“I don’t know.” I stared out the window. “Maybe. Probably. Fuck, I don’t know.”
“That’s a lot of I don’t knows for a man who used to make decisions while hanging off the side of a cliff.”
“Cliffs are simple. You either hold on or you fall. This is...” I shook my head. “I don’t know how to be the guy who tells millions of people about his adventures when the only thing I can think about is a woman in Colorado who won’t answer her phone.”
Dex closed the laptop slowly. Sat with that for a moment.
“Jamie and Olivia want to come up this weekend. Talk content strategy.”
“Tell them to stay in Edinburgh.”
“They’re worried about you.”
“They can worry from Edinburgh.” I stood up, carried my cold tea to the sink, and poured it out. “I’m not ready to be Fraser Kincaid yet. I might never be ready. And I need you to be okay with that for now.”
Dex nodded slowly. Not happy. Not arguing. Just accepting the reality of a man who’d hit a wall and couldn’t see over it.
“Okay,” he said. “For now.”
The third week,I called Olivia.
“I need Kaya’s number,” I said. “Rose’s assistant. From the ranch.”
Olivia didn’t ask why. She just gave it to me. “We traded numbers before we left. She’s good people, Graham. Whatever’s happened, she’s on Rose’s side.”
“That’s why I’m calling her.”
Kaya picked up on the second ring. I could hear the clatter of dishes in the background, voices, the hum of a busy room.
“Graham.” Her voice was warm but tired. “Hang on, let me step outside.”
A door opened and closed. The noise faded.
“Sorry. I’m working the lunch shift at Milly’s Diner.” She said it matter-of-factly, but the weight of it landed hard. Kaya, who’d run trail rides and managed a ranch and kept Rose’s world spinning, was waiting tables.
“How are you?” I asked, though I already felt like I knew.
“Employed. Which is more than I expected two weeks ago.” I heard her breathe. “You’re not calling to check on me.”
“How’s Rose?”
Kaya was quiet for a long beat. The kind of quiet that meant she was deciding how much to say.
“Graham, the bank called the loan. The insurance lapse triggered a review clause. They demanded full repayment. Two hundred and forty thousand dollars. Thirty days.”
I sat down. “So I heard.”
“She couldn’t cover it. Not even close.”
I closed my eyes. “Kaya?—”
“She sold the ranch.”
Four words. Quiet. Final.
“A developer named Garrett Wilson. He’s turning it into a wellness retreat.” Kaya’s voice was steady, but I could hear the effort it took to keep it that way. “He closed fast because Rose needed him to. The horses are gone. She found homes for all of them. Good homes. She spent more time on that than on anything else. Made sure every single one went somewhere safe.”
I was six thousand miles away, and the ranch I’d fallen in love with was already becoming something else.
