Picked it up again.
I wasn’t calling Graham. He’d offer money and I’d have to say no and it would break something between us that was already fracturing.
I wasn’t calling Fury. He’d write a check and I’d owe him something I could never repay, not the money, but the admission that I couldn’t do this alone.
I scrolled through my contacts until I found the name I was looking for. The one I’d saved six months ago and told myself I’d never use.
Garrett Wilson. Real estate developer. The man who wanted to turn my ranch into a luxury wellness retreat.
I stared at his name on the screen until the letters blurred.
Then I pressed call.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GRAHAM
Rose lockedher cabin door on a Tuesday.
Not literally, or maybe literally, I didn’t check. But the message was clear. When I walked across the yard that evening the way I’d been doing every night for the past week, her light was off and the curtains were drawn and the stillness of the place saiddon’t.
So I didn’t.
The next night, same thing.
By Thursday, I’d stopped walking across the yard.
It wasn’t our little fight. That was the worst part. A fight I could have worked with, could have pushed back, apologized, found the wound and tried to close it. This was quieter and more lethal. Rose was simply retreating. Pulling herself inward the way she’d done at the beginning, voice even, every interaction stripped down to the minimum required syllables.
We were back to week one. Worse than week one, because now I knew what she looked like without the mask. Laughing in bed,blushing when Kaya teased her, saying my name in the dark like it was the only word she’d ever needed.
I knew what I’d lost. That made the distance unbearable.
She still ate meals in the main house. Still worked alongside me during chores. Still said “morning” and “thanks” and “goodnight” with a courtesy that felt like a door closing.
“Whatever’s going on with you and Rose,” Dex said over breakfast, reading my face, “fix it or stop moping. You’re scaring Jamie.”
“I’m not moping.”
“You’ve been staring at the same piece of toast for ten minutes.”
“I’ve given her space. I’ve given her an entire solar system of space.”
“Then give her time.”
“She’s running out of time. That’s the problem.”
Dex looked at his laptop. Jamie looked at her phone. The kitchen was quiet in the specific way it gets when everyone knows something and nobody wants to say it.
Then Jamie picked up her plate, muttered something about checking the camera batteries, and left. Which meant Dex had asked her to.
He waited until her footsteps faded down the hall. Then he closed the laptop.
“There’s something else.” His voice shifted, the tone he used when he was about to deliver damage, and it made me set down the toast I hadn’t been eating.
“The bank called Rose’s loan.” He let that land before continuing. “Insurance lapse. They’re demanding full payment. Two hundred and forty thousand dollars. Thirty days.” He leaned back in his chair. “Hank told me this morning. Rose hasn’t told anyone directly, but he said she’s been on the phone with her accountant all day.”
Two hundred and forty thousand dollars. Thirty days.
