“How long have things been like this?” I asked, measuring coffee that had probably been sitting there for months.
“Depends what you mean by this,” he said.
“The house. The yard. Him.”
“A while,” he admitted.
I shut my eyes. “And he didn’t call me.”
“He didn’t ask for help from anyone.” Wyatt leaned against the doorway and crossed his arms, watching my every movement around the room.
“It seems like you helped him.”
“Sometimes,” he said. “When he let me.”
The coffee machine gurgled to life. The smell hit me hard. I leaned my palms into the counter to keep my legs under me.
“Are you going to tell me the rest now?” I asked quietly. “About the ranch.”
Wyatt did not pretend to know what I meant. His boots shifted on the tile. When I turned, he was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. He looked too big for the small kitchen, like the room shrunk around him.
He held my gaze. “Are you sure you want it today?”
“No,” I said. “But I’d rather not get knocked over by surprises on top of everything else.”
He nodded once, something like respect in the gesture.
“Alright,” he said. “Then we’ll start with the truth.”
Eight
Wyatt
The old drip machine on Ray’s counter gurgled and hissed like it was dying slowly, the glass carafe half full, dark liquid bubbling up in uneven bursts. The smell hit me first, bitter, strong, familiar.
I should have waited another day. Maybe two. Let her get through the funeral arrangements. Let her find her feet on this land again before I kick them out from under her.
But she asked. And if there was one thing I knew, it was that lies by omission cut deeper than blunt honesty. When she inevitably learned how bad things were, finding out I’d known and said nothing would feel like betrayal. Worse than telling her outright.
So I braced myself. Not for her feelings. For the fallout.
Her eyes were tired, rimmed faintly red, but there was steel under the exhaustion. Like she layered armour under the grief sometime between last night and now. She studied my face, gauging something, how bad it would be, maybe. How honest was I going to be? Whether I was about to dismantle what little stability she had left.
“The truth is, your uncle was struggling,” I said. “More than he let on to anyone.”
Her jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, but she didn’t interrupt. “Tell me everything,” she said.
I pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the kitchen fully. The floor creaked under my weight. “Fences are failing,” I continued. “Some of the cattle wandered last month and haven’t been found. Equipment’s shot. The tractor needs work. The baler’s on its last legs. The truck should’ve been retired five years ago.” I let my voice trail off because what I had to say next would only make things worse.
She nodded slowly, absorbing the blows in quiet, controlled increments. “I figured it’d be bad,” she said. “He always put repairs off. Said things still had life left in them even when they rattled across the yard.”
The corner of my mouth twitched. That sounded like Ray.
“There’s more,” I said, exhaling. She went still. Spoon hovering over the mug. Shoulders squared. Waiting for the real damage.
“The taxes,” I said. “He fell behind. The county sent notices. More than one.”
Her jaw clenched hard enough I could see the muscle jump. One hand tightened around the rim of the mug. The other flattened on the counter like she needed to feel something solid under her palm.
