“What the actual fuck!” he snarled.
This wasn’t good.
Chapter 14
Jesse
My stomach fell when I rifled through marketing and invoices and saw the white envelope with clean edges, my name printed neatly. I knew who it was from before I touched it. That freaking investment firm that had been dealing with Lucas.
I stood to read it, boots still on, and read it once. Then again. Then a third time, slower, my jaw tightening with every word.
Signed off by Zachary Haines, thanking us for the call and noting the positive conversation with the ranch.
Potential purchasers.
All parties will be contacted once a firm offer was received.
My vision went hot around the edges.
I heard Lucas in the hallway and headed out before my brain was in gear.
“What the hell is this?” I demanded, shoving the letter at his chest.
He glanced down at it, then back up at me, expression already set. “It’s exactly what it looks like.”
“You went behind my back and carried on talking after I told you I wasn’t agreeing to sell.”
“I didn’t go behind your back,” he shot back. “I talked to people who have a legitimate interest in the land.”
“It’s not your land to sell!” I barked a laugh that came out ugly.
His eyes flashed. “Don’t start with that.”
“Oh, I’m starting,” I said, voice rising despite myself. “Do you have any idea how many people work here? Have you ever even asked? Do you even give a shit?”
I stepped closer, crowding him in the narrow hall, and he stepped back. “You think I don’t care?” He sounded horrified.
“I think you don’t give a shit,” I snapped. “Not about the land. Not about the people. Not about legacy. This ranch isn’t a line item—it’s my family’s blood in the dirt.”
“Legacy doesn’t pay bills,” he shot back. “And it doesn’t fix the fact that this place isn’t making enough to fund what I need it to.”
“It’s not bleeding money,” I yelled. “It’s working its ass off and breaking even. There’s a difference.”
He shoved his hands through his hair, frustration sharp enough to taste. “You’re clinging to something that’s already gone. This ranch is being sold one way or another, Jesse. I’m just trying to make it ethical.”
That word—ethical—hit like a slap.
“You don’t get to decide what’s ethical for us,” I said. “You didn’t grow up here. You didn’t watch people break their backs to keep this land alive.”
“And you don’t get to pretend your attachment to mud is enough,” he shouted back. “I’m selling it. With you or without you. So, stop acting like I’m the villain for being honest.”
The hallway was too damn quiet for the amount of noise between us, the air thick with everything neither of us was willing to back down from.
I was so angry I could taste it, copper and heat flooding my mouth, my vision tunneling until all I could see was him. Lucas stood there in front of me—too neat, too contained, so fucking small in my space for someone causing so much damage—and something ugly reared up in my chest. I wanted to shove him. Not because I would, not because I ever had, but because I needed him tofeelhow wrong he was, how badly he was tearing at something he didn’t understand. My hands curled into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms, every muscle locked down by sheer force of will. It was all too much—my dad, him, the letter, the land, the certainty in his voice that I would ever agree—and if I didn’t stop myself, if I didn’t step back right now, I was going to say or do something neither of us could ever come back from.
Lucas lifted his hands slowly, palms out, like I was a skittish horse instead of a man who’d just had his world tilted on its axis. He stepped in, careful, and for half a second, his fingers brushed my arm.
“Jesse,” he said, voice low, coaxing. He even smiled, small and placating, like that would fix anything. “I get that you’re attached to the land?—”
