Foreclosure. The word landed like a stone in my stomach, chilling me to the bone despite the crisp air.
We stood there in the snow, silence stretching between us. In the distance, Duke barked once, then ran ahead.
I followed Max back to the house in a daze. The world I’d walked into was bigger and messier than I’d imagined.
Inside, the kitchen was quiet. A soft winter light fell across the table. I wandered toward the old desk in the corner—something I hadn’t noticed the night before—and opened the top drawer.
It was full of papers: unpaid utility bills, letters from the bank, a handwritten list labeled “Fix Before Spring” in a shaky scrawl that I guessed was my grandfather’s.
I ran my finger over the words—fence post, leak by tack room, check pipe at kitchen sink. This wasn't just a list; it was his last stand, a quiet plea to keep this place alive.
It wasn’t just broken. It was barely holding on.
And somehow, it was mine now.
I backed away and crossed to the counter, needing something—anything—to ground me.
That’s when I saw it.
Tucked beside an old ceramic cookie jar was a photograph. My mother.
Ten years old, maybe younger, sitting atop a small brown horse. Her smile was wide, unguarded, a stark contrast to the quiet sadness that always seemed to cling to her later in life. The wind had blown her hair into her face, and she looked exactly like me.
I reached for the frame with trembling fingers.
And like that, the room tilted. It was a fragment of a life, a joy she’d kept hidden. I remembered asking my mom once where she grew up. She’d brushed it off—said it was a place that didn’t matter anymore. I never asked again. And now I wished I had.
That’s when it hit me: this wasn’t just a ranch. It was a past I never knew existed.
Duke padded into the kitchen and sat beside me, pressing his head gently against my leg. I rested my hand on his back, grateful for the warmth, for the company.
And now I had to figure out if I could save it.
Weeks. That’s how long I had before the place my mother once called home vanished forever. And somehow, I was the only one left to stop it.
Chapter 4 – Starcrest’s Glare
Max
The sun wasn’t even all the way up, and already the cold bit through my boots. Duke and I were ankle-deep in frozen mud, the kind that sucked at your soles with every step.
He trotted beside me like he had all the energy in the world, tongue out, tail high, while I grumbled under my breath and tugged my collar tighter against the wind.
“City girls and lost causes,” I muttered. “That’s what we’re dealing with now.”
Duke gave me a sidelong glance like he didn’t entirely disagree.
“She walks in like she’s got a plan. Like this place ain’t hanging by a thread.” I kicked a chunk of ice off the step and shoved the barn door open.
“What’s she gonna do—redecorate the barn and sell gingerbread cookies out front?”
Duke snorted. Or maybe sneezed. Either way, it sounded suspiciously like judgment, and I glared down at him, though it did no good.
I grabbed the feed bucket and dumped it into the trough, the cold metal clanging louder than I liked. The sound startled a nearby heifer, who tossed her head and trotted back a few feet.
The east gate latch had frozen up again. I bent down, pried it loose with a pocket knife, and tried not to think about how I’d been meaning to fix it properly for three weeks.
Like a dozen other things I’d meant to fix, each one a nagging reminder of all the battles I was losing: the cracked window in the bunkhouse, the generator that needed a new belt, the leaky trough in pasture three.
