She showed up.
She saved us.
And she left like she never knew me at all.
The pasture still smells of panic and sweat, and the cattle are still struggling, but somewhere beneath the adrenaline and fear, there’s a thread of control.
Sedona gave us the thread. I grip it tight.
Jasper whispers, voice barely audible: “She’s something else, isn’t she?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. I just nod once, too exhausted to speak.
Boone whines softly, resting his nose against my boot, waiting, watching, and I stay there, too stunned, too alive, to move.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sedona
I gripthe steering wheel so hard my knuckles ache. The sedan hums over the gravel, tires kicking up little clouds of dust that hang in the air like grit in my lungs.
My stomach flips, and I swear it’s not entirely from the smell of the pasture. My chest heaves, tense with adrenaline and anger and frustration so tight I can’t separate one from the other.
I pull onto the shoulder, tires crunching over dirt, and throw the car into park. The engine hums steady beneath my hands. I lean forward, pressing my forehead to the wheel, and that’s when it hits me.
I shove the door open before I heave, bile burning the back of my throat. I throw up into the grass.
I can’t stop the tremor that rattles through my hands and my jaw.
I sit back, taking a shaky breath, fingers brushing against the wheel. My eyes sting, and I drag a hand down my face.
I’m angry. Angry at the town for needing me like this, angry at myself for showing up when I didn’t want to, angry at Cole for being the last straw.
Angry at the office, dusty and half-empty, the clutter of paperwork and everything my father left behind. I’ve beenstaring at that office all morning, thinking I could clean it, sell it, and disappear.
I could vanish, leave the past and everyone in it. I should.
Tex’s call shattered that thought like a bullet through glass. My father’s place, this town, the Carson ranch—everybody relying on me because of what Dad built, because of what I inherited without asking.
I didn’t even pause to weigh the cost of showing up. I just drove, adrenaline first, common sense a whisper behind me.
I lean my head back against the headrest and close my eyes, trying not to let the tide of emotion swallow me. I’m tired, so damn tired.
Tired of being the daughter everyone needs, tired of being pulled into fights I never wanted, tired of being in a town that seems to bend me into something I’m not supposed to be.
And yet… even with every fiber of me screaming to leave, a part of me nudges, reminding me.
If I hadn’t gotten here, if I hadn’t known what to do, the Carsons could have lost more than a few animals. Copper Creek wouldn’t have survived this disaster alone.
I press my palms to the wheel, inhale through my teeth. I taste the bile, the dirt, the sweat from the heat of the day.
I can’t stay too long, but I can’t leave. I shouldn’t. And the realization hits me: it isn’t about me. It’s about the people and the animals relying on me.
It’s about the legacy of a man who made this town what it is, and how fast it can crumble without someone standing there to catch it.
The office. Cole. The town. The mess. I think about everything I want to run from, everything I’ve been dragging around in my chest, and I feel it clawing at me, pressing into my ribs.
I could pack up the office, the files, and drive until the horizon swallows me, and no one would even notice for days. The freedom is a pulse I want to reach for, the pull of the open road tempting as a siren.
