He saw me and stopped.
“You’re Fraser Kincaid,” he said. Not a question.
“Graham, actually. The channel name is?—”
“I know what the channel name is.” He covered the distance between us in four strides. He was taller than me by a couple of inches and not remotely interested in pleasantries. “I’m Fury Gracen. Rose’s brother. Where is she?”
“Office, I think. Or the barn.”
He started toward the house, then turned back. “Are you the reason there are photographers camped on my sister’s road?”
There was no good answer to that. “It’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it.”
“My being here attracted media attention. I’m working on getting them removed.”
Fury looked at me the way I imagined he looked at potential business deals. Cold and analytical. Then he went inside.
I heard them from the yard. Not the words, just the shapes of them. Fury’s voice, low and urgent. Rose’s, sharp and defensive. The rhythm of a conversation between two people who loved each other and couldn’t agree on how to show it.
It went on for a while.
Fury came out twenty minutes later. He looked like he’d been through a wall.
“She won’t take money,” he said, stopping beside me on the porch. Not asking for my input. Just stating a fact to the nearest available human.
“I figured as much.”
“I offered to cover the insurance. Pay off the vendors. Hire a forensic accountant. A lawyer. Whatever she needs.” He stared at the mountains. “She said if she takes my money, the ranch will stop being hers. Said she’d rather lose it on her own terms than save it on someone else’s.”
“That sounds like Rose.”
“It does.” Fury’s jaw worked. “Stubborn and completely willing to destroy herself rather than ask for help.” He looked at me. “Can you talk to her?”
“She’s not listening to me either.”
“Then what fucking good are you?”
The question landed harder than he probably intended. Or maybe exactly as hard.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m not leaving.”
He pulled keys from his pocket. “I’m staying in town for the night. The inn on Main Street. If anything changes, if she needs anything, you call me.”
“I will.”
He got in his truck, then rolled down the window. “Graham.”
“Aye?”
“If you hurt her, I’ll end you.”
“Understood.”
He drove away. I stood on the porch and thought about how many people loved Rose Gracen, and how none of them could reach her.
I found her at midnight.
