway behind her.

“Hands,” he said.

She dragged herself to the sink with theatrical exhaustion, cranked the water, and scrubbed as if she were trying to erase evidence. When she finished, she shook her hands in the air, flecking a little water onto Travis’s jeans.

“Hey,” he protested.

“Oops.”

Rip stepped in fully, letting the door ease closed. His hat shadowed his eyes, but his shoulders had dropped half an inch since he’d gone outside. Work settled him sometimes. So did knowing his people were where he could see them.

Beth appeared in the kitchen doorway a second later, phone still pressed to her ear, the cord of invisible irritation still running down her spine. She listened to the voice on the other end for a beat, then cut in.

“Yeah, I heard you,” she said. “I’m gonna pretend that last suggestion was a joke and not an insult to my intelligence. Sit with whatever guilt that gives you for the rest of the day.”

She lowered the phone slightly, covering the mouthpiece with her palm. “You two,” she said, pointing at Carter and Travis, “as soon as he’s done playing hero with the pipes, you’re going into town. Feed, screws, detergent, and the bags Rip pretends don’t rip when he overfills them.”

Rip grunted. “Bags are fine.”

“The bags are a lie,” she said. “I’m tired of my trash hitting the floor because you treat everything like a bull’s back.”

Travis wiped his hands on a rag and nodded. “Got it. Responsible adult run.”

“That’s why you’re going,” Beth said. She dropped her gaze to Carter. “You, specifically, do not lift anything heavier than your ego.”

Carter snorted. “That’s… pretty heavy.”

“Then leave it in the truck,” she said. “You’re still on the mend. Doctor said easy movement only. Don’t make me rethink letting you leave the yard.”

He wanted to argue. That reflex had become muscle memory around her. But the way she was looking at him—not soft, not indulgent, just dead honest concern wrapped in a threat—cut most of what he might’ve said off at the knees.

“Okay,” he said instead, quietly.

She nodded once—the subject closed—and lifted the phone again without missing a beat. “We done here?” she asked the caller. “Good. Email me the documents. If I don’t like the language, I’ll change it and you can explain to your boss why.”

She left the kitchen with that, disappearing back toward the couch.

Sage dropped back to the floor, wiping her wet fingers on the hem of her shirt. “Are there horses in town?” she asked Carter, suddenly invested.

“No,” he said.

“If there are,” she went on, ignoring that, “tell them I said hi.”

He huffed out something like a laugh. “I’ll do that.”

Rip leaned his shoulder against the doorframe, watching all of it like he couldn’t help himself. There were times, now, when the house felt like it had become something he hadn’t imagined he’d ever be standing in the middle of. A kid at the table. Another half grown. Beth yelling at someone over a phone instead of across a saloon. It was strange. It was… steady. And that made it dangerous in ways a man like him understood too well.

“Sage,” Beth called from the living room. “Stop running in the house or you’re gonna bust your head open.”

“I’m not running,” Sage shouted back, as she broke into a sprint toward the couch.

Rip sighed and pushed off the frame. “I’ll get her.”

He disappeared after her.

Travis and Carter shared a look.

“He’s gotten soft,” Travis said, a note of fondness buried under the teasing. “Man used to only worry about breakin’ other people’s heads.”

Carter’s mouth tugged. “You say that to his face?”

“I ain’t suicidal.”

Before Carter could answer, another sound floated back from the living room—Beth’s voice, lower now, but edged with something sharper.

“I told you—hang on.” A pause. “Stop, you’re gonna trip.”

Carter stepped to the doorway just in time to see it: Sage scrambling onto the couch, remote in hand, Beth half rising with her phone still pressed between shoulder and cheek, Rip reaching for the kid too late to catch her wrist.

“Sage, don’t—” Beth said.

The TV blinked on.

A news anchor’s voice filled the room mid-sentence. “…following last month’s courthouse confrontation, local businessman and ranch owner Cole Hart addressed the media today regarding ongoing disputes with the Wheeler-Dutton operation—”

The shot cut to Cole standing at a press cluster outside a glass-fronted building. He wore a dark suit that probably had a name. Microphones pointed toward his face in a bouquet of plastic and wire. His mouth moved in confident lines.

Rip’s jaw tightened, the tendons in his neck standing out for a blink before he forced them down.

Carter felt his palms go slick. He’d seen that face too close. Heard that voice throw polite venom across a room while men with guns pushed him to the ground.

Hannah stood to Cole’s right, hand resting just so on his arm, the picture of public support. She smiled when he did. She didn’t when he didn’t.

Sage, perched on the edge of the couch, frowned. “That’s the man that made Beth mad,” she said.

“That’s one way to put it,” Beth muttered.

Travis came up behind Carter, drying his hands on the rag, eyes narrowing. “Can’t stand his white ass,” he said under his breath, like it was a fact and not an insult.

Carter glanced sideways at him. “You’re white too.”

“I know,” Travis said, eyes still on the screen. “That’s why I’m qualified to say it.”

Cole said something smooth about ethics and the integrity of land management. Carter heard none of the specifics. His ears rang with the tone, the practiced offense. The way the man had looked across the table at Beth like she was a problem to be solved, not a threat to be wary about.

The camera panned slightly as a reporter called out another question; Hannah came more fully into frame. The light hit her just right and made her look like she’d had everything in her life airbrushed.

“His wife’s fine, though,” Travis added, almost conversational.

Carter blinked. “You just said you can’t stand them.”

“I said I can’t stand him,” Travis replied. “I didn’t say my eyes stopped workin’.”

“But she’s white, too,” Carter pointed out.

Travis finally tore his gaze away from the screen long enough to shoot him a look. Then he punched Carter lightly in the arm—his good arm. “Shut up,” he said, more amused than annoyed.

Beth had had enough.

She snatched the remote from Sage’s loose grip and stabbed the power button. The screen blackened mid-word. Silence swept in quick behind it.

“I don’t need his face in my house on purpose,” she said. “He gets enough of my attention as it is.”

Sage leaned into Rip’s side. “Is he gonna come back here?”

“Not if he likes havin’ knees,” Rip said quietly.

Beth shot him a look. “Don’t make promises you can’t legally keep.”

Rip didn’t answer, but his eyes stayed locked on the darkened TV for a second longer than necessary.

She broke the moment herself, crossing to the kitchen drawers and pulling one open. An envelope sat near the back, folded and refolded; she grabbed it, slid a few bills into it with quick, practiced fingers, and turned toward Travis.

“Here,” she said. “Don’t lose it. Don’t spend it on anything I didn’t write down.”

Travis took it with a little nod, tucking it into his back pocket. “I only buy what my employer allows me to, because I’m an excellent, responsible employee.”

Beth raised her brows. “You keep talkin’ like that and I’m gonna assume you broke something I haven’t found yet.”

She grabbed a pen from the counter, scribbled a couple more words at the bottom of the list already there—small, compact handwriting that had bullied more than one banker into capitulation. Then she handed the paper to Carter.

“Read it before you get there,” she said. “Going into town without knowin’ what you’re after is how you come back with junk food and regret.”

He glanced at it. Feed. Screws. Detergent. Heavy-duty trash bags. Salt blocks. Coffee. Children’s cereal Sage liked. Nothing surprising. Everything necessary.

“I’ll get it,” he said.

“Travis will get it,” Beth corrected. “You’ll be there to make sure he doesn’t charm his way into forgetting the salt.”

Travis pressed a hand to his chest. “I am deeply offended.”

“You’re deeply something,” Beth said. “Remember: he doesn’t lift anything he shouldn’t.” She jerked her chin toward Carter. “You even let him look at a fifty-pound bag of feed too long, and I’ll take it out of your hide.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Travis said easily. “I like my hide where it is.”

Rip walked them to the door, hand drifting down to rest for a second between Sage’s shoulder blades before she peeled away and ran back to the couch, bear in tow. The light coming in felt hotter than it had an hour ago, the sky wide and clear.

“Go straight there,” Rip said. “No detours.”

“You want a receipt too?” Travis asked.

“I want you back in one piece, with what she asked for, and without givin’ anybody in town more to talk about.”

“That’s a lot of conditions, but I’ll try.”

Carter slid the envelope into his back pocket, folded the list and tucked it into the front. The keys to the oldest ranch truck sat on the little dish by the door; he took them, feeling the familiar weight in his palm.

“Bring me somethin’,” Sage called from the couch, voice suddenly bright again. “Not trash bags. Something fun.”

“What’s fun?” Carter asked.

She thought for half a second. “Surprise me.”

He nodded. “All right. I’ll figure it out.”

He stepped out onto the porch. The boards creaked under his boots the same way they always had, the air hit his face with the same dry heat, the yard stretched wide and bright. For a heartbeat, it felt like any other morning, like the kind of simple errand people ran a hundred times without remembering a single one.

Travis followed, letting the screen door slam lightly behind them. “You know,” he said as they descended the steps, “she just gave you the hardest assignment in this whole house.”

“Trash bags aren’t harder than a surprise,” Carter said.

“Trash bags are easy,” Travis corrected. “You buy the ones Beth circled last time and pretend you knew what you were doing. Surprise a ten-year-old with standards? That’s warfare.”

Carter laughed, the sound short but genuine, and rolled his shoulder once—testing the limits. It twinged, but not as sharply as it had. He could drive. He could carry small things. He could, for an hour or two, forget the taste of dust and gunmetal and Cole Hart’s voice.

He hoped.

Behind them, the house settled again. Beth’s voice rose faintly through a crack in the door, already back on another call. Rip’s silhouette moved across the front window, headed back out toward the pens. Sage’s laughter bubbled up once more as she resumed whatever she’d been playing at on the rug.

From a distance, it would have looked like ordinary life. A ranch. A family. A day starting the way days did.

But quiet on this land had always been thin skin over a bruise.

The road into town unspooled in front of them, straight and sun-bleached, cutting through pasture and scrub and the occasional cluster of stubborn trees. The old ranch truck rattled just enough to remind you it had seen better suspensions in better decades, but the engine held steady, a low constant hum under the morning.

Carter drove with his right hand braced at the top of the wheel, his left arm loose in his lap. The doctor had cleared him to drive so long as he didn’t pretend he was made of steel. Rip had grunted, which in his language meant, I’m watching.

Beside him, Travis had the passenger seat reclined just enough to make it look like he was relaxed without ever actually being off guard. One boot pressed against the floorboard, the other heel hooked on the edge of the dash. He’d ditched the work rag and replaced it with a ball cap pulled low, but he still had the same easy looseness in his frame.

“You’re driftin’ right,” Travis said mildly.

“I’m not drifting,” Carter replied.

Travis tapped the side of the door with his knuckles. “You always drive like the lane line insulted your family?”

Carter adjusted half an inch. “These roads aren’t straight.”

“They’re literally straight,” Travis said. “If they were any straighter, they’d be a ruler.”

Carter huffed out something that might’ve been a laugh and shifted his grip. His shoulder pulled when he did it, a quiet throb he didn’t let travel to his face. He’d gotten good at locking discomfort in behind his teeth.

They passed a field where a few horses stood rump-to-traffic, tails flicking lazily. After that came a cluster of low buildings—feed store, auto shop, a diner with a sign that had lost half its neon years ago and never bothered to find it again.

“You ever think about your life decisions,” Travis said, “and realize you’re drivin’ toward a place that smells like fertilizer and burnt coffee at all times?”

Carter glanced sidelong at him. “You picked this place.”

“Mm-mm.” Travis shook his head. “Your official momma without paperwork picked this place. I picked not starvin’ to death. I showed up three weeks after they landed here, remember?”

“I remember.”

“You don’t remember,” Travis said. “You were too busy tryin’ to impress Rip by nearly breakin’ your back throwin’ hay wrong.”

Carter’s ears warmed. “I didn’t almost break my back.”

“You damn near did,” Travis said. “And I know, ‘cause your dumb ass handed me the next bale like you wanted to prove something to the sky.”

He’d told Carter the story before—the one about seeing a help wanted sign on a bulletin board outside a hardware store, about recognizing Rip’s name in the listing like some kind of test he hadn’t studied for and walking in anyway. “Figured if I was gonna work myself to death,” he’d said, “might as well be for people who meant what they said about loyalty.”

Carter pretended he barely remembered meeting him that first week. He’d remember it clean until the day he died: some lanky 19 year old with calloused hands and a grin too big for his face, walking up to Rip like he’d known him his whole life and saying, You look like you need someone who can fix things and talk shit at the same time.

They hit the turnoff into town and rattled over the patched asphalt. The buildings gathered closer together here—low one-story shops with signs sun-faded to ghosts of their original colors, a small grocery, a bar that was only respectable if the sun wasn’t up yet.

Carter slowed as they eased into the main strip. People moved along the cracked sidewalks: an older couple coming out of the diner, a woman loading bags into the back of an SUV, a kid on a bike weaving where he shouldn’t. One girl in a sundress and boots walked past the truck as they rolled by, and Travis—never one to miss an audience—tipped his cap out of reflex.

She glanced up, caught his grin, and smiled back, cheeks going a little pink before she ducked her head and kept going.

“You’re disgusting,” Carter said.

“I’m gifted,” Travis corrected, dropping his cap back into place. “It’d be rude not to.”

“Does that work?” Carter asked, genuinely curious despite himself.

Travis shrugged. “Sometimes. Mostly it just keeps the world friendly. My mama always said if you got a face that makes people smile, use it for good.”

Carter looked at him sideways. “What’s your mama like?”

“You’ve met my mama,” Travis said. “Talked her ear off at Thanksgiving on FaceTime about how Rae makes better pies than she does.”

Carter frowned. “That was her?”

“That was her,” Travis said. “You told her her crust looked dry on video.”

“I didn’t say dry.”

“You implied dry,” Travis said. “It’s okay. She thought it was adorable. She was like, ‘Oh, that baby don’t know nothin’ yet.’”

Carter grimaced. “I’m eighteen.”

“You’re baby-adjacent,” Travis said. “Anyway, that side of the family’s in Amarillo. Dad left when I was nine, oldest cousin taught me how to drive stick in a parking lot that shoulda had its own body count, and my Aunt Marnie once decked a guy in a Walmart for talking slick to my grandma. That’s the family tree. Any questions?”

Carter let out a low laugh before he could stop it. “No wonder you fit in with Beth.”

“See?” Travis said. “God builds you for certain storms.”

They pulled into the lot of the feed and farm supply store Beth liked—big box of a building with faded green trim and a sign that had lost half its letters, so it just read RANCH & SUP Y. The gravel popped under the tires as Carter eased the truck into a spot.

He put it in park one-handed. The other arm he kept close, shoulder complaining more about the tension of not being used than the movement of steering.

“You good?” Travis asked casually as they sat for a beat in the idling quiet.

“I’m fine,” Carter said.

“‘Fine’ is your least convincing word,” Travis replied. “But lucky for us, all you gotta do is walk and point at things.”

Carter killed the engine. The sudden silence made the heat more noticeable, rising off the hood in faint waves.

They climbed out. The air in the lot smelled like dust, old hay, oil, and the faintest hint of something sweet drifting from the direction of the bakery two doors down.

Inside, the store greeted them with cool air and the rubber-mat squeak under boots that every place like this seemed to share. High shelves ran in long aisles, stacked with everything from fence posts to dog food to cheap coolers in a neat rainbow. Toward the back, the smell of feed grew stronger.

“Okay,” Travis said, pulling the folded list from his pocket and smoothing it. “We do this like a mission. In, out, no casualties.”

He handed the list to Carter. Carter skimmed it, silently mouthing the items. “Feed, screws, detergent, trash bags, salt blocks, coffee, cereal.”

“Read that last one again with respect,” Travis said. “That cereal’s important. That’s Sage not declaring mutiny before ten a.m.”

They started down the nearest aisle, boots soft on the concrete. An older man nodded at Travis as he passed—one of the clerks who’d helped them load the truck a hundred times over now. Travis tossed him a chin lift in return.

“You’re real friendly with everyone,” Carter observed.

“Helps not to have people hate seein’ you coming,” Travis said. “They know me, they see me with Rip’s truck, they remember not every Wheeler or Dutton-related thing is a fight.”

A woman pushing a cart toward the front slowed for just a second when she recognized them, eyes flicking to Carter’s shoulder. Her gaze lingered in a way that said she’d heard a version of the courthouse story. She smiled, small and polite. Carter gave a little nod back. Her curiosity remained, but she kept walking.

“Still better than back when the McLovins had folks convinced we were the devil,” Travis murmured, low enough only Carter would hear. “Town’s thawin’ a little.”

They hit the hardware aisle first—boxes of screws, nails, bolts stacked in tidy rows. Travis took over here, scanning the shelves like he was reading a familiar map.

“Beth wants exterior-grade,” he said, grabbing two boxes. “She said if she finds one more rusty head in a fence plank she’s gonna sue gravity.”

Carter made a noncommittal sound, attention wandering for a second as his shoulder nagged, a dull pulse under the skin. He shifted the boxes to his right hand before Travis could see him favoring.

Next came detergent and cleaner—land of plastic jugs and artificial scents. A young woman in a store apron ignored her own cart long enough to glance over when they passed. Her eyes went straight to Travis, like gravity had a favorite.

“Morning,” she said, a little brighter than necessary.

“Morning, ma’am,” Travis replied, tipping the brim of his cap, expression sliding effortlessly into polite charm. He didn’t slow, didn’t invite conversation, just gave her that easy warmth and kept moving.

She smiled to herself and moved on.

Carter shook his head. “You act like that on purpose.”

“I act like my mama raised me right,” Travis said. “And if somebody smiles because of that, that ain’t my fault.”

“She was staring,” Carter pointed out.

“She got good taste,” Travis answered.

They loaded detergent, then wove toward the back, where the smell of feed and mineral blocks grew thick. The bags rose in tall stacks, labels bright, weight printed in proud numbers.

“That’s you,” Travis said, pointing. “Read the labels, make sure they match whatever Rip scribbled in Beth’s handwriting.”

Carter looked down the list. “Two fifty-pound bags, three salt blocks,” he read. “I’ll point. You haul.”

“That’s the plan,” Travis said. “Doctor’s orders and Beth’s eyes in the back of my skull.”

They walked along the wall of stacked sacks, Carter trailing his fingers lightly over the printed names until he matched the one Rip had underlined last week. His shoulder twinged just from reaching.

“There,” he said, jerking his chin toward the right stack.

Travis sized up the bags, rolled his shoulders once, then bent and lifted one cleanly, muscles in his forearms standing out. “See?” he said. “This is why I get the big boy chores. You get the important job of not explodin’ any stitches you ain’t even got.”

“I didn’t need stitches,” Carter said.

“Technicality.”

They got the bags sorted into a flatbed cart, then the salt blocks, then started making their way toward the front again through the household aisles where trash bags and cereal lived.

Halfway down the cleaning aisle, Travis stopped.

“Shit,” he said.

“What?”

“We passed the coffee.” He glanced over his shoulder, mentally tracing their steps. “Back by the end caps. Beth will burn this store down if we forget coffee.”

He looked at Carter, then down at the list again, then back. “Stay right here,” he said. “I mean it. Don’t decide to be helpful with anything that weighs more than your left shoe. I’ll be thirty seconds.”

“I’m not helpless,” Carter said, bristling.

“I know you’re not helpless,” Travis answered. “You’re also real good at doing dumb heroic shit when no one’s watchin’. Consider this supervision.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, just turned and jogged back the way they’d come, cap brim dipping as he moved.

The aisle felt quieter without him—just Carter, the smell of plastic and lemon-scented cleaners, the hum of the overhead lights. He shifted his weight slightly, rolling his shoulder, wishing it would stop reminding him it existed.

Down at the far end of the aisle, someone rounded the corner, moving at a purposeful clip. A girl—close to his age—pushed a smaller cart with one hand, a short list crumpled in the other. She had her hair up in a loose knot high on her head, dark curls escaping in coils around her face and neck. Light brown skin, a few flyaway strands stuck to her forehead from the heat outside. Plain black t-shirt, faded jeans, sneakers that had seen better days. There was something about the way she scanned the shelves—quick, assessing—that said this wasn’t her first time shopping alone.

She turned into the next aisle over, out of sight for a second. Then her voice drifted around the corner.

“Damn it,” she muttered, not loud, but clear. “Too high.”

Carter hesitated, hand tightening on the cart handle. He didn’t owe her anything. He could stay put, like he’d been told.

He stepped out anyway.

Two aisles over, she stood under one of the taller shelving units in the household section, staring up at a box on the top shelf. Some kind of bulk-pack cleaning product, the kind stores put just out of easy reach so someone had to ask for help. She was maybe five-four, maybe five-five on a good day. The box might as well have been on the moon.

She stretched once, fingertips just brushing the edge, then dropped back onto her heels with a frustrated huff.

Before he could think too hard about it, Carter stepped up beside her.

“I got it,” he said automatically. “What’re you reaching for?”

She startled a little, not enough to jump—just enough that her eyes snapped to him, quick and sharp, like she catalogued him in a breath. She took in the boots, the worn jeans, the old ranch t-shirt, the slight way his left arm hung.

Up close, her eyes were a deep, warm brown, lashes thick without trying. There was something steady in them he couldn’t quite name.

“That one,” she said, tipping her chin toward the top shelf. “The big pack. Figure if I’m gonna hate cleaning my kitchen, I might as well do it less often.”

He snorted softly at that, then reached up.

His shoulder screamed the second his arm went above his head. The pain was bright, mean, and immediate, like someone driving a spike in behind his collarbone. A low sound escaped him before he could swallow it—more breath than word, but rough.

The girl’s eyes narrowed. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He set his jaw. “I’m fine.”

He tried again, stretching further, fingers closing around the cardboard edge. His grip slipped. The pain flared and for one terrifying second his vision went a little white at the edges.

“Hey.” Her voice cut in, firmer. “Stop.”

He dropped his hand, breath coming a little faster than he wanted to admit.

She watched him—a quick, assessing sweep over his face, his posture, the way he held that left side. “Look,” she said, “I can wave somebody down. It’s not that serious.”

“I said I’m good,” he persisted, more stubborn now than anything else.

“I’m sure you are,” she said. “But I’m also sure you sound like my granddad when he stands up too fast, and that’s not what shoulders are supposed to do when you’re our age.”

He grimaced, half in pain, half in irritation. “Sorry,” he said. “I was just tryin’ to help.”

“Yeah,” she said. “And I appreciate it. I also appreciate people not dislocating things in my presence.”

There was a small beat where they just looked at each other. The overhead light hummed. Somewhere else in the store, a kid whined about candy.

She angled her head a little. “What’d you do to it?”

He defaulted to the first answer that had kept strangers at bay so far. “Work thing,” he said. “Got a little rough.”

She folded her arms loosely, one brow lifting. “That’s not an answer, that’s a tone.”

He felt his mouth tug into something halfway to a reluctant smile. “Got in a… situation,” he tried again. “Went sideways. I’m fine now.”

She made a doubtful sound low in her throat. “Uh-huh.”

“Doctor said it’ll heal,” he added. “As long as I don’t do anything stupid with it.”

“And what do you call whatever that was?” she asked, nodding toward the shelf.

“A minor lapse in judgment,” he said.

She laughed under her breath. “By the looks of it, you got your ass handed to you.”

The words should’ve landed like embarrassment. Somehow they landed more like a challenge.

“Nobody hands me my ass,” he shot back, maybe a little more sharply than he meant. “You should see the other guys.”

She made a little face, unconvinced, and reached out to tap the air an inch from his shoulder, not quite touching it. “That’s not how shoulders work, cowboy.”

He bristled automatically at the nickname and then caught himself. “You don’t know that.”

“I know what pain sounds like,” she said. Then she wiggled her fingers, halfway into a mock blessing, and sang, light and teasing, “I don’t knooow…”

It was a nothing tune, a couple of notes tossed off like a joke, but it landed sweet and clear in the space between them. Her voice had that easy kind of tone people had when they hadn’t yet been told they weren’t allowed to sing out loud in public.

He smiled before he could stop it. “You can sing,” he blurted.

She blinked. “What?”

“Your voice,” he said, feeling heat creep up the back of his neck. “It’s—nice.”

The word felt stupid the second it left his mouth. Soft. Understated. Wrong for what he meant, which was something closer to pretty, warm, easy to listen to.

A slow, surprised smile curved the corner of her mouth. “Didn’t realize this aisle came with compliments,” she said.

He cleared his throat, trying to corral himself. “Don’t let it go to your head. You’re still makin’ fun of me.”

“Well,” she said, “if the sling fits.”

“I’m not wearin’ a sling.”

“Yet,” she replied.

He huffed, caught somewhere between offended and entertained.

She tipped her head toward the shelf. “Seriously. It’s not worth you re-injuring whatever that is. I’ve got legs. I can go find someone with a step ladder.”

He looked up at the box, then back at her. Pride and common sense wrestled in his chest for a second. Common sense, for once, edged ahead.

“Okay,” he said, exhaling. “You’re right. I’ll… chill.”

“Good,” she said. “I’d hate to be the reason some stranger has to explain to his family why he’s in a sling for the next month.”

“Already got one of those conversations under my belt,” he muttered.

Her eyes softened by a degree. She didn’t push for more.

They stood in the quiet for a moment longer than politeness strictly required. Up close, he could see the way the light hit her skin—warm, golden-brown, the kind of color that came from more than just a Texas sun. Her hair frizzed a little where it escaped the knot, curls stubborn around her ears and the nape of her neck. There was something in her posture that said she was used to standing her own ground.

He wondered, for a second, what her story was. Then wondered why he cared.

“You from around here?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“Out that way,” he said, jerking his chin toward where the ranch would be if the walls weren’t in the way.

She nodded. “Figures. Boots gave it away.”

“What about you?” he asked.

She thought about it for just long enough that he noticed, then said, “Kinda. Visiting. Passing through. Depends who’s asking.”

“That’s not suspicious at all,” he said.

“I don’t give every man in a cleaning aisle my full biography,” she answered. “That’s how true crime podcasts start.”

He laughed, short and genuine. It hit him that he hadn’t laughed like that in a store in… he couldn’t remember when.

Footsteps approached from the other end of the aisle—familiar rhythm, familiar weight.

“Yeah, see, I told you,” Travis’s voice came before he turned the corner. “They were hiding the coffee behind—CARTER.”

He pulled up short, taking in the scene in a glance: Carter standing under a top shelf, arm half-lifted, the girl at his side, the tension in his shoulders.

“Really?” Travis said. “We talked about this. Literally thirty seconds ago, we talked about this.”

Carter let his hand drop the rest of the way, guilt and defensiveness wrestling under his skin. “They said no heavy lifting, not reaching,” he muttered.

“Oh, okay,” Travis said, eyes widening in mock understanding. “So as long as you blow out your arm in a new way, it don’t count.”

The girl lifted her hands. “My fault,” she said. “I asked for help.”

Travis shook his head immediately. “No, ma’am. Do not take responsibility for his stupid decisions. He was born with those.”

She laughed, the sound rolling out before she could catch it.

Travis stepped up under the shelf, glanced once to confirm the product she’d been eyeing, then reached up and pulled it down with one smooth motion. He handed it to her like it weighed nothing.

“Here you go,” he said. “No ER trip required.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Anytime,” he replied, then jerked his head toward Carter. “He means well. Brain gets in the way sometimes.”

“Hey,” Carter protested.

“Hey nothing,” Travis said. “Beth’s got eyes everywhere, man. You want her materializing in this aisle like a demon ‘cause you decided to argue with physics?”

The girl’s eyes widened fractionally at the name, but she masked it quickly, pressing the box to her hip. “You two are… entertaining,” she said.

“That’s one word for it,” Travis said.

He nudged the cart with his foot. “We gotta finish up if we’re gonna make it back before the world ends. Say bye to your new friend, Romeo.”

Carter looked at him like he’d just been asked to recite poetry in front of the county. “Bye,” he said, voice a little too flat, and turned as if that settled it.

Travis stared at the back of his head. “What was that?”

“What?” Carter asked, half over his shoulder.

“What was that?” Travis repeated. “You sayin’ goodbye to a bus driver, or you sayin’ goodbye to a girl who watched you fail at reachin’ for soap like a baby deer?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Carter muttered, heat pricking at his neck. “I don’t wanna sound weird.”

“‘Bye’ is not weird,” Travis said. “The way you said it was weird. Get your ass back over there and be a gentleman like your mama wishes you were.”

“I don’t have a—” he started, then swallowed the rest, because the word “mother” still sat crooked in his mouth. “Fine.”

He turned back around, heart beating just enough harder to annoy him, and walked the few steps back to where the girl stood with her box.

“Sorry,” he said.

She raised her brows, amused. “For what?”

“For not, uh…” He made air quotes he immediately regretted. “Being a ‘gentleman.’”

He could feel Travis watching him from behind, radiating expectancy.

She laughed, a short burst she didn’t try to smother. “You’re fine,” she said. “You didn’t, like, shove me into a shelf. Low bar, but still.”

He shook his head, managing a crooked smile. “He gets dramatic about this stuff,” he said, jerking a thumb toward Travis without looking back.

“Good friend, then,” she said.

He thought about that—about how many times Travis had stepped in, joked him down from a ledge, put his body between Carter and something heavier.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “He is.”

She shifted the box in her arms. “Well. It was… interesting meeting you in the land of bleach and broken shoulders.”

“Same,” he said.

She started to turn away, then he heard himself say, “Wait.”

She paused, looking back at him over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

He suddenly had no idea what to do with his hands. “What’s your name?” he asked.

She considered him for a second, head tipped slightly, eyes studying his face like she was trying to decide if it was worth giving him more than he’d already gotten.

“Why?” she asked. “It’s not like we’re gonna run into each other again. Plus, did you not hear anything I said about true crime?”

“I know, but it’s a small town,” he said. “Small world. You never know.”

A smile tugged at her mouth, reluctant but real. “Not a good reasoning but…True,” she said. “Simone.”

“I’m Carter,” he said.

“Nice to meet you, Carter,” she replied.

“Yeah,” he said. “You too.”

She gave him one last look—a quick flash of eyes that seemed to see more than he’d offered—and then turned down the aisle, pushing her cart away. Her curls bounced lightly with each step. Within a few seconds, she was gone around the endcap, folded back into the anonymous shuffle of shoppers.

Carter stood there longer than made sense, staring at the space where she’d been, replaying the last few minutes in his head and cataloguing every stupid thing he’d said.

A hand smacked him on the backside, just hard enough to jolt him forward a half-step.

“Atta boy,” Travis said cheerfully.

Carter spun and punched him in the upper arm. “Don’t do that.”

Travis laughed, rubbing the spot. “You’ll survive. Now come on, lover boy. We still gotta get trash bags before Beth senses through the ether that we missed something.”

Carter shot one last glance down the aisle where Simone had disappeared, then grabbed the cart handle and started pushing. His shoulder twinged, but not enough to erase the new, strange lightness in his chest.

Outside, the day looked the same as it had when they’d walked in—bright, hot, ordinary.

Inside, something had shifted, just a fraction.

He didn’t know yet how much that would matter.

The front double doors swept open the second Cole Hart stepped onto the porch, the attendant pulling them wide like he was bracing for impact. Cole strode inside first, still in the navy suit he’d worn on live television—tie loose, jaw set in the same sharp angle he’d had during the broadcast. Hannah followed a pace behind him, smoothing her hand down her blouse and letting out a long, quiet breath.

Bright studio lights always left her with a headache.

“Lord,” she muttered, dropping her purse onto the marble console. “If they’d put us under one more spotlight I’d have gone blind.”

Cole didn’t answer. He was still carrying the weight of the interview—the questions, the implied accusations, the reporters pushing for a reaction.

He’d given them one.

His glare tightened as he crossed the foyer, and the tension in the air shifted like a pressure drop before a storm.

“Montana!” Hannah called, slipping off her heels with a soft grimace. “Sweetheart, your parents are home!”

For a moment, the mansion was all echo and marble, the evening sun glinting across the twin staircases that spiraled upward like something carved out of a palace.

Then soft footsteps appeared at the top of the right staircase.

Montana came into view, leaning lightly on the banister, wearing comfortable neutral loungewear and holding a thick textbook pressed to her ribs. It was clear no doubt that she had been studying.

“You two look… tense,” she said, descending the last steps.

Hannah waved a hand. “Your father nearly bit a reporter’s head off. I’m sure the network appreciates the ratings spike.”

Cole grunted. “They should appreciate me showing up at all. That whole thing was a circus.”

Montana blinked once, calm as ever. “Wasn’t that kind of the point?”

Hannah laughed under her breath.

Cole didn’t.

He looked around the sprawling foyer—a chandelier blazing overhead, polished floors reflecting light, the sweeping hallways that led toward kitchens, offices, and rooms most guests never saw. Every inch screamed wealth and ambition. Every inch belonged to him.

Montana gave the space a slow look too, then asked, “Do you ever think it’s weird we live in a place this big? On a ranch?”

Hannah scoffed. “This is a mansion, Montana.”

“It’s a ranch and a mansion,” she corrected. “Like a hybrid.”

Cole dropped his jacket across a chair. “If I had my way, we wouldn’t be living on a damn ranch at all. I’d be in a penthouse with room service and no cows.”

Hannah nudged him with her elbow. “Oh, hush. For a ranch, this place is practically a resort.”

It was true.

Through the enormous windows behind them, the Hart property stretched for miles—rolling green pastures trimmed with perfect fencing, sleek barns glowing white in the sunlight, a turquoise pool shaped like a lasso, a tennis court, a full polo practice field, and beyond that, steel beams rising into the sky for the rodeo arena Cole was having built.

It was grand. Expansive. Excessive, depending on who you asked.

Montana examined it all with that same quiet, thoughtful expression she had when she was processing something internally.

She hugged her textbook closer. “The TV thing seemed… intense.”

Cole’s jaw flexed. “People ask stupid questions.”

“Or hard ones,” Montana countered softly.

Hannah stepped in before Cole snapped. “She’s just asking, Cole.”

Montana lowered her eyes. “I was studying. I saw it pop up live.”

“Oh!” Hannah brightened. “Speaking of studying—did you finish your early-college module? The advisor emailed me.”

Montana nodded. “Finished it this afternoon.”

Cole’s mood actually shifted—only a hair, but noticeable. His shoulders eased. Pride crept into his expression, subtle but unmistakable.

“Good,” he said. “Political science isn’t exactly easy. Staying ahead puts you where you need to be.”

Montana nodded again, not boastful. Just steady. “It’s interesting. Makes sense to me.”

Hannah kissed her on the cheek in passing. “Of course it does. You’ve always been ahead.”

Cole slid off his watch and set it on the entry table. “You keep pushing like this, you’ll be in law school before half of Texas graduates on time.”

Montana huffed a small, dry laugh. “Maybe.”

She shifted her book from one arm to the other. “I’m gonna go back up. There’s a lecture I want to finish.”

“You just came down,” Hannah teased.

“I was in the middle of a section,” Montana replied. “If I stop now, I’ll lose my thread.”

Cole muttered, “Nobody in this house loses threads,” but Hannah elbowed him before Montana could respond.

Montana turned away but paused on the first step.

“You two should… try not to argue tonight,” she said quietly.

Cole snorted.

Hannah rolled her eyes affectionately.

And Montana climbed the staircase again, disappearing into the soft-lit hallway—not secretive, not suspicious, not double-lived. Just a girl trying to stay ahead of the world she was destined to walk into.

The foyer fell into a gentle silence behind her, broken only by Hannah sighing, “You know… she really is smart.”

Cole watched where Montana had gone.

“That’s the problem,” he said.

But he didn’t say it cruelly.

He said it like it scared him.

Sage hit the high note like she was standing on a Broadway stage instead of a dusty Texas yard.

“Hey Jessie! Hey Jessie! ”

She dragged out the last word, arms flung wide, curls bouncing with every emphatic syllable. A chicken nearby flapped away like it had heard enough.

Jessie stood by the hitching post, one boot propped on the lowest rail, broom in hand. She burst out laughing, head tipping back.

“You love that show, huh?” she called.

Sage shook her head so hard her curls whipped. “No,” she said, entirely serious. “I just love you.”

From the side of the porch, where he’d been hauling a sack of feed, Caleb froze mid-step.

“Awwwwww,” he groaned theatrically, clutching his chest. “My heart.”

Sage spun toward him like a homing missile, bare feet smacking the packed dirt. By the time Caleb had the presence of mind to set the feed bag down, she was on him—small arms thrown around his middle, cheek mashed against his t-shirt.

“You too,” she declared into his sternum.

He huffed a surprised laugh and wrapped one arm around her shoulders, steadying them both. “Well hell,” he said softly, “guess I’m gonna make it through today after all.”

Jessie snorted. “Don’t let it go to your head, Ortiz. She’s a serial complimenter. You’re just next on the list.”

Sage pulled back just far enough to stick her tongue out at Jessie, grinning.

Across the yard, a low whistle cut through the morning.

“Sage!”

Rip’s voice carried easy in open air. He was standing by the smaller holding pen, hands hooked in his pockets, hat shading his eyes. Even from here, you could tell his shirt was already damp with sweat at the collar; the day was gearing up to be hot.

Sage lit up all over again. “Rip!”

“Let’s go,” he called. “We got a horse waitin’ on you.”

She shot one last tight squeeze around Caleb’s ribs and took off, feet pounding, the hem of her t-shirt fluttering.

“Bye Jessie! Bye Caleb!” she yelled over her shoulder without really looking back.

Caleb watched her go, still a little dazed. “Every time,” he muttered. “Gets me every time.”

Jessie leaned her chin on the broom handle, watching him with undisguised glee. “You’re soft,” she informed him.

“Don’t tell nobody,” he replied.

Beth stepped out from around the side of the house right then, and Caleb nearly jumped out of his skin.

He straightened too fast, boot heel catching on the edge of a shallow rut. The world lurched. His arms pinwheeled. The broom bristles saved him from a full sprawl, but not from humiliation.

Jessie burst into full-body laughter, doubling over, one hand clutching her stomach.

Beth stopped a few yards away, expression sliding into a flat, confused stare. “The hell are you doing?” she asked.

Caleb righted himself, face already going scarlet. “Nothin’, ma’am. Just—ground’s uneven.” He brushed invisible dirt off his jeans that were already filthy. “Sorry.”

“Uh-huh,” Beth said. She looked at Jessie.

Jessie was still wheezing. “He almost died because you walked up,” she managed. “That’s what happened.”

Caleb glared at her, which only made her laugh harder.

Beth’s mouth twitched like she wanted to smile and refused to give in to it. “You always go full newborn colt when I approach, or is this a special occasion?”

“No, ma— I mean, yes— I mean…” Caleb clearly hit the end of his verb supply, then threw his hands up. “I just wasn’t expectin’ you, is all.”

“Well, surprise,” Beth said dryly. “You’re the one I was lookin’ for.”

Jessie clutched the broom tighter. “Ooooh,” she teased under her breath. “You done for now, Ortiz.”

Caleb swallowed. “Me?”

“Yes,” Beth said. “Unless there’s another Caleb around here hiding behind your dumbass expression.”

“Yes, ma’am. I mean—no, ma’am. I mean—” He snapped his mouth shut, then blurted, “Anything you want, I am of service.”

Jessie choked so hard on her laughter she had to turn away.

Beth’s eyebrows went up. “Of service,” she repeated, tasting the words. “Did you pull that out of a telenovela?”

Caleb dragged a hand down his face. “I— I didn’t mean— I just—”

She let him stew for one more excruciating second, then took pity. “I need a translator,” she said. “You’re Mexican, right?”

“Half,” he answered automatically. “Mom’s side.”

“You speak Spanish?”

He blinked. “Yeah. That’s all we spoke in the house growin’ up. English was for school, TV, and gettin’ yelled at by teachers. Spanish was for gettin’ yelled at at home.”

“Perfect,” Beth said. She stepped closer and clapped a firm hand on his shoulder. “Then you are, in fact, of service.”

He straightened like she’d knighted him.

Jessie whistled, low and impressed. “Look at you,” she said. “Movin’ up in the world.”

Beth jerked her head toward the house. “Walk with me, Ortiz. I got some things need sayin’ right to some people who’d rather pretend they don’t understand English.”

She started toward the porch without checking to see if he followed.

Caleb did, nearly tripping again in his hurry to catch up. As they crossed the yard, his nerves loosened just enough to let his tongue run.

“Puedo traducir lo que usted necesite,” he said, half to himself. “Cartas, correos, amenazas—bueno, tal vez no amenazas, pero… depende.”

Beth cut him a sideways look. “Threats, huh?”

He shrugged, emboldened. “Depende de quién sea el destinatario,” he said. “Depends who it’s going to.”

Beth’s eyes glinted. “Good.”

They passed within a few yards of Rip and Sage.

Rip had knelt to adjust Sage’s shoelace; she had one hand planted on his shoulder for balance, the other gripping the fence. Her curls were a mess, there was dirt on her knees, and she looked about as happy as a human being could.

Beth’s gaze snagged on them for a heartbeat.

She reached out, brushed her knuckles lightly down Rip’s arm as she walked by. “Have fun, bug,” she called to Sage, voice flatter than most mothers’ but somehow warmer for it.

“I will!” Sage yelled back.

Rip tipped his hat at Beth, something unspoken passing between them—a small, quiet exchange no one else would’ve noticed. Beth gave him a small wink and kept going, papers tucked under her arm, Caleb trotting at her side, murmuring more Spanish constructions to prove he could.

“Buenas tardes, señora,” he said, then winced. “No, that’s wrong, it’s still morning—”

“Ortiz,” Beth cut in, amused. “Breathe.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, exhaling like he’d been underwater.

They disappeared inside, the screen door creaking shut behind them.

Rip pushed himself back to his feet, dusted his palms on his jeans, and looked down at Sage. “Alright, cowgirl,” he said. “Let’s go make you certified.”

“Certified what?” she asked, realistically prepared for any answer.

“Horse girl,” Rip said.

She gasped. “Yes.”

He took her hand and led her toward the barn.

The air inside was cooler, shaded, thick with the familiar smells of hay, leather, and animals. Light sliced through the slats high above them in narrow beams, catching dust and a few lazy flies.

The horse they were using today—June Bug, not that Sage accepted the name—stood in her stall, hip cocked, half-dozing. Her ears flicked forward as they approached.

“There she is,” Rip said. “You remember what I told you ’bout standin’ near ’em?”

Sage nodded solemnly. “Don’t stand behind. Don’t run at them. Don’t scream. Don’t grab.”

“Good,” he said. “They’re big and they’re gentle if you let ‘em be, but they’re still animals that don’t like surprises. Sound like anybody you know?”

She frowned, thinking. “Like you?”

Rip made a grunt that might’ve been a laugh. “Somethin’ like that.”

He opened the stall and stepped in first, his presence steadying the mare. Then he crooked a finger at Sage.

She slipped inside, her hand immediately trailing along the horse’s shoulder. June Bug sniffed her hair, decided she wasn’t a threat worth waking up for, and went back to breathing slow.

Sage’s eyes were wide, lit from the inside. “She’s so big,” she whispered.

“Big just means big,” Rip said. “Doesn’t mean mean.”

He handed Sage a soft brush, curling her fingers around the handle. “Start right here. Go with the hair, not against it. Long strokes. Gentle. Like you’re tryin’ to calm her down, not scrub the paint off.”

Sage placed the brush carefully against the horse’s side and moved it in tentative, shaky lines.

“More pressure,” Rip murmured, hand hovering near her shoulder but not touching. “She ain’t glass.”

Sage pressed a little harder. The mare shifted, one ear turning back toward them, then forward again.

Rip watched the two of them fall into rhythm, the brush swish-swish-swishing through the bay coat. The horse’s breathing steadied, slow and content. Sage’s did too.

“Where’d you learn all this?” she asked after a while, not looking away from what she was doing.

Rip leaned his forearms on the top rail, eyes going distant for a moment. “Beth’s dad,” he said. “He taught me most of what I know.”

Sage’s head snapped up. “My grandpa?”

That word hit Rip in a place he didn’t have language for. He swallowed around it.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Your grandpa.”

“He taught you about horses?”

“Horses. Cattle. Land. Weather.” He scratched absently at a knot in the wood. “Taught me how to work. How to take a hit and keep goin’. Taught me there’s two kinds of people near a fence line—those who protect it, and those waitin’ to cut it. That sort of thing.”

Sage soaked that in, chest rising and falling a little faster. “Was he nice?”

Rip thought about it. Really thought. “Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes he was mean as hell. Sometimes he was the only good thing standing between us and a worse world. He was loud. He was stubborn. He was… John Dutton.” The name came out rough, like gravel.

Sage mulled that over. Then: “Do you miss him?”

“Yeah,” Rip said. “Every damn day.”

She nodded like that made sense. “Beth told me he’s gone,” she said. “She said he died.”

Rip’s jaw flexed. “He did.”

“How?” Her voice got smaller.

He could have said “it was his time.” He could have said “old age” or “bad heart” or any of the gentle lies people wrap around ugly truths. It would have been easier. Cleaner.

It would have been wrong.

“Somebody killed him,” Rip said. “Shot him. In his own bathroom.”

Sage’s whole face scrunched, like the thought physically hurt. She set the brush down without realizing. “I hate guns,” she whispered.

Rip stared past the stall door for a beat, memories trying to climb out of the locked places. He forced them down.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me too. Most of the time, they’re just cowards’ shortcuts. You don’t do a goddamn thing brave by ambushing an old man takin’ a shower.”

Sage looked up at him, eyes shining too bright for the dim barn. “Do you think somebody will shoot you?”

He blinked, taken aback. “What? No.”

“They shot Grandpa,” she reasoned. “What if they shoot you? Or Beth? Or Carter?”

“Hey.” He crouched in front of her so they were eye-level, one hand braced on his knee, the other reaching to tuck a curl behind her ear. “Look at me.”

She did.

“You listen to me close,” he said. “Some bad things happened to good people in that old life. Some of ’em happened because we were livin’ like there was nothin’ left but fight. That’s not this. We’re not lookin’ for blood every time we leave the house. I’m not sayin’ nothin’ bad can ever happen. I’m sayin’ we don’t invite it in the way we used to. And if somebody ever did come for us again? They’d have to get through me first.”

Her lower lip wobbled just a little. “Promise?”

“I promise,” he said. It was simple and absolute. “Bathroom, barn, front yard, I don’t care. I’m between you and the gun every time. Got it?”

She took a breath, then nodded.

“Okay,” she whispered.

He bumped her chin lightly with his knuckles. “Good. Now pick that brush back up before June Bug falls asleep thinking we’re lazy.”

She laughed weakly and did as she was told.

Rip stood, trying to shake off the weight of old ghosts. He walked around to the other side of the horse, running his hand down the mare’s neck, grounding himself in the solidity of muscle and bone.

Outside, a distant rumble grew louder—the familiar crunch of tires rolling over their gravel drive.

Rip glanced toward the open barn door.

The old ranch truck turned in, sun bouncing off the windshield. Travis was between the wheel and the open window, one sunburnt arm resting on the frame, a lazy rhythm tapped out on the metal. Carter sat in the passenger seat, shirt a little rumpled, eyes unfocused like he was someplace else entirely.

Rip didn’t have to guess where. He’d been eighteen once too.

The truck pulled to a stop in its usual place, engine groaning as it died.

Sage dropped the brush again.

“Carter!” she squealed, already halfway to the door.

“Walk,” Rip said automatically.

She nodded obediently, walked four steps, then broke into a run the second she hit open air.

Rip let out a breath that was half a sigh, half a laugh. “Every damn time,” he muttered.

Sage reached the driver’s side as Travis hopped down, boots hitting dirt with a thud. She flung herself at him first, momentum nearly knocking them both off balance.

“Well, hey there, small hurricane,” he said, scooping her up with an easy grunt. He tossed her once into the air—just high enough to get a squeal, not high enough to risk Beth materializing with murder in her eyes—then caught her and set her on her feet. “You miss me?”

“Yes,” she said, as if that were a ridiculous question. “Where’s my surprise?”

Travis laughed. “Straight to the point. I like it.”

He grabbed a sack from the back of the truck and slung it onto one shoulder like it weighed nothing.

Sage was already pivoting toward the other side.

Carter climbed out more slowly, gritting his teeth as his shoulder reminded him in no uncertain terms that he’d used it more than he was supposed to. He told it silently to shut up and behave.

Sage wrapped herself around his middle before he had both boots on the ground.

“I missed you,” she announced.

He rocked back half a step, then steadied, one hand coming up to rest on her back. “I was gone like… two hours,” he said. “Maybe two and a half.”

“That’s too long,” she said into his shirt.

He couldn’t argue with that without feeling like an ass, so he smiled instead, faint and real. “I missed you too, bug.”

She leaned back, studying his face like she was making sure it hadn’t changed while he was gone. After a moment, her expression turned solemn.

“Promise you won’t let anybody shoot you in the bathroom,” she said.

Carter blinked. “What?”

She nodded, deadly serious. “Promise.”

He glanced instinctively toward the barn. Rip stood just outside the shade now, one hand on the doorframe, watching them all. There was a tightness around his eyes that hadn’t been there earlier.

Carter rubbed his jaw. “Uh… yeah,” he said slowly. “I promise I won’t let anybody shoot me in the bathroom.”

“Good,” Sage said, apparently satisfied. “’Cause then who would bring me stuff from the store?”

“There it is,” Travis called from the back, dropping another bag onto his hip. “Finally, honesty.”

Rip started toward them, boots crunching in measured steps.

“How’d it go?” he asked, looking between Travis and Carter. “Store still standin’? You follow directions?”

“Everything’s fine,” Travis said smoothly. “We got what Beth wanted. Nobody died. Big win.”

Rip’s eyes cut to Carter. “You obey the doctor?”

Carter felt heat creep up the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he said. “I was careful.”

“He’s lyin’,” Travis said immediately.

Carter whipped his head around. “Dude.”

“What?” Travis said, unbothered. “You are.”

Rip stepped in close, irritation flickering across his face like heat lightning. He caught the front of Carter’s shirt in one calloused hand and tugged him forward half a foot—not enough to hurt, just enough to make it clear running wasn’t an option.

“You wanna try that again?” Rip asked, voice quiet in a way that was more dangerous than shouting. “’Cause if you’re gonna lie to me, at least do it about somethin’ I can’t see for myself.”

Carter’s heart jumped into his throat. For a second, he thought about doubling down. Keeping the store aisle to himself. Pretending all that had happened was boring errands and a twinge he could ignore.

But he remembered the way his fingers had slipped on the box. The way pain had flared hard and mean. The way that girl’s eyes—Simone’s eyes—had narrowed, like she could see through every layer of bravado.

He licked his lips. “It was just reaching,” he said. “Not lifting. I didn’t pick anything heavy up. I swear.”

Rip’s grip tightened. “That shoulder doesn’t care if you call it lifting or reaching,” he said. “It cares if you’re stupid.”

“I’m not—”

“I told you to protect it,” Rip went on, low and sharp. “You don’t get to put yourself back on that concrete for pride. So unless you got a reason that beats pride, you better come up with the story real fast, son.”

The word landed somewhere between them and stuck there, unclaimed. Carter felt it, but he didn’t touch it.

His throat worked. “It wasn’t pride,” he said.

Rip’s eyes narrowed. “Then what was it?”

Carter opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

Behind Rip’s shoulder, Travis shifted the bag on his arm and blew out a breath. “Oh, for—” he muttered. “Let me just…”

He stepped closer, one hand going up in a loose, surrendering gesture.

“Before he sprains somethin’ tryin’ to force the words,” Travis said to Rip, “I’m just gonna say it: it was a girl.”

Rip stared at Travis, then at Carter, then back at Travis. “A girl,” he repeated flatly.

Travis nodded, half guilty, half delighted to be the one delivering the punchline. “Yep,” he said. “In the store. Needed somethin’ off the top shelf. Our hero over here forgot he was held together with tape and stubbornness and tried to impress her.”

Rip’s hand loosened on Carter’s shirt, then tightened again. “You risked re-injurin’ yourself for a stranger in the cleaning aisle.”

Travis thought about that for a second, then shrugged. “To be fair,” he said, “she wasn’t just any stranger.”

Rip turned his full glare on him. “And what the hell does that mean?”

Travis grinned, sharp and bright in the thick heat.

“It was a girl,” he said again, savoring it this time. “A beautiful one, too.”

The Hart ranch slept under a white, pitiless moon, the kind that made the acres look ancient and the shadows look carved. The house itself was silent in a way only money could buy—the long hallways hushed, the glass polished until it reflected darkness back like a second world. Nothing moved. Nothing dared.

Until Cole Hart’s phone buzzed on the nightstand.

His eyes snapped open before the second vibration. He didn’t wake like normal men; he rose through sleep like someone alerted to danger. Beside him, Hannah stirred, lifting her head just an inch.

“Cole?” she whispered. “Who’s calling at—”

“It’s nothing.” He brushed her arm, a quiet command. “Sleep.”

She blinked, unconvinced but compliant, and sank back into the pillow while Cole swung his legs out of bed and crossed the room with the silent precision of a man who never fully lets the day go.

He didn’t bother with the lights.

He didn’t have to.

He knew the house the way a wolf knows its forest.

Down the hallway, past the portrait of his father, down the steps that creaked if you stepped on the left side instead of the right. His office waited at the end of the corridor—a narrow, windowless room built for secrets, not comfort. Half-focused from sleep, he pushed inside and didn’t notice that the door caught on the latch and drifted half-open behind him.

He answered the call with no greeting.

“What.”

The voice on the line trembled. “Sir… the border deal fell through.”

Cole stood still, as if the air thickened around him. “Which deal.”

“The Alvarez agreement.”

His jaw shifted once. Slow. Dangerous. “Who got it.”

Silence, then: “Beth Dutton.”

Cole let the name sit there, heavy, like a spark dropped on dry brush.

“No,” he said softly. “No, she didn’t have the channels. She didn’t have the translator. She couldn’t—”

“She brought one today,” the voice said quickly. “Young guy. Latino. They moved fast. Very fast. Alvarez signed with her.”

Cole lowered himself into the chair as if gravity had hands pulling him down. He pressed a thumb into his temple, breathing once through his nose. “How,” he whispered, “did she even hear about the deal.”

“We don’t know yet.”

“You don’t know,” Cole repeated, and there was nothing loud in the way he said it—just clean, surgical disappointment. “You should have known before she even picked up a phone.”

The man on the line swallowed. Cole could hear it.

“She’s been active lately. Meetings. Calls. Someone’s feeding her information.”

Cole rose again, pacing slowly across the office, a predator trapped in a too-small room. The moonlight from the hallway spilled just enough through the open crack in the door to catch the lines of his face—edges sharpened by anger, by insult, by disbelief.

“She’s poking at me,” he murmured. “She thinks she can undercut me on my own ground?”

“It appears so.”

Cole stopped in front of the window, his reflection faint in the glass. “What do you want from me—permission to panic?”

“No, sir. We’re asking what you want done.”

He rested a hand on the sill, fingers tapping once—decisive, clean.

“She took something from me today.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So I’ll take something back.”

A long pause followed, the kind that made lesser men sweat.

Then Cole said, too quietly, “I want her house unsettled.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning make them feel unsafe.” He didn’t blink. “Rattle the walls. Shake the ground under their feet. I don’t give a damn if someone bleeds. I don’t care if someone breaks something that won’t heal right. I want them to wake up knowing they’re not alone on that land.”

“Understood,” the voice said—shaken now.

“And listen,” Cole added, his tone flattening into something colder than threat. “Don’t touch the woman. Don’t touch the kids. But any other man on that ranch? Fair game. They wanna rumble, then let’s fucking rumble!”

The man inhaled sharply. “You want it to look intentional?”

“No,” Cole said with a faint, humorless smile. “I want it to look inevitable.”

A nod over the phone. “We’ll handle it.”

Cole ended the call, letting his hand linger on the screen as if extinguishing the conversation extinguished the restraint he’d been holding onto all day. The office felt tighter, smaller, as if the walls themselves understood the shift inside him.

Then—a sound.

Soft.

In the hall.

A faint shift of weight on carpet.

The smallest gasp of someone realizing they shouldn’t be where they were.

Cole snapped his head toward the door, but the hallway was empty—quiet, still, the shadows innocent. He stepped out, scanned the corridor, saw nothing but darkness and the faint glow from the upstairs landing.

Satisfied, he turned toward the master bedroom.

Only after his footsteps dissolved into silence did a small figure emerge from where the shadow met the wall. Bare feet. Hands trembling. Shoulders drawn in tight as if trying to hold the world still.

She had heard everything.

Every word.

And the hurt, the fear, the confusion broke loose in a whisper that cracked down the center:

“…Dad?”

The bunkhouse always felt a little bigger at night.

When the sun went down and the work was done, the walls stretched somehow, the air loosened, and the hard lines of the day blurred into something easier. Someone had dragged the old radio onto the shelf near the door, and a low country song hummed softly beneath the clink of glass and the low murmur of voices.

Travis had claimed his usual chair—half-collapsed, cushion ripped on one side, perfect—and he sat sideways in it, one bare foot planted on the floor, the other hooked over the arm. The mason jar in his hand was three-quarters empty, his cheeks faintly flushed, his eyes bright with the warm, lazy mischief that only showed up after dark and after whiskey.

“All I’m sayin’,” he drawled, pushing the jar toward Carter’s knee, “is life is short and so are you if you keep flinchin’ from every little thing.”

Carter sat perched on the edge of the bunkhouse couch, elbows on his knees, white t-shirt abandoned somewhere, old jeans slung low on his hips. The light from the overhead bulb cut a shallow gleam across his shoulder where the bruise still colored the skin beneath—faded now, but not gone. He stared at the jar like it might hold a snake.

“Rip catches me drinkin’,” he muttered, “he’ll put me six feet under and then make me dig my way back up so he can yell at me again.”

“That’s only if you’re sloppy about it,” Travis said. The words slurred just a touch, vowels softening. “You nurse one, you don’t fall down, nobody’s got to know a damn thing. That’s what bein’ a man is, Cart. Owning your shit.”

He tapped the jar lightly against Carter’s thigh. “Take it.”

Carter took it, because he could never really say no to that tone—the half-teasing, half-serious one Travis used when he was trying to pull him forward without making it look like a favor. The smell hit him first—sour and sharp and smoky.

“I’m just sayin’,” Carter said, sniffing it suspiciously, “every time you start talkin’ about bein’ a man, somebody ends up in trouble.”

“Yeah. Usually me.” Travis grinned. “And I’m still here, ain’t I?”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, jar dangling from his fingers. “Look, you disobeyed Rip. You jumped in that truck. You jumped in front of guns. You did all that. Stand in it, man. Don’t half-hide and call it obedience. You defied him. Own it, or you’re just a scared little bitch who wants credit for being brave and cover for being afraid.”

Carter’s jaw tightened. “I’m not scared.”

“Then prove it,” Travis said simply. “Take a sip. Breathe. Don’t apologize for bein’ eighteen and stupid. You think Rip never did anything worse? He’d respect you more if you looked him in the eye and said, ‘yeah, I did it. I’d do it again.’”

“Rip doesn’t respect anybody.”

“He respects you,” Travis shot back, no hesitation. “Not the way you want yet—but it’s in there. Just quit tryin’ to be the edited version of yourself around him. Be the one that jumps in bed of trucks and pulls girls out of crosshairs and says, ‘I knew it was dumb and I still did it.’ That’s a man. A dumb one. But a man.”

Carter blinked, eyes flicking down to the jar, the words sinking deeper than he wanted to show. “You’re swearin’ a lot,” he said weakly. “You sure you’re just tipsy?”

“You know how I get.” Travis shrugged, easy. “Little whiskey, lotta honesty.”

Carter rolled his eyes, brought the jar to his lips, and took a cautious sip. The burn hit the back of his throat like a line of fire, heat sliding down into his chest. He coughed once, swallowing around it, eyes watering just enough to make him mad at himself.

“There you go,” Travis said. “See? Not dead. Not struck down. Just a man drinkin’ something nasty in an ugly room with ugly friends. That’s life.”

“Man, if you’re gonna talk profound, at least do it without smellin’ like a bar mat,” Carter muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, but there was a ghost of a smile pulling at one corner of his lips.

“I’m serious, Carter.” Travis pointed at him with the same hand that held the jar, almost sloshing it. “You can’t live scared of them. You can respect them, love them, hate them, want to throw shit at them—but you can’t be scared of your own shadow just ‘cause it looks like Rip Wheeler. That sound like a life you wanna live?”

Carter didn’t answer right away. He stared at the floor, at the scuffed boards and the worn spot by the door where countless boots had dragged dust in. Finally, he said quietly, “No.”

“Then stop walkin’ like every step is permission.” Travis settled back, satisfied. “You’re not a kid they picked up off the side of the road anymore. You’re their man. Start acting like you believe it.”

“Alright,” Carter said, in that stubborn way he had when he agreed but refused to show how much it meant. “Fine. Whatever. Also, stop drinkin’ or you’re gonna start reciting poetry.”

“You wish.” Travis took another swallow and hissed. “Shit burns.”

The bunkhouse door slammed open like a gunshot.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Caleb announced, stumbling into the doorway with his arms spread wide, “I have single-handedly changed the fate of this ranch.”

Jessie was right behind him, flicking the light switch the rest of the way up. “He translated for Beth one time and now he thinks he’s the Secretary of State,” she said.

Carter snorted as Caleb swaggered in. “What’d you do, Ortiz? Bring her Starbucks in Spanish?”

Caleb pressed a finger to his lips, making a sloppy “shhh” sound. “It’s a secret,” he said. “Top secret. Classified. The less you know, the safer you are.”

“Christ,” Jessie muttered, dropping onto the edge of her bunk. “Where’s Lloyd when you need him? He’d tell you to shut the hell up and sit down.”

Travis perked up. “He’d also be sittin’ right here with us, drink in hand, tellin’ us how much dumber he was than all of us at our age and somehow still alive. Don’t act like the old man wouldn’t be joinin’ in.”

“Still doesn’t mean I don’t miss him tellin’ you two to put a sock in it,” Jessie said, but there was affection under it.

Before the next round of teasing could land, there was the thunder of small feet on the porch.

“Uh oh,” Carter murmured, already setting the jar down behind the couch.

The door swung open and Sage came barreling in like a pint-sized tornado—bare feet, tangled curls, oversized t-shirt hanging off one shoulder. The moment she crossed the threshold, every adult in the room moved at once.

Travis shoved his drink under the pillow.

Caleb put his behind his boot.

Jessie just crossed her arms and glared as if daring anyone to call her out.

Sage didn’t see any of it. Her eyes went straight to Carter.

“CARTER!” she hollered, launching herself at him.

He barely had time to brace before she hit his lap full force. His shoulder flared with a bolt of pain; he clenched his jaw and sucked in a breath through his teeth.

“Careful, bug,” he said, voice tight.

Sage scrambled up his chest and settled herself half on his lap, half against his ribs, entirely as if she were meant to live there. “Read me a story,” she demanded. “Beth said you would.”

Carter glanced at the others over her shoulder. Travis was watching with that quiet, unreadable fondness he tried to hide whenever someone might mention it out loud.

“This is the only girl in my life,” Carter said, smoothing a hand over Sage’s hair.

“What about Beth?” Travis asked.

Carter considered. “Yeah. Her too.”

“And Simone,” Travis added, like he’d been waiting for the opening.

It landed in the room like a spark in dry grass.

“Ooooooh,” Jessie sing-songed. Caleb perked up like a dog hearing a can opener. Sage’s head twisted around so fast her hair whipped Carter in the face.

“Who’s Simone?” she demanded.

Carter shot Travis a look that promised violence, then put on his calmest face. “Nobody.”

“A girl,” Travis said.

“Travis,” Carter snapped.

Sage’s mouth formed a perfect O. “Is she pretty?” she whispered, as if this were the hinge the whole world turned on.

Carter’s ears burned. He stared at the far wall. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Very.”

“How?” Sage leaned back so she could see his face. “What she look like?”

The image slid into his mind without effort—the warm brown of her skin, like coffee with cream, the dark curls pulled into a messy knot at the top of her head, the way her eyes held both sharpness and softness at once. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“She’s got these curls,” he said slowly, “like she got caught in the wind and just stayed that way. And her skin’s all warm—like what the sky looks like right before sunset. And when she looks at you, it’s like she already knows what you’re about to say and she’s just waitin’ to see if you’ll lie about it.”

Jessie’s eyebrows climbed. Caleb let out a low whistle. “Damn,” Caleb muttered. “He’s gone.”

“I can admire somebody’s beauty without bein’ ‘gone,’” Carter grumbled. “You’re all dramatic.”

Sage wriggled around fully, both hands now planted on Carter’s chest. “Do you love her?”

He choked. Hard. “What? No. I just met her.”

Jessie smirked. “That’s how it starts, Romeo.”

Carter groaned and stood, setting Sage gently on her feet. “Alright, interrogation’s over. You want a story or not?”

“Yes,” she said firmly, reaching for his hand. “One with horses. And no one dies.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

They walked to the door, Sage still chattering about which book she wanted, which voices he had to do. Carter glanced back once. Travis had his jar back in hand, calmed now, eyes following them in that way that said a thousand things he’d never be dumb enough to say out loud.

Rip and Beth appeared just as Carter and Sage slipped past them on the porch. Beth had an envelope in her hand; she slapped it lightly against Caleb’s chest.

“Good work,” she said. “You just made us richer than Cole Hart planned on us being this week.”

Caleb looked down at the envelope, eyes going wide at the thickness. “Oh, shit,” he breathed. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Travis lifted his hand like a kid in school. “And here I was thinkin’ fixin’ the sink would get me a bonus too.”

Beth shot him a dry look. “You want a medal for not flooding my kitchen?”

“Wouldn’t turn one down,” he said.

Rip reached into his pocket, eyes glinting, and flicked something toward Travis. It arced under the light and landed in his palm.

Travis stared down at it. “A… washer,” he said. “You gave me a washer.”

“You’re a handyman,” Rip said, deadpan. “Consider it a raise.”

Jessie snorted. Caleb laughed until he wheezed. Even Beth’s mouth twitched.

Travis held the washer up between two fingers, solemn. “I’m gonna frame this,” he said. “Hang it over my bed. Motivation.”

“Do that,” Rip replied. “And don’t scratch my damn truck with it.”

Couple hours later, the bunkhouse settled.

The jokes faded into the soft murmur of half-finished conversations and then into snores. Someone turned the radio off. The night pressed against the windows, thick and quiet, the kind of Texas dark that swallowed edges and made distances lie.

Carter drifted off in his bunk—hair damp from a quick shower, jeans still on, bare chest cooling under the faint draft from the cracked window. For a while, he slept like a rock.

Then his shoulder throbbed.

A slow, deep ache that pulled him up out of the shallow water of sleep. He blinked into the dark, disoriented for a second, listening to the layered sounds of breathing in the bunkhouse. Someone mumbled in their sleep. Jessie’s braid hung off the side of her mattress like a rope.

He realized two things at once: he needed to pee, and climbing the loft ladder with that shoulder in the middle of the night had been a stupid choice.

He swung his legs out of bed carefully, wincing when the movement tugged at healed-but-not-healed tissue. The floor was cool on his bare feet. He padded toward the bathroom door, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his wrist.

The door opened at the same time his hand reached for the knob.

Travis stepped out, shirtless, jeans hanging low, hair mashed on one side from his pillow, eyes squinting like the light inside had offended him. They nearly collided.

“Damn,” Travis muttered. “You’re a ghost.”

“Bathroom,” Carter said. “Move.”

“There’s only one,” Travis pointed out.

“Yeah, that’s how bathrooms work.”

They stood there for a stupid second, sleep-heavy and stubborn.

“We can go together,” Travis whispered. “Back to back, eyes closed, real bonding experience—”

“You’re an idiot,” Carter said.

“Thank you,” Travis replied gravely.

Annoyed and still half-asleep, Carter shoved his good shoulder into Travis’s, moving him aside. Travis, never one to be outdone, gave him a playful smack right on the sore one. Pain spasmed through Carter’s arm; he cursed under his breath and smacked him back lower, toward the ribs.

They grappled for a second, half-hearted, muffled laughter shaking loose.

“Yo, chill! You’re gonna make me pee,” Travis cried out through the laughter.

“Stop,” Jessie’s voice came, thick with sleep from her bunk. “If I have to come down there and separate you like toddlers, I’m hittin’ both of you.”

They froze, then dissolved into quiet snickers. Carter stepped toward the bathroom.

“You go,” Travis said, backing away. “If I wait I’m gonna see God. I’ll just go outside.”

“You could just wait thirty seconds.”

“I could,” Travis said, already reaching for the front door. “But I won’t.”

He slipped out into the night.

The air outside was cooler than it had been earlier, the heat finally bleeding off the land. Stars were scattered thick across the sky—no city glow to drown them out. The yard lay wide and empty: shadowed fences, the outline of the barn, the distant silhouette of the house, a single porch light burning.

Travis stepped a few yards from the bunkhouse, just far enough to give the illusion of privacy, and turned his back to the building. He unzipped and sighed as his body finally stopped complaining.

The night hummed.

Crickets.

Distant lowing from the pasture.

The tired exhale of an engine cooling in the dark.

He didn’t hear the first footstep.

The gravel gave under a boot somewhere behind him, quiet, practiced. Then another. Three, four shapes sliding into the space where the yard met shadow, where the light from the bunkhouse window didn’t quite reach.

Travis caught the faintest scuff of movement and started to turn his head.

A hand clamped onto the back of his neck, fingers digging in, jerking him forward. His balance went out from under him so fast his body didn’t have time to catch up; the world tilted and the ground slammed up into his knees.

“What the—”

The rest of it was knocked out of him when a fist drove into his side, just above the hip, a sharp, controlled blow that stole his air more than it hurt. Another crashed into his ribs from the other side. His hands shot out on instinct, palms scraping on dirt and loose rock.

He tried to twist, to see, to get his feet back under him, but someone’s weight hit between his shoulder blades, driving him down. His cheek mashed into the hard-packed ground. He tasted dust.

A boot caught him in the back of the thigh. Another found his shoulder—the good one—spin-kicking enough to make stars spark behind his eyes. His body wanted to curl in, to protect the soft places, but the pressure on his back pinned him open.

He grunted, a short, ugly sound, more shock than pain.

Hands grabbed at his arms, yanking them back, forcing his chest flat. One wrist was twisted just enough to wrench a cry out of him, low and involuntary. Someone chuckled above him.

“Stay down,” a voice said, too calm, too close to his ear.

“Who—” Travis rasped.

A hand pressed his face harder into the dirt, grinding the words away. He felt the scrape of rock against his cheekbone. Heat bloomed there. The air smelled like dust and engine oil and something metallic he didn’t want to name.

Another punch landed in his side. Not wild. Precise. They weren’t kids swinging out of rage; they were men who knew exactly where to hit to make a body remember it later.

For a moment, all he could hear was his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, the rush of blood and the sharp, controlled exhales of the men around him. They weren’t breathing hard. That scared him more than the blows.

“Stay out of Hart business,” one of them said finally, the words low and even, like a line rehearsed before it was delivered.

Travis tried to spit a curse back at him, but the heel of a palm shoved his head sideways, jaw smacking the ground hard enough to make his teeth clack. Pain flashed bright and hot up the side of his face.

“Say you understand,” the man murmured.

Travis swallowed dirt. Pride warred with survival in a brief, stupid, very human flare. He didn’t speak.

The boot came down between his shoulder blades again—not stomping, just enough to remind him his choices had limits tonight.

His breath buckled. “I—” He coughed, the word catching on dust and pain. “Got it.”

“Good,” the voice said.

The weight lifted. For a second, Travis thought maybe it was over.

Then a final kick slammed low into his ribs, angled just so, and a sharp, white-hot line of agony ripped through his side and up into his chest. He couldn’t breathe. The night narrowed to a pinpoint. He heard someone laugh quietly, like they’d just finished a job, not a fight.

Bootsteps retreated. Gravel crunched. An engine turned over somewhere beyond his field of vision—a truck that had been parked dark on the edge of the road, waiting.

He lay face-down in the dirt, jeans soaked at the waistband where his body had refused to wait, bare back open to the night air. Everything hurt. Not dramatically—no lightning or screaming—just a deep, bone-level ache folding over itself, radiating out from his ribs, from his jaw, from the places boots had met muscle.

He tried to push up once. His arm wobbled and gave. He hissed, teeth clenched, breath slicing in short, sharp pulls that didn’t bring enough air.

The truck’s headlights never turned on. It rolled away in the dark like a ghost that had finished its haunting.

The yard was silent again.

Travis stared at the ground inches from his eye—the tiny stones, the pressed pattern of tire tracks, a small dark drop that fell from his chin and sank into the dust. He couldn’t tell if it was sweat or blood. It didn’t matter. It was his.

“Shit,” he breathed, the word barely a thread of sound.

He thought of Sage, wrapping herself around him earlier, calling him a hero for tossing her in the air. Thought of Carter, laughing in the bunkhouse, face soft when he talked about a girl with sunset skin. Thought of the washer Rip had tossed him like a joke and how he’d pretended it was treasure.

He tried to move again. Every muscle protested, every breath came with a side of pain.

Hell of a warning, he thought dimly, somewhere between anger and awe.

The night pressed closer. His cheek cooled where it touched the earth. The stars above blurred at the edges.

Then everything went black.

The men were gone.

The yard was still.

And Travis lay alone in the dirt, battered and bleeding into Cole Hart’s message.