This was my family.
My land.
My history.
And suddenly, my anger rose—hot, clean.
“You don’t get to show up here,” I said, each word measured, “and speak to me like you own the air.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly, evaluating.
Then she said, almost pleasantly, “Call him.”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
“Call Micah,” she repeated. “Tell him to come.”
Sunny lunged against the leash, snarling now.
My sister tightened her grip, knuckles white. “Joy?—”
I held up a hand behind me without looking, a silent signal: stay back.
I stared at the woman. “Why?”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Because I want him to understand that the truce can still stand.”
My skin went cold.
“The truce,” I repeated.
She nodded once. “If he chooses it.”
My pulse pounded so hard it made my vision pulse at the edges. “And if he doesn’t?”
The woman’s gaze flicked toward the house—toward my momma’s porch swing, toward the fields, toward the line of people behind me.
She said nothing.
But her silence said everything.
A hand slid into my back pocket where my phone sat like a weight.
Every instinct screamed:call him.
And another part of me—newer, more stubborn, more changed—said:
Not yet.
Not on her terms.
I lifted my chin. “Get off our property.”
Her eyes held mine for a long moment.
Then she reached into her pocket slowly, careful and deliberate, as if she knew how the movement would read.
My daddy tensed.
