He's still standing by the fire, his back to me now, shoulders tight.
"For what it's worth," he says quietly, not looking back, "I miss it too."
The words hit harder than anything he's said to me since I came home.
I don't trust myself to respond. So I just nod—even though he can't see it—and walk to my tent before I do something stupid like cry.
Or stay.
Inside, I lie on top of my sleeping bag, fully dressed, staring at the canvas above me. The fire's glow filters through the fabric. Orange. Shadow. Orange.
Outside, Eli's boots crunch softly. Wood crackles as he adds to the fire.
Keeping watch.
Protecting what's left.
Like he always has.
The thought lands heavier than I expect.
I was scared. That's why I left. Drowning in grief and terrified of the way he looked at me—like I was something worth holding onto when I felt like I was breaking apart.
If I'd stayed, I would've failed him. Disappointed him. Become one more thing on this ranch that couldn't be saved.
So I ran.
And I've been running ever since.
Even now, lying here, part of me wants to keep running.
But there's nowhere left to go.
I pull the sleeping bag over my shoulders and close my eyes. Tomorrow we'll search again.
But tonight, I let the exhaustion pull me under, grateful for the temporary reprieve.
Chapter eighteen
Hazel
By noon the next day, we find them.
Twelve head, all bunched up in a shallow draw a mile past the tree line, grazing like nothing in the world has ever gone wrong. No injuries. No blood. Just spooked, the way cattle get when something startles them hard enough to break instinct.
Relief comes first, sharp and dizzying.
Then the anger follows, slow and hot.
Because fences don't cut themselves.
We spend the better part of the morning pushing the herd back through the pasture, dust rising around hooves, the air full of lowing and the creak of saddle leather. Eli moves the way he always does when he's focused, steady and sure, cutting off strays before they can wander. I watch him without meaning to.Something about the way he handles the land and the animals still reaches straight through me.
Once the cattle are secured in the north pasture, we stop at the east fence line on the way back.
The wire dangles loose, cut clean through. No fraying. No rust break. No storm damage. Someone used wire cutters and knew exactly what they were doing.
Eli dismounts and crouches beside it, running his fingers along the severed edge. His expression hardens.
