“That will have to wait. We have bigger problems,” I tell him, tossing the levels down on the table and then showing him photos I took inside the tank before I sealed it.
“The levels were getting lower over the year because someone is illegally diverting the water off the property. I’m betting it’s being sent to whatever is being built across the way,” I explain to him as he looks at the log.
He licks his lips, and I watch as his face visibly changes, as it always does when I try to tell him anything.
“Why do you keep doing this?” he asks, his eyes narrowing in on me.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Sticking your nose in places where it doesn’t belong, asking questions about the water main, and now you’re planting evidence. I’m starting to see a pattern here,” he says. I shake my head, stunned, and I don’t know what comes over me.
Maybe it’s all the pent-up frustration and anger, but I completely lose it anyway.
“What would I have to gain by sabotaging this place? My father busted his ass to save it!
Did you know that?” I ask him.
His eyes suddenly soften.
“Two and a half decades ago, when he could have been home with me, his daughter, he was here saving your legacy! I am trying to do the same now, but how can I do anything when I have you telling me I am this malicious person out to ruin it!” I yell, tears streaming down my face as I let everything out that I’ve been holding back for months.
“I’m tired, Gage! I’m so fucking tired!”
He deflates and nods distantly. “There’s a lien on the western part of the ranch. It’s a fairly large piece,” he admits, and I’m honestly surprised he’s even telling me about it.
He holds his hand out and then drops it on the table. “If at any point you want to leave, take that piece and sell it,” he says, and I shake my head in disbelief.
He’s giving up.
Why is he giving up now?
Why isn’t he holding on tighter to this ranch?
Why isn’t he choosing me?
If staying means being treated like a threat instead of a partner, then leaving may be the only way I preserve what my father helped build.
I sniffle, stepping back, nodding slowly. I understand what he’s trying to do. It’s always been about getting rid of me—and now this is his opportunity.
He’s getting the out he sought. The only difference now is that it means sacrificing a piece of his land, but I guess to him, that’s a small price to pay to get me out of his hair.
“Consider it done,” I tell him, walking away from him to head upstairs. Before the night is even over, I open my laptop and start the preliminary paperwork to begin the process of opening my share for sale.
And it will draw attention.
Fast.
fourteen
Gage
The full severity of what I’ve done presses on my chest like a five-ton anvil. Not just the afternoon at the barn, but all of it—the months of dismissing her, the reflexive anger, the way I shut her down before she ever had a chance.
I see the pattern clearly now, and that might be the worst part.
Is this what I’ve conditioned myself to be? This lonely rancher with no hope of being anything more than that. Truthfully, what am I even holding on for anymore? A legacy that will stop at me? I don’t have children to hand the ranch off to when I’m too old to run it. And I never will if this is the man I keep choosing to be.
I took the log to my room and promised myself that once morning came, I would finally check everything for myself, but for tonight, I reviewed everything she documented instead.
