"You hit me!" Mark sputtered, dabbing at his lip. "You all saw it! That's assault!"
"You assaulted her first," Maggie said calmly from the doorway, holding up her phone. "Every unwanted touch, every time she pulled away, and you grabbed her again. All recorded. Would you like me to send it to your company's HR department? I'm sure they'd be very interested in how their executives behave on business trips."
The threat landed. Mark's face went pale under his tan.
"This isn't over," Doug said, gathering his dignity like armor. "Ivy, you have forty-eight hours to return to Dallas or consider your contract terminated."
"Then I guess it's terminated," I said quietly.
The words surprised me as much as anyone. But standing there, with Wyatt's solid presence beside me, his family around me like a shield, I knew I meant it.
“You’re throwing away your career,” Doug said, his voice sharp enough to cut glass. He pushed up from behind his desk and started pacing, the city skyline gleaming behind him through the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Do you have any idea what this looks like? You walking away now, right when we’re finalizing your partnership? Christ, Ivy, the board’s been grooming you for this for years.”
I stayed silent, arms crossed, watching the familiar performance—the disbelief, the irritation, the undercurrent of fear.
He kept going. “We’ve investeda lotin you. Time, money, reputation. You’re the name clients ask for. The reason we close half our contracts. And you’re seriously telling me you’re walking away from all of it—for a cowboy and a ranch that doesn’t even need your help?”
“It’s not about the ranch,” I said quietly.
“Then what?” he snapped, running a hand through his hair. “What could possibly be worth throwing this away? You’re at the top of your field, Ivy.The bestin the industry. You could run this firm in five years if you stay the course.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” I said, my voice low but steady. “I’m tired of running something that doesn’t matter to me anymore.”
Doug stopped pacing, staring at me like I’d just confessed a crime. “You’re making a mistake,” he said, the words flat with disbelief. “You walk away now, there’s no coming back. And all this for what? “
"For home," I said simply. "For people who value me, not just what I can do for them."
They left in a flurry of threats and slammed doors, the black SUV kicking up dust as it fled the ranch like they were being chased by demons.
Maybe they were.
We stood in the dining room, the beautiful lunch Louisa had made growing cold on the table.
"Well," Clay said finally, "that was better than cable TV."
The tension broke, everyone laughing or talking at once. But I could only look at Wyatt, who was staring at me like I'd just hung the moon.
"You chose us," he said quietly. "You chose to stay."
"Yeah," I said, my voice thick with tears I wouldn't let fall. "I chose home."
Mark's blood was still on his knuckles, but when he reached for my hand, I took it without hesitation.
Chapter 18
Wyatt
The dust from the black SUV hadn’t even settled when the ranch seemed to exhale—a slow, collective release as if we’d all been holding our breath while the city sharks were in sight. Sunlight cut through the kitchen window in hard bars, catching the dust motes like a thousand tiny flags. From where I stood, I watched Mom clear the table, her movements quick and precise, a kind of coiled anger in her shoulders I almost never saw. She set plates down like punctuation, one clean slap after another.
Clay hovered nearby, shoving food onto a plate and tossing out a joke to break the silence. It landed thin. Even his laugh sounded like it had been watered down. Hunter kept his head down at the far end of the table, hands busy with the coffee pot as if ritual could scrub what’d happened from the air. Liam stood in the doorway, quiet as ever, watching the yard with the same stillness he used when he was ready to move.
My knuckles throbbed—a steady, insistent drum where bone had met jaw. The sting was real and immediate: hot, metallic, the taste of adrenaline still bitter in my mouth. It should have satisfied something. It didn’t. Not really.
Seeing her flinch when Mark touched her—watching the way her whole body curled inward like she was trying to become smaller—that image chased everything else away. It made me want to climb back in that truck and drive until the road ended and then keep going. It made the part of me that keeps this place safe want to finish the job.
I forced myself to breathe, let the anger roll off like sweat, because this ranch ran on steadier hands than mine when blood was still hot. But Jesus—it was worth it. Worth every bruise. Worthevery minute it took to swing, to connect, to put something between her and that man.
Mom wiped her hands and caught my eye, the tiniest nod—not approval, not celebration, just acknowledgement. She didn’t need words. None of us did. The work of the ranch would take care of the chaos now: clean up, calls, calm her, keep watch. The land always had a way of rearranging itself after storms. We would, too.
