I square my shoulders.
“I’m not just staying.”
I meet Harper’s eyes, heart thudding. “I’m going to fix it. All of it.”
And I’m just stubborn enough to show Mr. Cash Bennett what I’ve got.
Chapter two
No Vacancy for City Girls
Cash
She looks just like I remember, except older, shinier, and even more out of place.
Avery Blake, in a shiny silver SUV, with her smart mouth and perfect posture and shoes that probably cost more than a month of hay. And trailing behind her? A five-year-old with her curls bouncing and a spark of mischief in her eyes that’s all Avery.
Then there’s her best friend, loud as ever, already giving the place a once-over like she owns it.
But it’s Avery’s eyes that stop me cold, same stormy gray I remember, sharp as ever, but now with a guarded edge like she’s built fences around herself and dares anyone to climb them.
Her hair’s pulled back in that no-nonsense kind of way, but a few strands have escaped, brushing her cheek in the breeze. And damn if she doesn’t still look like trouble wrapped in a silk scarf and stubborn pride.
Of all the things I expected to show up on the ranch this week,shewasn’t one of them. And definitely not with a five-year-old and that loud-mouthed best friend in tow.
I cross my arms and let her get the first jab in. Figured she would. She always had a mouth on her, even back when we were kids tearing up these pastures, before she got too good for all of it. Before she left and never looked back.
She was a couple years younger than me, with her pigtails and scraped knees back then, smelling like saddle soap and bubble gum, always trailing grass stains and a laugh too loud for Sunday manners. Now she’s all lipstick and city angles, like a magazine ad for “How to Piss Off a Rancher in Three Seconds or Less.”
I keep my face stone cold, but inside I’m a mess of memories and something damn close to resentment.
Her dad was good to me. Took me in at 14, when I needed it, taught me everything I know about running this land. When he passed, I figured I’d carry the torch. Make him proud. I’ve been busting my ass to keep this place breathing, fighting every busted fence and storm-wrecked roof.
Then Avery shows up like she’s the damn cavalry, like we’ve been waiting on her this whole time.
She didn’t come back when he got sick. Didn’t come back when the ranch started falling apart. I was the one who stayed. Ran errands to the clinic in Amarillo, made sure he had hot coffee with his meds every damn morning, kept the ranch running on fumes and prayers while he got weaker by the week.
I fed him when he couldn't hold a spoon, sat beside him when the pain got so bad he’d cuss at the walls just to stay conscious. And now that there’s a pile of money involved, here she is, waltzing in with her sunglasses and sarcasm, acting like she’s got a right to something she abandoned.
And damn it, shedoeshave a right. That’s what stings the most. He trusted her with this place, maybe as a way to fix what broke between them, maybe as some last-ditch hope they’d both find purpose here. I hate it. I hate that he believed in her, even when she ran.
But I also hate that a part of me wants to honor what he saw in her, because I owed that man everything, and now I’m stuck proving it in the shadow of the woman who left us both.
She’s the boss’s daughter. He left her the land. And he left me stuck sharing it with her, for a whole year. Co-managers, the will says. Equal footing. Equal say.
I stare out over the pasture, fists clenched at my sides. The mesquites are brittle and brown, the wind cutting across the field like it’s trying to peel the paint off the barn.
I’ve held this place together with grit and baling wire. And now I’m supposed to babysit a city girl through cattle season?
Hell no.
Back in school, Avery used to challenge me for fun, daring me to race horses or out-rope her during branding week. She was fire and wild energy, all sharp elbows and too much heart for her own good. We weren’t friends, not really, but we weren’t enemies either.
Now? Now it’s like she’s back to finish a fight we never started.
And I’ll be damned if she’s going to win.
But dang it if she doesn't look like temptation with legs. I catch myself watching her walk across the yard, hips swaying like she knows she’s being watched, butdoesn't care one way or another. That used to be confidence. Now? It's power, and she knows it.
