“That isn’t what I’m doing,” I said.
“Really,” she snapped. “Could’ve fooled me.” She was shouting now. Her voice bounced around the small kitchen, filling every corner. I wondered if she knew how much she sounded like him, like Ray when he was cornered and scared and pretending he was just angry.
“I was trying to help him,” I said evenly. “He needed someone to take over. Someone with the resources.”
“You mean you,” she fired back. I didn’t respond. Her eyes shone suddenly. Fury. Heartbreak. Betrayal all tangled together. She looked at me like she wanted to hit me. Or scream. Or shove me out the door and bar it behind me.
“You should’ve told me this yesterday,” she said.
“You weren’t ready,” I answered.
“You don’t get to decide that,” she said. Her voice climbed again, sharp and shaking. “You don’t get to waltz in here and act like you’re some hero when you’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to take everything.”
“That isn’t the truth,” I said, quieter than before.
“It’s exactly the truth,” she shot back. “I see it now. You didn’t come because you cared about Ray. You came because you wanted his land.” She was wrong. She was also hurting, and grief made enemies out of anything close enough to strike.
“Tessa,” I said quietly. “I didn’t come get you to start a fight.”
“Well, congratulations,” she said. “Because you just started a war.” The words hung there. Final. Cold.
Silence rang through the kitchen, loud in its own way. The coffee machine ticked. A fly bumped against the ceiling, and outside, somewhere, a cow mooed.
She stepped back. Not far. Just enough. Like, even the air between us burned.
“I want you to leave,” she said. I didn’t move. “Wyatt, leave.”
I set my jaw, reached for my hat on the counter, and slid it on. The brim brushed my forehead, familiar weight settling in place, the one thing that felt steady right now.
I moved toward the doorway, eyes on her as she wrapped her arms tighter around herself, like she was holding her own ribs together.
As I reached the threshold, she choked out, “I trusted you.”
The words landed inside my chest like a kick.
For a second, something cracked hard enough to make me falter. A fissure down the middle of the control I lived by. I almost said something then. Almost reached for some explanation that would make it hurt less. But explanations don’t mend fresh wounds. Time does. Perspective. Sometimes nothing.
“Lock the door,” I said quietly. “I’m nearby if you need anything, and my number’s on the fridge.”
“I don’t need anything from you, and I won’t be using that number,” she snapped.
I stepped out into the sunlight. The screen door clapped shut behind me, rattling in its frame like the house itself decided it wanted me gone, too.
The ranch sat tired but sturdy under the late morning sky, faded paint, sagging fences, weeds along the driveway, cattle specks in the back pasture, the old barn roof catching the light. Ray’s legacy. Her inheritance. A place stitched from stubbornness and history.
I walked down the steps, boots crunching on gravel, jaw tight, heart heavier than I liked to admit. The morning air was cool still, but the sun was climbing. Heat would come. So would decisions, and more hard truths.
Enemies, it was then.
Nine
Tessa
Istood in Ray’s kitchen in the silence left behind, hands braced on the counter, trying not to shake apart. The laminate edge dug into my palms, grounding me in a way the floor couldn’t. My knees felt unreliable. My breath uneven. My whole body vibrated with leftover adrenaline, anger, and grief.
He’d tried to buy the ranch. He’d been trying for years. He’d shown up at my apartment. Driven me home. Stood here in this damn kitchen as silent support.
And I’d let him. “Fuck,” I shouted, my voice reverberating off the appliances.
