Page 28 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

“That doesn’t mean⁠—”

“I know.” I drag in a breath. “I know.”

But my body doesn’t know.

My body knows I’m twenty-nine years old and still carrying around little pieces of people who loved me badly, because evidence feels safer than memory.

My body knows that the card missing isn’t just inconvenient. It’s invasive.

Those photos are mine. Private in the stupid, emotional way that matters more than financial records ever could.

I can rebuild a spreadsheet. I can reconstruct numbers.

I can’t recreate the exact angle of my brother laughing with his head tipped back in late afternoon sun, grease on his hands from some terrible decision involving a motorcycle and misplaced optimism.

I can’t recreate proof that there were moments with my parents that weren’t all edges.

I sit down too suddenly in the desk chair, and it rolls back a few inches with a soft whine.

Sherry crouches beside me. “Hey.”

I stare at the floor.

“This card,” she says carefully. “Did it have work photos on it? Of Ironwood?”

“No.” Then, because honesty arrives late but loud, “More old ones. Family stuff. Travel. Everything.”

“Oh.”

There’s pity in that single syllable, and I can’t stand it. Not because she means harm, because she doesn’t. Because kindness always feels more dangerous when I’m already coming apart.

I stand again before I can embarrass myself further. “I just need a minute.”

“Do you want me to call one of the guys?”

I shake my head.

Absolutely not.

Silas would go still in that terrifying way he has and start asking questions with his jaw locked, like he’s interviewing a suspect instead of helping a person.

Cody would probably want a timeline, an inventory, and the exact molecular structure of my last known location. Neither of which is objectively unreasonable, which somehow makes it worse.

And beneath that’s the simpler, uglier fear.

I don’t want them to think I’m a problem.

Not yet.

Not when I’m just beginning to prove I’m useful.

Not when part of me is still trying to outrun every version of every place where needing help turned into owing for it.

“No,” I say. “No, it’s… I just need air.”

Sherry rises with me, concern still written all over her face. “Okay. But Annie?” I look at her. “If you decide this isn’t nothing, don’t sit on it.”

That should be easy advice.