I fight the urge to slam my fist down on his desk. “What do you want, Hank? Someone to get hurt before you take this seriously?”
“I’m not ignoring you, Clint. But without something concrete, there’s not much I can do. You’re asking me to chase shadows. You’ve got to give me something solid if you want to move on this. I told you that.”
“So you still think I’m making this up?”
Hank leans forward, palms flat on the desk. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I’m saying we can’t act like vigilantes. Give me something concrete, someone you saw, a tire track, a person on the property, anything I can take to the DA. Otherwise, all I’ve got is your gut. I’ll take a look, but I need more from you too…”
“My gut’s not going to show up at county court in a suit, is it?” I say. “You’ve got to go look. Walk the northern fence. Check the posts near the creek. There’s been more than luck out there, Hank. I know it.”
He stares at me for a long beat, then sighs. “Okay. I’ll send a deputy out this afternoon. But Clint?—”
“Don’t ‘but’ me,” I cut him off. “I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m looking for action.”
Hank’s jaw works. “I’ve said I’ll take action. But I need more to work with here.”
We sit with it then. The kind of silence that means two stubborn men have exhausted themselves trying to move the same immovable rock.
I can see Hank’s point; I can also see how this has been happening in small escalations, almost like a test. Whoever’s doing it wants to see how far they can push before we push back.
“I’m going,” I say finally. “I can’t stand here and talk it to death.”
Hank nods once, reluctantly. “I’ll have a cruiser make the rounds.”
I leave before he can say anything else. The door slamming behind me is louder than it should have been.
My mind is racing the whole ride back to High Ridge, the sun pitched down in a hard glare that makes the fields shine.
The barn comes into view, weathered boards, the sag in the middle of the roof that no one can fix without money, and something hot and hollow opens in my chest.
On the porch of the office, an envelope waits on the old milk crate I use for a table. White paper, clean fold. My name is printed in a polite, serif font I’ve seen on way too many forms.Buck Realty.
A letter from Thomas Buck himself.
My hands go cold. Inside, a letter. Three paragraphs of corporate courtesy, two lines of offer.
“We are prepared to purchase High Ridge Ranch and associated assets… to be settled within thirty days…”
It’s laughable. An insult boiled down into numbers. The offer isn’t just low; it’s strategic. Barely enough to pay the back taxes, not enough to make walking away survivable.
I crumple the paper in one motion, breath rasping through me. Thomas’s name is a bruise. He’s pushed before. Sly calls, “unfavorable reports” slipped to the bank. But never this bluntly. This is a test to see whether I’ll fold.
Anger seeps into my bones. Not the quick, blind kind. This is slow, measured fury, the kind you get when someone keeps taking what’s yours and smiling while they do it.
Thomas has money and lawyers and a smile that can cut. I have a ranch that’s been in my family for generations and men who still show up at dawn to mend fences and feed calves.
I stuff the letter into my back pocket and walk through the office. The walls are plastered with faded rodeo posters and a tack room inventory board full of penciled-in notes. Sawyer’s laptop sits asleep on the counter, and Rover’s collar lies by the door.
“What’s up with you?” Sawyer calls from the adjoining tack room, looking up with that worried crease at his brow.
“Letter from Buck Realty,” I say. “They offered peanuts for all of High Ridge. As if I haven’t already told him no. This place is my home. My family’s home. He needs to seriously back off.”
Sawyer’s shoulders sag. “Thomas doesn’t give up, does he?”
“He offered an insult,” I say. “And he wrapped it in a deadline.”
Reid appears at the stall door, just beyond the tack room, with a saddle over one shoulder, dust on his boots, and that easygrin that normally makes things feel lighter. It doesn’t reach his eyes now. “What’s wrong?”
I pull the letter out and flatten it on the counter so they can see. The guys read it, each of them processing the same quiet horror I’ve felt.
