I shook my head. “Not yet.”
He didn’t argue. Just nodded. “Offer stands.”
We sat in silence, watching the wind stir the dry grass. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed this kind of stillness—one not laced with tension and deadlines.
Eventually, I stood. “Appreciate it, Ethan. And tell your mama thanks for the pie last Christmas.”
“She still talks about how you took the whole thing home like it was your birthright,” he said with a grin.
I chuckled. “Best thing I ate that winter.”
“Don’t be a stranger, Max.”
I tipped my hat and made my way back to the truck, the sun low and casting a peach-colored hue over the ridge.
***
The sky darkened on my drive back into Starcrest. Snow clouds loomed, heavy with warning. The first flurries dusted my windshield.
When I pulled up to the barn, I saw the glow of lanterns inside. Ella was stringing lights across the rough-hewn rafters, humming off-key and dancing around a folding ladder like a Christmas elf on too much cider, the cheap LED bulbs casting a surprisingly warm glow over the dust and hay. I almost smiled.
Then I heard it. A long, groaning creak, followed by a soft, ominous groan from directly above her.
“Ella!” I shouted, my voice raw with sudden panic. She looked up, her smile still lingering on her face. Too late.
With a deafening splintering crack, a section of the barn roof gave way with a roar. Cold air, thick with snow and freezingwater, burst in, unleashing a cascade onto the decorations below—flattening garlands into sodden clumps, soaking banners until their colors ran, collapsing a table stacked with candles and fragile wreaths.
Ella stood frozen in the deluge, blinking as soggy pinecones and icy water streamed past her boots. Her eyes met mine, wide with shock. She turned slowly to me, soaked, stunned, a defeated Christmas elf.
I stepped inside, my heart sinking with every drip. “You okay?” I managed, my voice rough.
She nodded, but her lips trembled visibly. Not from the cold.
The barn that had started to look like Christmas now looked like a disaster zone, a stark symbol of everything we were up against.
Chapter 9 - Nostalgia and Nightmares
Ella
The snow was falling gently outside, a soft, hushed blanket covering the world as I slipped away from the kitchen. My steps were quiet as I wandered toward the study.
I hadn’t dared step inside since I arrived. Something about it felt sacred, sealed off—like a space where the very air still held my grandfather’s breath, a place imbued with his quiet presence.
The door creaked as I pushed it open. Dust motes danced in the golden late-afternoon light filtering through the window.
Shelves lined the walls, crowded with worn books whose spines cracked with age, weathered photographs curling at theedges, and artifacts from another life—thick ranching manuals annotated in the margins, heavy cattle ledgers filled with neat columns, even a framed county fair ribbon from 1979, faded but still proudly displayed.
Then I saw the desk.
Heavy. Oak. Scratched by years of use. On top, an old ledger sat beside a cracked leather journal, its cover worn smooth from countless touches.
I sat slowly, my fingers tracing the cracked leather, and opened the journal, bracing myself for more numbers, more grim financials.
Instead, I found words—looping script in faded blue ink, spilling across the pages. Letters. Dozens of them. All addressed to my mother. And none mailed.
I miss you every day, Katherine. I watch the birds and wonder if you see the same ones in your city. I wish I had been a different man. I wish I had said the words when it mattered.
I swallowed hard, flipping through more pages. They spanned years—some short, others pages long. Regrets. Updates. Memories. He’d written to her like she might answer back. Like maybe she’d come home.
