The log I’d already seen because of Jesse, but I dismissed it as nothing more than a dry spell. Now, seeing how all the numbers stack up, the pattern is impossible to ignore—water levels dropping even in the winter months, when cooler temperatures should have kept them steady.
That was right around the time that stupid developer across the way started breaking ground for those new condos.
“Son of a bitch,” I whisper to myself, flipping the papers over, reading through the documentation Sloane put together. It’s like an entire dossier of evidence, methodical and precise, built to expose an entire operation.
She even documented switching the line behind the house to the old main so our water levels could return to normal. Everything I refused to listen to her about now stares back at me, undeniable, and I’m left with no one to blame but myself.
Morning can’t come fast enough, and the second it does, I’m out the door, itching to check everything for myself. Starting in the forest, I follow the map she printed from the appraiser’s records so she could document each siteexactly, and damn it, I find myself more than a little impressed by how detailed she is about it.
I reach the water main. It’s a rusted-up thing, but the low hum tells me everything I need to know—Sloane did, in fact, get it up and running, re-hooking the pipe that was initially meant to feed into the water supply.
I make a mental note to compliment her on the work. I’ve never known a single woman willing to get her hands that dirty, let alone know how to fix a water main, but I’m starting to see just how much I don’t know about Sloane.
She didn’t just patch it. She understood it.
The reroute is clean, intentional—done by someone who took the time to learn how this place breathes. The realization sits heavy in my gut. I didn’t just underestimate her. I dismissed her outright.
I head back up the hill and walk behind the house to the other water main. Sure enough, she cut it off and rendered it unusable. If she’s right—and all signs point to that—then she just saved the ranch from thousands of dollars in losses. Between hydrating the animals and keeping our equipment running, the damage would have added up fast.
I follow the pipe and head down the line. Granted, I don’t need to—its location is clearly marked on themap—but following it lets me see exactly how far it goes with my own two feet.
I can only go as far as the fence line, but I can see the pipe continues through the tall brush just beyond it. The only reason I never noticed the damn thing before is that it’s buried on our side of the fence, hidden beneath dirt and grass, but the rest of it sticks out like a sore thumb once it crosses over—running straight through the tall grass toward the construction site.
Those good-for-nothing suits.
I walk up the hill and head straight for my truck just as Mason, Jesse, and Hank come out of their cabins. Mason rushes over to the gate and pushes it open so I can zip out without slowing down.
I press the gas harder than I probably should, intent on proving whether Sloane is right. I saw the pipe from the property, but if I can reach the exterior side of it, then I can see exactly how far it leads.
I turn onto the grass, my truck bumping hard as the tires crunch over rocks and God knows what else. The ranch fades behind me in the distance, and all I have to do now is cross over the boundary.
When I reach the property line, I kill the headlights and slow down, following the faint rise of ground where the pipe is laid out on the surface. The farther I go, the morepissed off I get. If this thing leads straight to the developer site, I swear I’ll find those suits and make them kiss my fists.
I stop short at the construction site. I don’t need to go any farther—the pipe disappears underground here, just like it does on our land.
Those pieces of shit.
I slam my hands against the steering wheel and shout into the empty construction site. The sound goes nowhere, swallowed by darkness and silence, and that only makes it worse. Every frustration I’ve bottled up over the last few months spills out all at once, but there’s no one here to hear it—no one to blame but myself.
Because the truth is, I’m a complete jackass.
This entire time, Sloane tried to warn me. From the very beginning. She told me strange things were happening, pointed out the inconsistencies, and went out of her way to check every lead herself because she knew I wouldn’t believe her.
And she was right not to trust me to listen. Now I see it all, clear as day, and I screwed up—badly.
To make it worse, I handed her the land with the lien on it like it was nothing—like it wasn’t the very thing those suits have been circling for years.
The first chance they get, they’ll snatch it up, and once they do, the ranch won’t just lose water. We’ll be boxed inby concrete and condos, sunrise and sunset swallowed by someone else’s skyline.
Maybe I deserve that.
Maybe this is the price I pay for every bit of pain I’ve caused her. She’s only ever cared about doing what’s best for the ranch—about protecting something she didn’t even have to defend—but all I’ve done is make her life harder.
Every accusation. Every doubt. Every time I shut her down instead of listening.
If I go to her now, it won’t be to stop the sale. Whatever she’s already set in motion, I don’t get to undo with a last-minute apology. I know that. But I still need to make this right, even if fixing it costs me everything else.
I need to stop hiding behind anger and pretending this was about control, pride, or frustration. She stayed. Through all of it. She could have walked away a dozen times, but she didn’t.
