Chapter 7
Mid-July
Rain struck the tinroof hard enough to blur everything into a single, relentless sound.Kyla stood outside the feed shed with her boots in her hands, flannel soaked through, water running down her arms and pooling at her collarbones.
Mud pressed cold against the soles of her feet, but she stayed where she was, braced and unmoving, because leaving now would mean backing down from something she had already said out loud.
The bank envelope sagged in her grip, red ink bleeding along one corner.The paper softened under the rain, edges curling, the weight of it shifting in her hand as if it might fall apart before she could force him to take it.
Her fingers stung where she had cut them earlier, the small wounds reopening, sharp under the steady downpour.She had not planned this moment in any careful way.She had followed instinct and stubbornness instead, and now both stood exposed with no room left for retreat.
The door creaked open.
Light spilled across the gravel for a brief second before Titus stepped out and the glow disappeared behind him.His shirt clung to his shoulders and arms, dark with water and work, his hat pulled low.
He stopped a few paces away, boots settling into the mud, his presence solid and familiar in a way that made everything in her chest tighten.
Kyla forced her voice steady.“You always pick Montana for your water features?”
The words were flat.She heard it the second they left her mouth.
Titus’s gaze dropped to the envelope.He did not move toward her.He did not reach for it.He only stood there, looking at it as if the answer sat written across the bleeding ink.
She tightened her grip until the paper bent.“I brought a loan.It’s mine.”The rain swallowed part of her voice, so she pushed harder.“Brooklyn money.No strings except a signature.It keeps you current.It buys you another month.”
He shook his head once.
“No.”
The refusal was immediate.
Kyla held her ground, even as something sharp moved through her chest.“This isn’t pity.You would do the same for me.”
He stepped back instead of forward.The distance widened, small but unmistakable.Rain ran off the brim of his hat in steady lines.“I said no.”
Her jaw tightened.“So that’s it?Pride keeps the lights on now?”
He did not answer.His gaze shifted past her shoulder, fixed somewhere down the road, as if looking at her directly would make this harder than he intended it to be.
She closed the space he had made, boots sliding slightly in the mud.“You think I care about your pride more than your ranch?”Her voice sharpened before she could stop it.“More than you?”
He met her eyes then.His expression stayed tight, closed off, but there was strain there she recognized.“Not yours to fix, Chef.”
