His hand stilled on my back. Then resumed, slower. "Good."
"I'm sending the proposal to my dad and Wyatt tomorrow. My parents are going to Wyatt and Ivy's for dinner Thursday—they'll talk it through then. If the numbers hold up—" I allowed myself a small, fierce smile. "The numbers will hold up. I built that spreadsheet to withstand a congressional audit." I propped myself up on my elbows and looked at him. "And I want you to come with me. To Fort Worth."
Something moved behind his eyes—surprise, warmth, the beginning of a smile he was trying not to show. "As your ranch hand? Or as something else?"
"As the person who pulled the Raven Spur progeny report without being asked. As the person who knows more about breeding program infrastructure than anyone else in that barn." I paused. "As the person I want next to me when I'm doing something that matters."
He looked at me for a long moment. Then he pulled me down and kissed my forehead, and the gentleness of it dissolved something I'd thought was permanent.
"I'll be there," he said.
I fell asleep with his heartbeat under my ear and the first real plan I'd made for myself in years taking shape behind my closed eyes.
Fort Worth. The Raven Spur stallion. A breeding program built on good instincts and better data, and a man who looked at my dream like it was worth protecting.
Something had to give, I'd been telling myself for weeks.
Maybe this was what giving looked like—not collapsing, not breaking, but opening. Letting something in that had been knocking for a long time.
I wasn't ready for my family to know. Wasn't ready for the questions and the opinions and the weight of everyone else's expectations on something this new and fragile.
But I was ready for Fort Worth.
And I was ready to stop pretending that what I wanted didn't matter.
It was a start.
13
Jack
I found the first signs near the north fence line. Just past dawn, walking the perimeter the way I did every morning—routine work, the kind your body did on autopilot. Check the wire tension, scan for washout damage, note anything that looked wrong.
Something looked wrong.
The ground near the creek crossing had been torn up. Not by cattle—cattle damage had a pattern to it, hooves and weight distributed evenly. This was violent. Chaotic. Soil churned in deep gouges, vegetation ripped out by the roots, the earth turned inside out like something had been rooting hard and fast.
Feral hogs.
I crouched, studying the tracks. Multiple animals—at least three adults, based on the depth and spread of the prints. These weren't juveniles. Full-grown, probably two-fifty pounds or more, a sounder working the creek bed for food.
Sully pressed against my leg, hackles raised. He'd encountered hogs before, down in New Mexico. Neither of us had enjoyed it.
"Easy," I murmured. "Just tracks."
But fresh ones. Hours old, not days. The edges hadn't dried yet.
I followed the damage along the fence line. Wire pushed through in two places — not cut, but bent and snapped by sheer force, a three-hundred-pound animal hitting it at a trot and not caring what gave way. A post splintered at the base. Feed stations near the cattle pens were knocked over and scattered, bags of supplemental grain torn open, contents spread across the dirt.
Hit the same spots more than once — I could see overlapping tracks, older prints underneath fresh ones. That was the detail that mattered. Hogs passing through were a nuisance. Hogs coming back was a problem.
The horses confirmed it. When I reached the main paddocks, they were restless in a way that went beyond morning energy—ears swiveling, bodies taut, Dancer pacing the fence line, refusing to settle. Weeks of progress with her, and one night of hog scent in the air had her wired like a colt. Horses knew when something with tusks had been in their space. They didn't forget it.
I spent thirty minutes mapping the damage in my head, then headed for the main house.
I found them in the office. Owen behind the desk, Wyatt leaning against the wall, Maggie at the table with expansion timelines spread in front of her. Weekly operations meeting. All three looked up when I knocked.
"We've got hog sign along the north fence line," I said. "Fresh. Multiple adults, hitting the same spots. They've found the feed stations."
