I tucked the maps into the glovebox and drove back to the ranch.
The afternoon turned unexpectedly playful.
We were working near the stock tanks—checking water levels, repairing fences, doing the hundred small maintenance tasks that kept a ranch running. One of those October afternoons that reminded you why people chose to live in Texas.
It started with Ivy.
Sweet, proper Ivy, with her leather-bound notebook and her careful notes. She was helping fill a water trough, hose in hand,when Wyatt made some comment I didn't catch. Whatever it was, it earned him a look that should have been a warning. Then she "accidentally" turned the hose in his direction.
The spray caught Wyatt square in the chest. His roar of outrage echoed across the pasture. Ivy's innocent expression was so perfect it had to be practiced.
"Oops," she said sweetly. "Hand slipped."
Wyatt retaliated without hesitation. Grabbed the nearest bucket, filled it in three seconds flat, and launched the contents at his wife.
That was the declaration of war.
Stephanie grabbed the second hose from the stock tank and caught Wyatt from the other side before he could reload—a clean broadside that soaked him from shoulder to boot.
"Girls stick together!" she shouted, tossing a grin at Ivy.
Liam looked at Wyatt. Wyatt looked at Liam. Some unspoken Blackwood brother telepathy passed between them, and then Liam grabbed a bucket, and Wyatt seized the hose Ivy had dropped, and it wason.
Boys versus girls. No rules. No mercy.
Within minutes, it was chaos. Buckets, hoses, cupped hands—whatever was available became a weapon. Laughter echoed across the pasture, mixing with shrieks and threats and the sound of splashing water. Liam and Wyatt ran a two-man offensive that was genuinely coordinated—Liam drawing fire while Wyatt flanked—but Ivy and Stephanie were scrappy and ruthless and had zero shame about fighting dirty. Stephanie used Liam's own hesitation to soak his girl against him, feinting toward him and then drenching him when he dropped his guard to protect her.
"Babe, you're supposed to be on the other team!" Liam sputtered.
"Should've thought about that before you chose wrong!" Stephanie called back, already reloading.
Maggie tried to stay out of it. She was on the sidelines, favoring her ankle, arms crossed, and thatI am the responsible adult hereexpression that fooled absolutely no one.
Then Wyatt got her from behind with a well-aimed bucket.
The shriek was magnificent.
"Wyatt!" Maggie's voice was half outrage, half laughter. “I didn’t even do anything to you!"
“Sorry, Mags!” he laughed. “Collateral damage.”
Maggie's retaliation was swift and ruthless—she had years of sibling warfare experience, and she deployed it without mercy. Within seconds, she'd commandeered a hose and was spraying anything male that moved, her ankle apparently forgotten in the heat of battle. The girls had the numbers now—three against two—and Liam and Wyatt were getting demolished.
"Jack!" Liam yelled across the yard, taking a direct hit from Ivy that he clearly hadn't expected from someone who'd been cataloguing fence posts thirty seconds ago. "Little help!"
I joined in without thinking about it.
This was what I'd missed. What I'd lost. The easy chaos of people who loved each other enough to drench each other on a Tuesday afternoon.
The teams evened out, and the battle escalated. Liam had commandeered a bucket in each hand and was spinning like a sprinkler, taking out friend and foe alike while Stephanie screamed at him to watch his aim. Wyatt had Ivy cornered near the barn, but she was holding him off with a hose stream that would've impressed a firefighter.
Maggie was advancing toward me, hose raised like a weapon, when her foot caught on the uneven ground. I saw her start to go down—saw the flash of pain cross her face as her bad ankle twisted—and I moved without thought.
I caught her around the waist before she could fall. Pulled her back against me. My arms locked around her middle, and her hands came up to grip my forearms. For a second we were just there—her back against my chest, both of us breathing hard, soaked through.
She turned her head, and her mouth was inches from mine, and the air between us went electric—nothing to do with the water fight, everything to do with the fact that we weren't hiding anymore.
"Steady?" I murmured.
