I’ve built my life around environmental studies—understanding how things grow, how ecosystems survive—but agriculture? That’s a whole different world. One I’ve only ever studied from the outside.
I came because my father promised this would be good for me.
And the thing about Dad? You don’t question his reasoning. Not because he’s a tyrant or anything like that—he’s actually the opposite.
He’s the kind of man who genuinely wants what’s best for everyone, but only as long as it aligns with howhesees the world.
His way. His timing.
Which is how I end up heading toward a random town I’ve never even heard of, in the middle of nowhere, Texas. He says it will be good for me, and I listen because he’s Dad, and because some habits are harder to break than others.
Our relationship has never been perfect. He’s a good man; I’ve always known that. He would take the shirt off his back for anyone who needed it. But all that generosity comes with a price.
He prioritized everyone else over his family, and while I like to think I’ve forgiven him for that, it still stings. Especially now. When he tells me about an inheritance I’ve received from some landowner in Bell River—a man I’ve never met, in a town where I don’t even know a single person.
It doesn’t matter now. I’m already driving the two-and-some-change hours it takes to get there, the road stretching ahead of me with no convenient exits. No turning back.
The longer the miles drag on, the tighter my shoulders get, like my body knows before my brain does that this is going to be a trial.
As the town limits finally appear, my anxiety only tightens. This is one ofthosetowns—the kind with a single stoplight before you’re through the center and back on the open road again.
Mom-and-pop shops line both sides of the street, and maybe half a dozen people wander the sidewalks like time moves slower here. The place is quaint, all things considered. Quiet. Self-contained.
And absolutely nothing like home.
Austin has been my home my entire life. I like options—late dinners, live music, places that stay open past sunset.
Places like this? They run on a different clock.
And I’m not sure I belong anywhere near it.
“Dad, where the hell did you send me?” I mutter to myself as I drive past the edge of town, my GPS cheerfully guiding me deeper into open pasture like it’s leading me to a spa retreat instead of my potential undoing.
Once I leave downtown, it’s actually… pretty. The land stretches out in every direction, wide and open, dotted with cows, Longhorns, and the occasional horse like something pulled straight from a postcard.
The countryside rolls on and on, and I have to admit—it could be much worse. I could be trapped somewhere bleakanduncomfortable.
I turn onto a dirt road, and my car immediately starts protesting. It shakes over uneven patches as my tires crunch over gravel, every bump sending a jolt straight up my spine. God. This is so uncomfortable.
At this rate, I’ll have whiplash before I even reach Hollis Ranch. My sedan is absolutely not built for this kind of terrain, and I dread what my bumper already looks like. If it falls off, I’m blaming Texas.
I pull up to a closed gate, the name Hollis Ranch worked into a metal arch that somehow manages to look both welcoming and intimidating at the same time. I stop at the entrance, debating whether I’m supposed to honk, call someone, or just sit here until I turn into a cautionary tale.
I don’t have to wait long.
A scruffy, dark-haired man in a plaid short-sleeve shirt steps out of the main house and starts walking toward me, and something in my chest tightens—not nerves exactly, but awareness. As he gets closer, I take him in properly.
His beard and hair are threaded with gray, his clothes dusty from the land he clearly works, his boots scuffed andworn. His eyes look tired. Hard. Like someone who hasn’t had the luxury of sleeping in or taking days off in a long time.
He looks exactly like what I expect a rancher to look like.
Annoyingly… he’s attractive.
Not polished. Not clean-cut. There’s nothing refined about him. It’s all rough edges and sun-worn strength, the kind of presence that feels earned instead of styled.
The kind of man who doesn’t ask for space—he takes it.
And for some reason, that makes my pulse trip in a way I absolutely do not appreciate.
