I drop onto the couch opposite him and scrub a hand over my face.
“Six months,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“And in all that time you didn’t say a word to me or to Dad. Not even to Maggie, who finds out everything within forty-eight hours whether you tell her or not.” His gray eyes are steady over the rim of the glass as he takes a drink. “Was she some kind of secret?”
“No.” I lean forward, elbows on my knees.
Daniel waits. He’s good at waiting when he decides to be, which isn’t often.
“You’ve got Delaney,” I say. “Henry’s got Shay. Angus and Luna. Tom and Kitty. Everyone in this family has someone.” I look at my hands. “I applied to Marlie’s Angels because I watched it happen four times and couldn’t look away. Filled out the profile expecting nothing. Checked the correspondence-only box because that was safe. Words on a screen, a voice on a phone, something I could hold without taking. I wasn’t hiding her. I was holding onto her. A voice in the dark that made the loneliness smaller. There’s a difference.”
Daniel’s jaw works. I watch him process it, the way he processes everything. He runs it through the filter of a man who spent years as a Ranger learning that information withheld is a liability, then runs it again through the filter of a brother who understands loneliness.
“You could’ve told me,” he says quietly.
“I know.”
“I would’ve listened.”
“I know that too.” I meet his eyes. “But if I’d said it out loud, if I’d told you I was falling for a woman I’d never met, you would’ve looked at me the way you’re looking at me right now. And I wasn't ready to defend something I didn’t fully understand yet.”
Daniel holds my gaze for a long beat. He nods. Drinks. Sets the glass down and leans back, the armchair creaking under his weight. The subtle shift means the conversation is about to move from personal to operational.
“LandCorp will notice she’s gone," he says. “If they don’t already.”
Daniel’s in command mode, using the same tone he used overseas and is now using when the ranch is under threat.
“I’m aware.”
“She stole internal data. Contamination reports.” He ticks them off like he’s briefing a squad. “A company that’s been systematically poisoning water and falsifying reports to force a land sale isn’t going to shrug that off. They’ll want to know where she went and what she did with the communications.”
“I know,” I repeat. My hands are steady. This part—the threat assessment, the plan—is the part I’m built for.
“She used her own car,” Daniel says. “If they have her plates, they can track her route.”
“The car’s in a ditch off a county road with no cameras. George is towing and storing it,” I say, naming Georgina Lucas, Clover Canyon’s resident mechanic. “But, yeah. We don't have long.”
Daniel leans forward. “What’s the play?”
“Beckett.” The name settles between us like a hand on a weapon. Beckett “Shadow” Lawson, ex-SEAL and George’s fiancé. He runs security across both ranches now, and his tactical brain makes mine look like a kid with a hobby. “I’ll get him to extend the perimeter alerts to cover the county road and the east approach. His veteran watch network can add night patrols without making it obvious.”
“What about Dad?”
“Dad knows the shape of it. He doesn’t need the details yet. He’ll want to fight, and right now, we need him steady, not loading a shotgun.”
Daniel almost smiles at that. “And the drive? Where is it?”
“Inside a goat.”
He blinks. “What?”
“Dorito ate it.”
The silence is spectacular.
“You’re telling me that our entire defense against a corporate land grab is inside Dorito.”
