I stare at the page again, the words blurring. Our debts. Our numbers. Private conversations I’d had with Quinn and Lanie in confidence.
“Where did they even get this?”
“I don’t know,” she says, grabbing the paper. Her eyes scan the lines, horrified. “My editor must’ve added it. I swear to you, Dylan, I didn’t write any of that. The version I sent in?—”
“Doesn’t matter,” I cut in, voice sharper than I mean. “Your name’s on it.”
“I can fix it. I’ll call Patti, get a correction printed?—”
“It’s too late. Damage is done.”
She flinches. “You don’t really think I’d do this, do you? To you? To your family?”
I rake a hand through my hair, pacing the small space because standing still hurts.
“I don’t know what to think right now. All I know is we just became the day’s gossip.”
Chase exhales hard. “I’m heading back to help Quinn handle the fallout. Lanie’s fielding calls already.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” I tell him, grabbing my jacket.
“Dylan—” Taegen’s voice catches. “Please. Let me help.”
“I can’t,” I say quietly. “Not right now.”
The look on her face nearly undoes me—hurt and disbelief tangled together. But I can’t stay, not with the phone vibrating in my pocket and the weight of a broken heart waiting down at the farm.
I step out into the cold morning air, the door closing behind me, and for the first time since she came back, the woods feel empty again.
EIGHT
TAEGEN
The bell above the newsroom door jingles as I shove it open.
The scent of burnt coffee and old printer toner washes over me, but I ignore it—and the police scanner crackling—as I make my way to the back office.
I walk straight into Patti’s office and toss the morning’s paper onto her desk, my byline staring straight up at us.
Her smile is already prepped, news-anchor sweet. “Great traction on your piece. We’re seeing?—”
“You rewrote my story.” My voice is steady. It feels like standing in cold surf—numb at first, then the sting hits.
Patti leans back, hands laced behind her head. “We tightened it. Added context.”
“You added misinformation,” I say. “Anonymous-source garbage. Private—and old—financial details that were never in my draft.”
She blinks, slow. “We verified with a community stakeholder.”
“Karen or Chad?”
She doesn’t confirm. She doesn’t have to.
“They’re trying to buy the farm out from under the Carvers,” I say. “That’s not a stakeholder. That’s a conflict of interest.”
“Everything’s a conflict for someone up here.” Patti’s tone turns patronizing, silk over steel. “You told me you grew up with them. You’re hardly objective, Taegen. We balanced your soft-focus feature with hard facts.”
“Facts you never verified with the people you were printing them about.”
