My throat had gone desert dry. I reached for my water glass, proud when my hand barely trembled.
"The real coup," Doug said, clicking to the next slide showing aerial views of the ranch, "is that they specifically requested our firm. Said they'd heard about our innovative approaches, our success with modernizing traditional operations while maintaining heritage bloodlines."
The photos made my chest ache. Rolling pastures that seemed to go on forever, pristine white fences, barns that gleamed red in the Texas sun. The main house sprawled in the center like a promise—white limestone and cedar beams, wraparound porches where I'd spent countless evenings listening to Louisa's stories and Owen's dreams for the ranch's future.
"Garrison."
I snapped back to attention. Doug was looking directly at me, and so was everyone else in the room.
"Sir?"
"You're leading this one."
The words hit me like a physical blow. Jennifer actually gasped beside me.
"I'm sorry?" I managed, though my voice sounded strange to my own ears.
"Don't look so shocked." Doug smiled, the kind that meant he'd already made up his mind, and this was all just theater. "You're our best livestock genetics specialist. Your work on the Stanley account increased their conception rates by thirty percent. The Hendersons specifically requested you for their expansion after you identified those hereditary markers everyone else missed."
He was right. I was good at my job—maybe because I'd learned from the best, sitting at Owen Blackwood's kitchen table as a teenager, absorbing everything he taught about cattle and bloodlines and building something that would last generations.
"Plus," Doug added, his tone casual but his eyes sharp, "you're from that area originally, aren't you? That local knowledge could be invaluable. You understand these people, their culture, what matters to them."
These people.Like they were some exotic species to be studied. Like I hadn't been one of them once, hadn't bled and sweated and loved on that very land.
"Yes," I said, because what else could I say? "I'm familiar with the region."
"Perfect. You'll head down Monday. Plan for at least a month on-site, possibly longer depending on how the initial assessment goes." He clicked to another slide—financial projections that made my colleagues murmur appreciatively. "If you nail this, Garrison, we're talking senior partner. Corner office. Your pick of future accounts."
Senior partner. The promotion I'd been grinding toward for five years. The thing that was supposed to validate all my choices, prove that leaving Copper Creek had been the right decision. The achievement that would finally make me feel like I'd become someone who mattered.
"Congratulations, Ivy." Jennifer's smile was tight. She'd wanted this assignment—we all had. But Doug had chosen me, and now I had to live with it.
The meeting dissolved into logistics and timelines. I nodded at the right moments, took notes I'd have to decipher later when my hands stopped shaking. Doug outlined expectations—modernize their operation without losing what made Blackwood special, increase conception rates, improve genetic diversity, establish protocols that could be replicated across their partner ranches.
Simple enough on paper. Impossible when the ranch in question held every ghost I'd been running from.
When Doug finally dismissed us, I was first out the door, my heels clicking against marble floors as I fled to my office. I shut the door and leaned against it, eyes closed, trying to remember how to breathe normally.
Fourteen years. I'd stayed away fourteen years, built a life that had nothing to do with dusty boots and dawn chores and the way the light looked over the creek at sunset. A life that had nothing to do with green eyes and calloused hands and promises whispered in the dark.
My phone buzzed. Mark's name lit up the screen.
Dinner at 7? That new place in Uptown?
Mark. Right. My boyfriend of eight months—though that word felt flimsy for what we were. Two successful adults who enjoyedeach other’s company, shared similar ambitions, looked good together at firm events. He was handsome in that clean-cut, corporate way—square jaw, perfect teeth, hands that had never known a callus. He drove a BMW, owned a condo with a view, and had a five-year plan that ended with him shaking hands at the partnership table.
He was everything a successful woman was supposed to want. Stable. Ambitious. Safe.
He was nothing like?—
Stop.
Sure, I texted back.Long day. Need wine.
That bad? I’ll order a bottle. Love you.
I stared at those two words, waiting for something—warmth, longing,anything.But there was nothing. Just a polite kind of guilt for not feeling what I was supposed to. Mark saidlove youthe same way he ordered coffee or signed a contract—efficient, routine. I’d started saying it back months ago because it seemed easier than explaining why I couldn’t.
