“I’ve gone to church with him my whole life,” Trey countered. “Not sure how much more I could get to know him.”
Magnus continued. “I told him who I was and what I did, and that’s when he recognized my last name.” He could sense both of them listening intently. “Turns out he knew my dad. Jesse was one of the hands at Dead Heat Ranch. Retired about ten years ago,” Magnus explained. “His son Cody works there now. Mechanic and whatnot.”
“Small world,” Trey mumbled, pulling down the road leading to their destination.
“Jesse told me they met when some of DHR’s cattle got loose and came on our property. My dad helped them wrangle ’em up and get ’em home. After that, they’d talk from time to time. Not great friends, but…” Magnus swallowed. “The night of the fire, he said they could smell the smoke and went to check it out. By the time they got there … they tried to help Edgar, but their fire extinguishers were no match for the inferno.”
Magnus put his hand on Ava’s when she reached forward and gently squeezed his shoulder.
“Anyway. Jesse was tellin’ me about his land. Said he’d bought it up years ago in hopes of one day buildin’ a spread like Dead Heat Ranch. It never happened, and now all the land was just sittin’ there, unused. I mentioned that if he ever decided he might wanna sell, to give me a call first.”
“Why’re you lookin’ to buy more land?” Trey asked, pulling the truck to a stop at the end of Jesse’s driveway.
“I never planned to stay in Embers Ridge,” he admitted. “It’s got too many bad memories. Yeah, I’ve got the house, but it’s not the same. It doesn’tfeelthe same. It’s too small, but it’s crammed in between all the other buildings, so it doesn’t make sense to add on. And I can’t move the kennels since most of the land’s in a flood plain, for good reason. There’s a stream not too far away that DHR dammed up years ago to try to help those downstream…”
He exhaled heavily, realizing he was straying from the point.
“Why Coyote Ridge?” Trey asked.
Magnus noticed he wasn’t looking at him, so he touched his arm to get his attention.
When Trey met his gaze, Magnus said, “Because whenever you talk about your hometown, there’s this light in your eyes. You once told me you couldn’t imagine livin’ anywhere else. I thought…”
Ava finished the sentence for him. “You thought if things worked out between you, you could give him this.”
Magnus nodded, still looking at Trey. “Yeah.” He managed to look away. “Jesse called me a few weeks back, said he’d been thinkin’ about my proposal. Decided he wanted to sell off some of the land. Said he’d let me have first claim to whatever I wanted.”
“A few weeks ago?” Trey asked.
“I told him I needed a few days.” Magnus hadn’t been ready to concede the end of his relationship, although he’d fully anticipated never seeing Trey again. “I knew I couldn’t move the camp here if—”
Trey cut him off. “How much land’s he sellin’?”
“He’s got a hundred acres total. Wants to keep five around his house. He mentioned diggin’ out a road to separate a few sections if I didn’t want the whole thing.”
“Do you want all of it?” Ava asked.
Magnus turned in his seat and peered back at her. “I wanted to see what y’all think.” He glanced at Trey. “If it’s even somethin’ you’d be willin’ to consider.”
He waited patiently for some sort of response, but Trey remained silent, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
“I’m not tryin’ to be presumptuous,” Magnus said softly. “If it’s not the right thing for us…”
He let his sentence fade, staring at the man he loved with his whole heart while said heart was lodged painfully in his throat.
***
Ava watched the two of them inthe front seat, the pivotal moment settling over them like a wet blanket. She held her breath, not moving, not wanting to make a sound. She could see the tension in Trey’s shoulders, but she couldn’t begin to know what he was thinking. This was a huge step for both of them. Ava had all but said she was all in, so she didn’t think her opinion mattered. Not nearly as much as Trey’s did.
“I want all of it,” Trey finally said, his voice gruff.
“All the land?” Magnus asked.
Trey shook his head as he turned to look at Magnus. “I’m not talkin’ about the land.”
Ava’s chest constricted, and her belly twisted. If he wasn’t referring to the land, there was only one thing he could be alluding to. She wanted to hear him say it. But she knew Magnusneededto hear him say it.
The silence was so loud it was deafening.
