"I would never?—"
"Good. We'll be there Tuesday afternoon. Make sure everything's perfect. The board's considering promoting you to senior partner if this goes well. Don't fuck it up."
He hung up before I could respond, leaving me standing on Main Street with my phone in my hand and my carefully constructed peace in ruins.
Mark was coming here. To Copper Creek. To the ranch where I was barely holding myself together, where Wyatt and I were one wrong word from destroying each other completely.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, though the sky above was still clear. But to the west, dark clouds were building, promising another storm. They'd been coming regular as clockwork lately—afternoon tempests that left everything clean and charged and dangerous.
"Everything okay?" Louisa asked when I came back inside.
"My boss is coming for a site visit. Next week."
"That's good, isn't it? Shows they're taking the project seriously."
"Yeah," I said, but my mind was racing. Mark in Copper Creek. Mark at the ranch. Mark with his smooth city charm and his inability to take no for an answer. Mark in proximity to Wyatt, who already thought the worst of me.
"Honey, you look like you've seen a ghost."
"My ex-boyfriend is coming too," I admitted. "We broke up before I left Dallas, but he's... persistent."
Louisa's expression sharpened. "Persistent how?"
"He thinks we're just taking a break. That I'll come to my senses. He's been calling, texting. I've been ignoring him, but now he's coming here, and I can't avoid him."
"Does Wyatt know you have an ex?"
"Yes, I mentioned it." I rubbed my temples where a headache was building. "This is going to be a disaster."
"Maybe not. Maybe it's exactly what needs to happen."
I stared at her. "How could this possibly be good?"
"Sometimes people don't know what they want until they see someone else trying to take it." She signaled for the check. "Besides, you're not the same woman who left Dallas. You're not even the same woman who arrived here two weeks ago. Let this Mark person come. Let him see who you really are, where you really belong."
"I don't belong?—"
"Don't you?" She stood, pulling cash from her wallet. "Honey, you've been home for two weeks, and you've already improved our breeding program, earned the respect of ranch hands who don't respect anyone easily, delivered a calf at 2 AM, and gotten into afence-mending fight that left you both bleeding. That's not the behavior of someone who doesn't belong. That's the behavior of someone fighting against belonging."
We walked outside together, the afternoon sun bright despite the building storm clouds. Main Street looked exactly as it had when I was eighteen—a little more worn, a few different stores, but essentially unchanged. Eternal. The kind of place that would go on existing long after the rest of the world had moved on to something else.
"Can I ask you something?" I said as we reached our cars.
"Always."
"Do you think people can really change? Or are we just... who we are, forever?"
She considered this, wind picking up and stirring her salt and pepper hair. "I think we're like rivers. The source stays the same—who we are at our core. But the path can change, the depth, the speed. Sometimes we go underground for a while, but we always emerge somewhere. And sometimes, if we're very lucky, we find our way back to the ocean we were always meant to reach."
"That's very poetic."
"That's very true." She pulled me into a hug that smelled like vanilla and home. "Whatever happens with this visit, with Mark, with Wyatt—remember that you're not eighteen anymore. You're not powerless. You get to choose now."
As she drove away, I stood in the parking lot watching those storm clouds build. They were moving fast, probably hit by evening. Another storm, another chance for everything to explode.
My phone buzzed. Mark.
Can't wait to see you. We need to talk about us.
