That had been the end of it. Now I needed to call her. I pulled up the number he pressed into my hand months earlier, “In case I keel over," he’d said. I wished I’d laughed then. The call rolled to voicemail. “Hi, this is Tessa. I don’t want to talk; text if it’s important.” The beep to leave a message sounded.
“Tessa, this is Wyatt Hargrove. I’m at your uncle’s place. You need to call me back immediately.”
I hung up, jaw tight. I hated leaving a message for someone who didn’t know me and probably didn’t care to. The lasttime I tried calling, nudging Ray toward the sale, she hadn’t answered either.
Footsteps crunched outside. The paramedics arrived, working with calm, practiced efficiency. I followed them onto the porch as the screen door clapped shut. Outside, the heat wrapped around me like a heavy blanket. The sun hovered above the ridge, stretching long shadows across the valley.
The ambulance drove away slowly, with no flashing lights or blaring siren; the crunching of gravel and the engine were the only sounds. I stared out over the foothills and reached for my phone. I tried calling again.
My own ranch sprawled across the opposite rise, miles of fencing and irrigation pivots turning slow circles. North of town, the brewery sat with its steel tanks gleaming and barley silos lined up against the sky. Two lives that didn’t make sense on paper, but I needed both. Between them, I’d built something that almost felt like enough.
I stood there for a long moment, breathing through the tightness in my chest. Grief. Frustration. I looked over the horizon at Ray’s sagging buildings and peeling paint. The whole place was a storm waiting to break.
If Tessa didn’t want to answer, if she didn’t know what she just inherited, it didn’t matter. Ray tied us together when he handed me that number. Whether she liked it or not, she was stepping into a life she wasn’t prepared for.
I turned toward my truck, the gravel crunching under my boots, and felt the familiar pull of responsibility settle in, heavy and sure. I still had a ranch to run and a brewery full of people counting on me, but tonight, there was only one thing that mattered. Finding Tessa Callahan and telling her that the man who raised her was gone.
Two
Tessa
“Whatever this is, make it quick,” I said. “I still need to catch the train,” I said hastily as I glanced at my watch. I have so much to do tomorrow. I couldn’t stay here all night, and Colin would never offer to drive me home.
Colin shut the patio door behind us, and the noise of his parents’ dinner party dulled to a muffled, distant hum. It was as if someone threw a pillow over the entire house, muting every voice and smothering each burst of laughter until all that remained was the faint clink of cutlery and glassware.
“Tessa,” he said, his voice low and careful. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”
A cold knot pulled tight behind my ribs. Not panic. Dread. Familiar, grainy dread that scraped my chest from the inside out.
“Colin,” I whispered, which only made him smile, and that hadn’t been my intention when I said it.
He reached into his pocket with practiced certainty, the kind of motion a man rehearsed in front of a mirror to makesure he looked perfect while doing this. The air around us thickened as if it knew what was coming.
“Don’t,” I said hastily, hoping that would be enough to stop this before he embarrassed himself. He froze for a moment, his hand still deep in his pocket, his eyes flicking to mine with a startled edge. Colin hated being off-balance.
He stood near the short steps that led to the paved path; the patio lights cast a dingy glow over him. His pale blue button-down clung damply to his back and underarms, the shirt he bragged about buying from some expensive menswear place.
Colin wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t handsome either. His features never quite resolved into anything worth remembering. He was a man who looked better surrounded by wealth. Without props, the plainness showed.
His carefully styled hair wilted in the humidity, flattening against his head, and his clean-shaven jaw looked almost raw in the porch light, like he went over it twice for safety. His throat bobbed. That tiny swallow should have warned me. If he was nervous, it meant whatever he planned wasn’t going the way he expected.
“Tessa,” he said gently. “Just let me?—”
He pulled his hand free, and the box caught the porch light. Small, dark, and velvet, the type used in commercials where beautiful couples made perfect life decisions. My stomach lurched. He cradled it in his palm like it was delicate instead of life-altering. Sweat ran down my spine as a shiver ran up.
“Colin,” I said. “Put it away.”
His expression tightened, though he tried for a smile that never reached his eyes. “Come on. Don’t be like that.”
“Like what?”
“Difficult.” The word slid from him with athin seam of irritation beneath the practiced softness. “You’re always difficult.”
A car drove past the front of the house, headlights sweeping across the fence. Someone inside laughed. Life went on while the moment out on this patio turned into something sharp and wrong.
“You have to see the ring,” he said, not reading the moment between us. The hinge squeaked softly. The ring inside glinted with cold, confident brightness, the diamond catching even the weak porch light. Of course, it was expensive. His family wouldn’t allow anything less.
“Tessa,” he said softly. “I love you. Even if you don’t come from the right side of the tracks or have an illustrious career, which won’t matter when we’re married anyway. You’re it for me.”
