Johanna was the one to break the silence, the words slicing sharp: “Did you have to do that in front of everyone?”
He almost told her to save it. But the look on her face shut him down. So he just turned and walked away. He needed air, too.
Johanna chased after him, following him wordlessly until he wound up in his office. She shut the door with a hard click and glared at him, hand on her hip. “That was too far.”
He turned to the window, giving her his back. He couldn’t stand the disappointment in her eyes. “He needed to hear it.”
“He needed connection, not a hammer.” She moved further into the room, her boots quiet on the wornfloorboards. “You just confirmed what he already believes—that he’s irredeemable.”
“And what do you suggest?” Frustration bled into every word as he spun back to her. “Let him keep pulling stunts until someone gets killed? Again?”
She didn’t flinch. “Of course not. But there’s a difference between setting boundaries and public humiliation.”
“We’ve tried everything else, Jo. Five months of patience, of individual talks, of therapy sessions that he turns into stand-up routines. Five months of watching him sabotage every chance we give him.” He slumped against the edge of the desk. “What else was I supposed to do?”
“Listen to him. Not to what he’s saying—to what he’s not saying. The jokes, the pranks, the constant motion… It’s all a distraction.”
“From what?”
“From what happens in his head when everything gets quiet.” She took another step closer, close enough that the faint vanilla and coconut scent clinging to her hair reached him. “You can’t fix everyone the same way as you did Boone. River’s different.”
His shoulders squared as he crossed his arms over his chest, jaw tightening until a muscle jumped beneath the stubble there. “I didn’t fix Boone. I just gave him?—”
“Structure. Purpose. Discipline,” she finished for him. “Tough love. And it worked because that’s what Boone needed. He was drowning in chaos, and you gave him solid ground.” Another step closer. “But River isn’t drowning in chaos, Walker. He’s creating it to keep from drowning in guilt.”
He almost laughed. Instead, he grabbed the back of his neck and squeezed until pain flared. “So what, I’m supposed to coddle him? Pretend it’s fine he almost got someone killed?”
She gave him that look—all dark eyes and stubborn chin and a flash of real anger just under the surface. “You don’t coddle him. You hold him accountable. But you do it with dignity. With grace. Not like you’re trying to break him.”
“Sometimes breaking is the only way somebody figures out how to put themselves back together.”
“That’s not true,” she snapped, stepping so close he could feel the heat of her anger radiating off her. “That’s not what you did for Boone. Or Jonah. You let them feel things. You let them fuck up in private, and didn’t give them a public flogging.”
“That’s not what this was.”
Her laugh was sharp as broken glass. “Sure looked like it to everyone in the barn.”
He turned away, fists clenched, staring at the cracked window glass above his desk. He wanted a cigarette so bad he could taste the old bitterness on the back of his tongue, but he hadn’t lit up in seven years, and he wasn’t about to start again now. Instead, he snatched a Tootsie Pop from his desk and yanked the wrapper off, jamming the candy into his cheek. “He’s going to run.”
“Not if you go after him. Not if you fix what you just did.”
He shot her a look. “You think I can put the genie back in the bottle? You saw his face, Jo. He was gone before he hit the door.”
She took a long, shaky breath, obviously centering herself, then crossed to him. Her palm settled on his chest over his heart, and she waited until he lifted his gaze to hers.
“I know failing with Evander shook your confidence in what we’re doing,” she said softly. “But I did some research last night, and you know what I found out? Evander bought the property that borders the north pasture. The old Miller place.”
Walker’s head snapped up, the Tootsie Pop nearly falling from his mouth. “What?”
“I was looking at county records for the zoning issue, and I saw the sale went through last week. It’s his name on the deed.” Her fingers pressed more firmly against his chest. “He’s still here, Walker. He didn’t leave completely. We didn’t fail him.”
Walker stared at her, trying to process what she was saying. Evander had vanished without a word, leaving his bed unmade. But he hadn’t gone far. Just over the ridge, to land that shared a boundary with the ranch.
“Why didn’t he say anything?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he needed space but not distance.” Her lips curved into a small, hopeful smile. “The point is, he stayed. Even if he couldn’t stay here, he stayed close. That means something.”
Walker looked out the window over her head, north toward where the Miller property lay beyond the ridge. Evander was there. The sniper who’d spoken maybe fifty words total during his three days at the ranch. The man who’d disappeared without warning, leaving Walker questioning everything about Valor Ridge’s mission.
