"I'm not selling."
Silence on the other end.
"The McCall Cabins aren't for sale. Not now, not next month, not ever. Take the property off your list."
"Owen, let's be reasonable. The numbers don't..."
"The numbers are my problem. Not yours." My hand tightens on the steering wheel. "Don't call again."
Hanging up feels like dropping a weight. Not all of it. The taxes are still overdue. The roof still leaks. The generator still needs replacing. But the cabins are mine. My parents built them. My grandfather cleared the land.
And the woman who's been fixing them deserves to know they're staying.
The drive back up the mountain takes twenty minutes. By the time I pull into the gravel lot, my hands are shaking the way Carmen's used to. Not from exhaustion. From fear.
Cabin six is quiet. No smoke from the stovepipe. No light in the window.
Her Honda is gone.
Every organ in my chest seizes at once. The lot is empty where her car sat for three weeks. The gravel shows tire tracks heading down the mountain.
Then my phone buzzes.
Mabel:
Before you do something dramatic, she's at my diner. Came in 20 minutes ago looking like she hasn't slept. Ordered coffee and a biscuit and hasn't touched either one. Get down here.
Me: On my way.
Mabel:
Use the back door. If you upset her in front of my lunch crowd I will end you.
The truck barely stops before I'm out of it. Back door of the Ridgeline. Through the kitchen where Mabel's nephew is frying eggs. Past the storage room.
Carmen is sitting in the last booth by the window. Coffee going cold in front of her. Biscuit untouched. She's wearing a clean shirt, her hair pulled back, dark circles under her eyes. In her lap, her phone is open to a Houston area code. A hospital's number.
She's looking up jobs.
My whole body rejects the image. Every cell, every instinct, every stupid protective impulse that's been building since the night she ate three bowls of my stew with shaking hands.
"Carmen."
Her head snaps up. Those brown eyes, wide, exhausted, guarded. The warmth that's been growing between us for three weeks is buried under something harder. Self-preservation.
Sliding into the booth across from her, I set my phone on the table. Open the call log. Turn it toward her.
"I called Weston. The developer. Told him the property isn't for sale."
She stares at the screen. Doesn't touch it.
"Why?"
"Because those cabins are my family's legacy. My grandfather cleared that land. My parents built every one of those structures with their hands. Selling it because the math is hard is the coward's choice, and I'm not a coward."
"You can't afford to keep them."
"Not alone." Reaching across the table, I take the phone from her lap. Gently. Set it face-down on the table between us. "That's what I should've said. Not that I'm handling it. Not that it's my problem. The truth is I can't do this alone, and I've been too proud to say it."
