This is none of his business. It’s a family matter.
But…I do trust Wade.
I let out a long sigh.
The truck bounces slightly as we hit a rough patch of road. I tighten my grip on the duffel bag in my lap. Wade sits beside me, his elbow propped on the open window, letting the warm breeze ruffle his hair. He’s quiet, but I can feel his presence like a steady anchor. I’m not sure if that’s comforting or terrifying, considering what I’m about to tell him.
I blink and focus back on the road. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
I hesitate, my fingers tightening around the notebook in front of me. “About the ranch.”
His brow furrows, and he shifts in his seat to face me. “What about it?”
I take a deep breath, trying to steady the tremor in my voice. “I found some paperwork in my dad’s office. It’s… not good.”
“I assumed so. What kind of paperwork?”
“He took out a second mortgage on the house a few years ago,” I say, my voice cracking slightly. “The loan has a ridiculous balloon payment, and he’s behind on it. They’re close to foreclosing on the ranch.”
He lets out a low whistle. I glance at Wade.
“I don’t know what to do,” I continue, my voice rising as panic starts to creep in. “The payment is impossible, Wade. Even with what I have in savings, it wouldn’t be enough. And no bank is going to approve me for a loan to pay it off, not with the ranch in the red like this.”
Tears blur my vision, and I blink them away, my grip on the notebook tightening until my knuckles ache. “We can’t lose it. We can’t lose the ranch.Ican’t lose it. It’s my home and…the dream was always to come back and raise a family here, to run it, to give back to the town and the ranch that shaped me. But now…I never thought I’d lose it. It’s our family’s legacy. It’s everything my dad worked for, everything my mom loved. My dad…it will kill him and…I just… I don’t know what to do.”
The tears spill over, streaming down my face as I try to hold myself together. My chest feels like it’s caving in, the weight of it all pressing down on me until I can barely breathe.
He reaches over and places his hand on mine, gently prying my fingers off the duffel bag. “Sutton,” he says softly, his voice steady and calm.
He steers the truck over to a dead-end field road, puts it in park, and then looks over at me.
I shake my head; my vision is still blurry. “I’m fine. You didn’t have to stop. I’m…we have places that we need to be and…”
“You’re not fine.”
The engine idles softly, the only sound in the otherwise quiet afternoon. He fully turns to me, his hand still resting on mine.
“Look at me,” he says.
I take a shaky breath and turn to face him, my tears falling freely now. His blue eyes are steady, his expression calm but serious.
“We’ll figure it out,” he says, his voice low and sure. “I don’t know how yet, but we will. You’re not in this alone.”
I shake my head. “You don’t understand, Wade. This isn’t just about money. We’re losing cattle because of this outbreak, but the ranch is falling apart physically. He and Tuck put so much into that irrigation system, but it was likely a Hail Mary. Things are falling apart faster than they can get fixed. He’s too old to be running all of it by himself. He can’t afford to pay anyone to work it with him because he’s so far in the red. He’s going to get hurt and…The cattle are sick, and we don’t evenknow what’s causing it. If I can’t fix that, there’s no hope. None. But in reality, it’s just the beginning of this shit show.”
He squeezes my hand, his grip firm but comforting. “One thing at a time,” he says. “They always say that just before you’re about to make a big breakthrough that things always become the hardest, it’s where most people quit and give up their dreams. I guess I don’t know you well, but I’ve seen enough to know that you’re not a woman who gives up easily. We’re ranchers, Sutton, it’s in our blood, and because of that, we’re resilient and we can problem-solve with the best of them. First, we figure out what’s wrong with the cattle. Then we deal with the rest. But you’ve got to trust me, Sutton. We’ll find a way.”
His words pull me back from the edge of the panic that’s threatening to consume me. I nod, my tears slowing as I take a deep breath.
He gives me a small smile, his thumb brushing over the back of my hand.
We sit there for a moment, the silence stretching between us. The weight in my chest feels a little lighter, though the problems haven’t gone away. But purging it all to Wade has helped more than I realized it would.
After a while, he lets go of my hand and leans back in his seat. “You ready to keep going?”
I nod, wiping my face with the sleeve of my shirt. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
