"I don't need closure. I need her to do her job and leave."
Liam looked at me with that knowing expression that made me want to punch him sometimes. "Sure you do. That's why you're sitting at your old spot, drinking Uncle Owen’s expensive whiskey, talking about a woman you supposedly don't care about."
"Shut up."
"Her presentation really was incredible, though," he said, changing tactics. “Uncle Owen’s already sold. Aunt Lou, too. Hell, even Hunter was taking notes."
"Hunter takes notes on everything."
"True. But he looked excited. When's the last time Hunter looked excited about anything that didn’t have a motor?"
I had to admit he had a point. My quiet brother rarely showed enthusiasm, but he'd been leaning forward during Ivy's presentation, completely absorbed.
"The ranch needs this," Liam continued. "You know it does. Competition's getting fiercer, and the market's changing. We either evolve or get left behind."
"We were doing fine without her."
"Fine isn't excellent. And Blackwood Ranch has always been about excellence." He stood, dusting off his jeans. "Look, I know this is hard. I know seeing her again is messing with your head.But maybe try to separate the personal from the professional. The ranch needs what she's offering, regardless of your history."
I scoffed. ”Easy for you to say."
"No, it's not. She was family to all of us, Wyatt. We all lost something when she left. But maybe this is a chance to get some of it back. Or at least to understand why we lost it in the first place."
He left me there with the whiskey and too many questions. I stayed until the moon was high and the bottle was near empty, trying to make sense of everything. Trying to reconcile the girl who'd left me with the woman who'd stood in our dining room today, brilliant and untouchable.
Had she left to protect me? The thought sat uncomfortable and heavy in my chest. It changed nothing and everything at the same time. She'd still left. Still chosen to run instead of trusting me. But maybe the reasons weren't as simple as I'd believed.
Tomorrow, she'd be in the breeding barn again, examining our cattle with those sharp eyes that missed nothing. She'd probably find a dozen things we could do better, a hundred ways to improve what we'd built. And she'd be right, damn her. She usually was.
I stood steadier than I should have been after that much whiskey and made my way back to where I'd left Tempest. The stallion nickered softly, probably wondering why we were out so late.
"Sorry, boy," I murmured, swinging into the saddle. "Got lost in my head."
The ride back was slower, quieter. The ranch was mostly dark, just security lights and the glow from the main house, where Mom and Dad were probably still up, discussing the presentation. The guest cabin had one light on—Ivy's bedroom. I wondered what she was doing. Working, probably. Creating more charts and graphs to show us how to be better.
Or maybe she was lying awake, wondering about the same things I was. About what had been and what might have been and why everything had gone so wrong.
But probably not. She'd seemed pretty content with her city life, her success, her distance from everything Copper Creek represented. She'd probably already forgotten about the boy who'd loved her, focused only on the job that would take her back to Dallas soon enough.
Still, Liam's words echoed:Maybe there's more to the story than you know.
Maybe. But I wasn't ready to find out. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
The anger was safer than the alternative—hope.
Chapter 5
Ivy
The first real workday dawned with a rooster's crow that had me jolting awake at 4:30 AM, heart racing before I remembered where I was. Not my sterile Dallas apartment with its programmed wake-up sounds and blackout curtains.
I lay there for a moment, listening to the ranch come alive. Cattle lowing in the distance. A truck door slamming. Voices carrying on the morning air—ranch hands heading to their first tasks of the day. It was a symphony I'd once known by heart, each sound telling me exactly what was happening across the property. Now it felt foreign and familiar at the same time, like trying to speak a language I'd once been fluent in.
By 5 AM, I was dressed in my most practical clothes—jeans that had never seen real work and boots that were embarrassingly new.
The breeding barn was already humming with activity when I arrived at 5:30, carrying my laptop bag and a box of equipment I had shipped from Dallas. Several ranch hands stopped what they were doing to watch me walk in. I recognized a few faces—older now, weathered by years of sun and wind, but familiar. Jimmy Rodriguez, who'd been a hand here when I was a teenager. Buck Williams, whose daughter had been in my class. A few younger men I didn't know, probably hired in the years since I'd left.
"Morning," I said, setting my boxes on the work table someone had cleared for me.
