The barn is quiet when I slip inside, just the soft sounds of horses in their stalls. I find Ranger, my ten-year-old quarter horse, and let myself into his stall. He nickers softly, pushing his nose against my chest.
"We're in trouble, boy," I murmur, running my hand down his neck. "Bad trouble."
He doesn't judge. Doesn't offer advice I don't want to hear. Just stands solid and warm, reminding me that some things are simple even when everything else is falling apart.
I don't know how long I stay there. Long enough for the sunset to fade and the barn to grow dark. Long enough for my anger to settle into resignation.
They're right. I know they're right. But that doesn't make it easier to swallow.
Tomorrow, some privileged stranger is going to walk onto this land and judge whether we're worth her investment. She's going to see all our failures, all the ways I've let Frank down. And then she's going to buy her way into our lives, into our family, into the one place that's ever felt like home.
I should be grateful. Should be professional and welcoming and all the things Tucker will expect me to be.
But all I feel is defensive and protective and terrified that we're about to make the biggest mistake of our lives.
My phone buzzes. Rhett, in the group chat we all share.
*She's flying in tomorrow morning. Landing at 11. I'll pick her up and bring her straight to the ranch. Everyone needs to be on their best behavior. That means you, Wade.*
Colt responds immediately: *What about me?*
*You too. Actually, everyone just be cool. We need this.*
Mason: *We'll be cool.*
Tucker: *Wade, you good?*
I stare at the message for a long moment before typing: *I'll be there.*
It's not an answer to his question, but it's all I can offer right now.
Ranger shifts beside me, and I lean my forehead against his shoulder. Frank used to say that the mark of a man isn't how he handles success, but how he handles failure. Whether he gets back up when life knocks him down.
I've been getting back up for two years. But I'm tired. Bone tired in a way that sleep doesn't fix.
Tomorrow, everything changes. I can feel it the same way I can feel the weather coming in off the mountains.
I just hope we survive it.
Chapter 2 - Sierra
The rental car's GPS informs me that I have fifteen miles remaining to my destination, but I've been driving through what appears to be absolute wilderness for the past twenty minutes and I'm starting to think I made a wrong turn somewhere.
Or possibly a series of wrong turns that started three months ago when I decided I was going to show my family exactly what I'm capable of.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel as another mile of Montana grassland rolls past. Mountains loom in the distance, still capped with snow despite it being April. Everything here is so *big*—the sky, the landscape, the silence. In Seattle, there was always noise. Always people. Always something to fill the space.
Here, there's just me and my increasingly frantic thoughts about what I'm doing.
My phone sits in the cup holder, face down so I don't have to see if my mother or sisters have texted again. They have. They always do. A constant stream of concern-trolling and thinly veiled accusations that I've already checked obsessively three times since leaving the airport.
*Sierra, we need to talk about this Montana thing. You're not thinking clearly.*
*You do realize this is exactly what Dad's lawyer warned us about? You making impulsive decisions with money you don't know how to manage?*
*We love you, sweetie, but please come home before you do something you'll regret.*
I haven't responded to any of them. What would I even say? That they're right? That I'm terrified I'm about to blow two hundred thousand dollars on a ranch I've never seen, run by men I've never met, in a place so far from anything familiar I might as well be on another planet?
