“And since when do you give a shit about what happens to Cole? From what you’ve told me, he made your life a living hell.”
I couldn’t explain it. Not really. Not in a way that would make sense to someone who hadn’t grown up here, who didn’t understand what the ranch meant.
“I just do,” I finally said. “I know it’s hard to understand, but I need to do this. I… I owe it to them.”
“They were terrible to you!” Derek cried back. “You don’t owe them shit!”
I rolled my eyes. This was my own fault. I’d told a lot of stories over the years about how much I hated the family I’d left behind. Maybe I embellished a bit and maybe I didn’t, but I definitely made my feelings on the subject known. Derek was only parroting my own emotions back to me.
“I know that, Derek,” I sighed, rubbing my palm over my forehead in frustration. “But you don’t understand. This ranchrepresents generations of hard work. It’s a part of who I am. I can’t just let it get donated to charity and torn down.”
There was a long pause. “So you’ve made up your mind then?” Derek’s tone was high and sharp. “You’re staying in Montana?”
“Derek… I don’t have a choice…”
“Well let me give you another one,” he snapped, not waiting for me to finish. “You can either come home to me, or you can stay in Montana and be single.”
“You could move here?—”
“Don’t make me fucking laugh,” he cut in, his voice full of anger. “I’m not quitting my six-figure job, packing up all my shit, and moving to bum-fuck Montana for a year so we can both get hate-crimed by your shitty stepbrother.”
“Cole’s not like that,” I found myself saying, although I didn’t know if it was true. We’d never talked much about sexuality. I just assumed he was straight. “It’s just a year?—”
“No, Jesse,” Derek barked. “You always do shit like this, you know? Every other month you want to move here or there or pack up everything and start over in another country. It’s almost like you don’t want a home… likeI’mnot enough for you.”
“Derek it’s not?—”
“Make your choice Jesse. Come home now or don’t bother coming back at all.”
Then the line went dead.
I stared at my phone for a long moment, stunned by what had just happened. Derek had hung up on me. Given me an ultimatum. Just like that, my relationship of two years was hanging by a thread, all because of my stepfather’s ridiculous will.
“Fuck,” I muttered, shoving my phone back into my pocket.
The sun was fully up now, casting long shadows across the cemetery. A few birds had started their morning songs, obliviousto my personal crisis. I glanced back at Dad’s grave, feeling a surge of resentment.
“This is your fault,” I said to the fresh mound of dirt, anger twisting in my gut. “You couldn’t just let me live my life, could you?”
I got in the car and sat there, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. My entire world was unraveling, and I had less than two days to decide whether to throw away my life in Seattle or let Cole lose everything he’d worked for. Maybe I could call Derek back and tell him I’d be home tomorrow, that I’d figure something else out. I… Icouldchoose him over the ranch, over Cole, over this entire fucking mess.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and started the engine. The decision had been made somewhere deep inside me before Derek had even issued his ultimatum. I was staying in Hell Creek, at least for a year. And if that meant losing Derek... well, maybe we weren’t as important to one another as I thought. He’d been right too. I’d been looking for an excuse to get out of Seattle for a while. I just never thought I’d end up back here in Hell Creek.
I drove slowly back toward town, the morning light illuminating the streets in a way I’d almost forgotten. The mountains loomed in the distance, their peaks catching the first full rays of sunlight. Main Street was just beginning to wake up, a few early risers heading to the diner for breakfast. It was beautiful in its own harsh, unforgiving way, nothing like the manicured parks and gleaming high-rises of Seattle.
But instead of going back to the hotel, I headed out of town on the opposite side. I figured there was no point in prolonging the inevitable.
Five minutes later, I pulled into Nelson Ranch for the first time in fifteen years.
The ranch looked both exactly the same and completely different from how I remembered it. The main house still stood tall and proud, its weathered wood siding bleached by decades of Montana sun. The barn needed a fresh coat of paint, but it was the same sturdy structure that had housed horses and equipment since before I was born. The fields stretched out beyond, dotted with cattle grazing in the morning light.
But there were changes too. New fencing along the south pasture, an expanded chicken coop, solar panels on the workshop roof. Fifteen years of Cole’s influence, his vision for the place slowly taking shape without me.
I parked near the main house, my rental car looking painfully out of place among the mud-splattered trucks and ATVs. For a long moment, I just sat there, engine off, gathering my courage. What the hell was I going to say to Cole? And would he even allow me to stay?
The screen door of the main house slammed, and a woman stepped onto the porch. She was older, with gray hair pulled back in a neat bun, wearing an apron over practical clothes. She spotted my car immediately, shading her eyes against the morning sun as she peered in my direction.
