Page 221 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

Jake’s jaw tightens.

Good.

Hit something.

“You sabotaged my ranch.”

“Your ranch?” Jake echoes calmly. “Interesting choice of wording considering Ironwood’s tied up in the family trust.”

There’s Vivian again.

Every sentence leads back to her somehow.

“She used you,” Annie says suddenly.

Jake finally looks toward her. And there’s an almost pitying look in his expression now.

“She understood reality,” he says. “Ironwood’s been dying slowly for years. Expansion costs alone⁠—”

“We were stable before you started siphoning funds,” Cody cuts in.

“No.” Jake shakes his head once. “You were surviving. There’s a difference.”

The rage comes back hot this time, because he’s talking about Ironwood as if it’s numbers on paper instead of the place my father built with bleeding hands and eighteen-hour days.

A cage instead of a home.

“You don’t know a damn thing about this ranch,” I say.

Jake’s smile turns thin. “I know exactly what it’s worth.”

Wrong answer.

Very wrong answer.

I step closer again.

Close enough now that Jake has to tilt his head to hold eye contact.

“You listen carefully,” I say. “Because this is the last courtesy you’re getting from me.”

The barn goes silent around us. Even the horses seem restless now. Hooves shifting softly against stalls. Metal clinking somewhere deeper in the aisle.

“You walk away tonight,” I continue. “Or I stop being polite about what happens next.”

Jake studies me for one long second. Then he smiles. “Oh. There he is.”

I know exactly what he means.

The version of me built for violence, for survival, for protecting what’s mine.

The one Vivian helped create.

An engine roars to life outside. Everybody turns instinctively toward the sound. Truck. South lot. Moving fast.

“What the hell?” Duke mutters.

Jake moves.Straight toward Annie.