I start after the summer, when the current manager retires. Which is perfect timing. I’ll be here to pitch in around Wildhaven Storm while Matty is out of commission.
The Belicourt is not the guest ranch.
But it’s a beginning.
“It’s a good stepping stone,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant instead of bursting with excitement. “Experience. Connections. Understanding and managing guest expectations at a high level.”
Charli arches a brow. “Listen to you. You sound like a brochure.”
“I do not.”
“No, she sounds nervous,” Shelby says.
“Do I?”
Grandma Evelyn steps forward and cups my face in her weathered hands. “Education and experience are well and good, sweetheart. But you just remember who you are, and you’ll do fine.”
I swallow. “Always.”
Because what I am is a Storm.
“Good,” she says before dropping her hands and cutting her eyes to the men. “All right, boys, let’s get this car unloaded and everything up to Harleigh’s room. Supper is almost ready. And we have a party to get started.”
By late afternoon, the ranch hums with celebratory energy.
There’s a bonfire pit, stacked high with logs, down by the lower pasture. Strings of lights stretch between fence posts. Shelby and Cabe argue about the playlist. Cabe’s brothers, Axle and Royce—who showed up just before supper was served—haul coolers. Aunt Irene is setting up folding tables on the porch while Uncle Boone and Grandpa are already taste-testing Imma Jean’s desserts.
Imma Jean was my mother’s best friend. Even though Mom passed unexpectedly when I was six years old, she remained a constant in our lives. Someone we’ve leaned on for guidance and motherly advice through the years. She’s as much a part of the Storm family as anyone else.
The air smells like cut grass and woodsmoke.
I carry a box up the stairs to the big house, my boots thudding against steps I’ve climbed my entire life. My old bedroomdoorframe still has faint notches marking my growth in inches from the time I started walking until high school.
Inside, the room looks mostly the same—whitewashed walls, one of Grandma’s handmade quilts on the bed, a bay window overlooking the south pasture.
But it feels different.
I’m not a kid, coming home for summer.
I’m an adult, coming home for good.
I set the box down and sit on the edge of the bed, staring out the window.
This is where the idea first rooted itself.
I was sixteen. A family from California got lost on their way to Jackson Hole and ended up at our gate. Grandma offered them a hot meal and a place to sleep for the night. Their little boy had never seen a horse up close. I remember the way he stood there, wide-eyed, like he’d stepped into Narnia. Matty let him pet one of the gentler mares. The parents kept apologizing for trespassing, but I could see something else on their faces.
Longing. Wonder.
A desire to breathe slower.
To feel something different.
That was when it clicked.
What if people could come here on purpose?
Not to intrude. But to experience this life.
