Chapter 1
Lucas
Ikilled the engine and stayed where I was, gripping the steering wheel as if the rental might roll forward without my hands on it—every instinct telling me to turn around and leave, but the thought of what my inheritance could do for so many forcing me to stay put.
Snow Creek Ranch—an asset with a price tag and a place that had never truly wanted me.
The sign sat just off the road—weathered timber, freshly painted letters, clean enough to tell me someone still cared. It marked where the asphalt of the highway gave up, and the ranch began. Beyond it, a cattle guard cut across the entrance, steel bars sunk into frozen dirt, designed to stop anything with hooves from wandering where it didn’t belong. A fence line stretched away on either side, posts straight, the land opening wide and pale under a winter sky. I hadn’t even crossed onto the property yet. My property. Well, seventy-five percent mine—once I’d done the six months and earned the right to call it that.
The heater clicked as it cooled, and when it stopped, I could hear the wind rattling the fence wire. I didn’t have to get out of the car to know that late March out here would be far colder than Denver, the cold already biting through the glass. Somewhere far off, something moved in my periphery—animal or machinery, I couldn’t tell. I knew the basics, at least on paper: Ninety-five thousand acres give or take, depending on which boundary dispute could be believed, a cattle operation that made a profit, but no one was getting rich from it.
I needed the money locked in the land—needed it badly enough that staying here was already decided, a trade of endurance now for cash later because there were kids out there with fewer options than I’d ever had.Theyneeded the money.
I should have kept the engine running because the cold seeped in fast. My lower back tightened in response, muscle memory kicking in as it always did when the temperature dropped. I shifted, trying to find a position that didn’t pull at the scar on my left hip. No such luck. That ache was permanent. A reminder I carried whether I wanted it or not.
Six months.
I’d survived worse at fifteen with nowhere to go. I could endure this.
Six months on the ranch, if I wanted the inheritance, and I definitely wanted all that cash. If Walter expected his grandson to fall in love with the land, he was wrong. Where was he when Dad had thrown me out at fifteen and called the cops on me when I was homeless? Nowhere. Dad hadn’t cared about me right up until an aneurysm had ended his lifea couple of years back; my grandfather hadn’t cared about his sonorhis grandson, just as hateful as my dad.
“Only the money matters.”
I stared through the windshield at land I didn’t want, inherited from a grandfather I didn’t know, handed to me by a will that felt less like generosity and more like one last, stubborn grab from beyond the grave.
My phone buzzed on the console, and the name on the screen made me smile—my best friend and fellow numbers crusher, Dalton. I answered before it could go to voicemail because I needed to hear his voice right now. “Hey.”
“Oh my god, you’re alive! You answered your phone!”
“I’ve been driving.” That was my excuse, and I was sticking to it. Nothing to do with nerves strangling my ability to think about anything other than driving the route from Denver to here.
He huffed in disbelief. “Non-stop? No coffees? Not even a cheeseburger?”
“Dalton—”
“I thought you’d been eaten by a cow.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “They run cattle here—working herd, not pets—and statistically cows are non-lethal,” I said, summarizing the data I’d collated.
Dalton snorted. “You’ve barely arrived, and you’re already talking like a rancher.”
“Fuck you,” I huffed as I restarted the car to get the heat going, shivering when it kicked in, and wincing at the shooting pain in my hip.
“You’ll be dressing like a cowboy by the end of the week,” Dalton added.
I scoffed. I had bags piled on the back seat, more boxes crammed into the trunk, my suit carrier bent where I’d forced my entire life into a mid-size Toyota. Why I’d thought a suit belonged anywhere near a working ranch, I had no idea, but I was more suited and booted than in flannel and chaps.
“This is bullshit,” I said, the words coming out rougher than I meant them to, edged with anger and, hell, was that panic? “I can manage the sale from Denver. I don’t need to be on-site for any of this.” I heard how sharp it came out and forced my breathing to steady. Panic wasn’t a plan. I was here, so I was going to do this
—one step, one decision at a time—get the money, move on. My chest was tight again. “Shit, D,” I muttered, and he picked up on the panic.
“Tell me the plan,” he said, and almost instantly, I felt a wash of calm. Goals and numbers I could handle.
“I stay six months, assess the property, legally inherit my share, and leave,” I said. “Seventy-five percent ownership makes me the majority. After the estate releases the final paperwork, I list it. I sell. I take my share and funnel it straight into Harbor 5280. Any money that big,” I continued, “keeps the charity doors open for years. Expands services. Staff. Beds. It’s… a lot of good.”
Harbor 5280 was trying to help too many kids, with not enough funding. But it had been the first place in my life where someone had looked at me—bloody, half-conscious, dragged out of a gutter—and saidyou matterwithout needing anything in return.
Rebecca Morris, now in charge of everything, had beenon her very first shift when she’d found me on the street. She’d sat on the edge of the bed without crowding me, without pity, and told me I was safe in a voice that didn’t waver or soften, as if safety were something solid she could hand over and expect me to hold onto. I hadn’t believed her—not then, not with blood and pain and my ribs aching, a doctor poking at me, my head spinning—but she’d stayed anyway, checked in again, kept showing up. Somewhere along the line, I realized she hadn’t gone anywhere, and neither had the promise. Eventually, I believed her. 5280 had paid for my education. Nothing fancy. I finished high school, then got a degree in accounting at night school while working my way up at an accountancy firm in Denver’s financial district. That was where I’d met Dalton, one of only two people I called friends. He and Rebecca mattered to me, but I didn’t have time for anyone else. I worked my nine-to-five, then gave as many hours as possible to the charity. Nights. Weekends. Whatever they needed. I showed up, hauled boxes, filled gaps, did the jobs no one else had time for, and worked just as hard as the stripped-back staff who kept the place running. It wasn’t about feeling good. It was about paying back a debt I knew I could never clear.
