Chapter 1 - Wade
The fence post snaps clean in half under my sledgehammer, rotten wood splintering. I swear under my breath and toss the useless pieces aside, wiping sweat from my forehead with the back of my work glove. The Montana sun beats down mercilessly, and I've been at this since dawn.
Three hours. Fifteen fence posts. Every single one eaten through by time and neglect. I can't afford to replace them properly. Can't afford much of anything these days.
"Looks like hell out here," Colt calls from behind me, his boots crunching through the dry grass. "How many more sections are shot?"
I don't turn around. "All of them. The entire east pasture needs new fencing before we can rotate the herd next month."
"Damn it." He comes to stand beside me, hands on his hips, surveying the sagging fence line that stretches toward the mountains. "What's that going to run us?"
"More than we have." I grab another post from the pile in my truck bed, this one scavenged from the old barn we tore down last winter. It'll hold for now. Everything around here is held together with wire and hope these days. "Tucker's working on the numbers. We might be able to swing it if we—"
"If we what, Wade?" Colt's voice hardens. "We're already running on fumes. The bank's breathing down our necks. When are we going to face the fact that—"
"Don't." I drive the post into the ground, the impact jarring up my arms. "Don't say it."
"Somebody needs to." But he backs off, like he always does.
We all dance around it. The truth that's been hanging over Promise Ranch like a storm cloud for the past two years. Since Frank died and left us this place we all love more than breathing, along with debts we didn't know existed and a market that doesn't give a damn about small family ranches anymore.
The promise I made to Frank sits like a stone in my chest. *Take care of this place, Wade. You boys are the only family I've got. Don't let some developer turn it into condos or one of those dude ranch tourist traps. Keep it real. Keep it alive.*
I'm failing him. Every day, a little more.
"Rhett called a meeting for tonight," Colt says, pulling out his phone and squinting at the screen. "Says it's important. He's got something he wants to run by all of us."
My jaw tightens. Garrett "Rhett" Palmer handles our books, and when he calls a meeting, it's never good news. Last time, it was about the loan payment we barely scraped together. The time before that, about cutting back on staff we didn't have money to pay anyway.
"What time?"
"Seven. Main house."
I nod, setting another post. Colt lingers for a moment, and I can feel him wanting to say more, but he just claps my shoulder once and heads back toward the stables. His brother Boone will need help with the afternoon feeding.
The sun climbs higher. I work through lunch, through the ache building in my shoulders, through the voice in my head that sounds too much like my father: *You'll never amount to anything, boy. You're nothing but a burden.*
Except I did amount to something. Frank saw it when no one else did. Found me at sixteen, angry and working two jobs tohelp my mom make rent and offered me a place here. A purpose. A family in him and the five other lost boys he collected over the years.
And now I'm watching everything he built crumble, and I don't know how to stop it.
By the time I finish the fence section, it's nearly six. I'm covered in dirt and sweat, my hands raw despite the gloves. The truck's engine protests when I turn the key. Another thing that needs fixing, another expense we can't afford, but it catches on the second try.
The drive back to the main ranch compound takes fifteen minutes, following the dirt road that winds through our property. *Our* property. Two thousand acres of Montana grassland and forest, backed up against the Bitterroot Mountains. Cattle country. Good, honest land that Frank's family worked for three generations before developers started circling like vultures, before the market crashed and took half the local ranches with it.
We survived that. Barely. But we're bleeding out slow now, and I don't know how much longer we can hold on.
The main house comes into view: a sprawling log structure that Frank built with his own hands thirty years ago. The barn and stables sit to the east, the bunkhouse and equipment sheds to the west. It's beautiful in that rugged, practical way that Montana does better than anywhere else. No pretense. No polish. Just solid and real.
Mason's truck is already parked out front, along with Tucker's SUV and Boone's beat-up Chevy. I pull in beside them and kill the engine, taking a moment to steel myself for whatever news Rhett has to share.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Mom.
*Dinner Sunday? Haven't seen you in two weeks. Love you.*
Guilt adds itself to the weight I'm already carrying. I text back quickly: *I'll be there. Sorry. Busy with the ranch.*
Always busy with the ranch. It's all I have. All I am.
