The screen was already showing a presentation. Black background. White text. Snow Creek Ranch on the front and a small line at the bottom of the slide:Lowstat-Meyer Advisory Group.
“This is what’s left of their report, after I stripped out all the padding,” Lucas said. “The conclusions are theirs, not mine, but I added some extra things based on my observations.”
My heart hurt. He wanted to sell. He was going to destroy my life and the lives of so many others.
How could I love a man who wanted to do this? And yeah, I loved him. He was sunshine, and I needed him so badly it hurt. But… how could I be thinking everything would be okay?Focus!
He rested one hand on the table, the other on the trackpad, and I caught the way his fingers flexed, the faint tension there, as if he was bracing himself even while leaning in. Oh fuck, what was he going to say?
He clicked, and a page appeared with the wordsBaseline Assessment.
“Lowstat-Meyer started their analysis based on ninety-five thousand acres.”
I felt a familiar flare of irritation rise, and with it the urge to stand up and shut this down before it went any further. I must be a sucker for punishment to watch him try to persuade me to sell, because I stayed where I was, eyes on the screen.
The next slide showed a land profile, along with a familiar map of the property.
“High elevation,” Lucas said, his voice steady. “Short grazing season. Snow retention into late spring. Large sections of rocky or broken ground, particularly out near the ridge. Usable, but inefficient. Their terms, not mine.”
“Well, fuck them and the horse they rode in on,” I grumbled.
He glanced at me briefly. “They classify it as operational land, not premium,” he added. “Which matters when you’re talking resale.”
He clicked again, a fraction too quickly, on a screen titledwater access, and I winced because I knew what it would say.
“Non-senior rights,” he continued. “Primary reliance on seasonal runoff and deep wells. Several legacy agreements restrict usage. In dry years, water security is fragile. From their valuation standpoint,” he went on, “that caps growth and increases risk for them, because buyers discount heavily for uncertainty.”
Another click, this time legal constraints. “There are conservation easements across multiple tracts,” Lucas said. “Protected wildlife corridors.” He shifted his weight, clearing his throat, the faintest tell that he was pushing as well as presenting. “The infrastructure is solid but aging, with long distances between water points. Roads that require constant repair. This operation is land-rich and cash-limited.”
“We turn a profit every year,” I defended.
“I know, I’ve seen the books.” He paused. “But ongoing cost is one of the reasons they flagged selling as a rational option for me.”
There it was. Clean. Clinical. Still landed like a shove.
I felt the pull again, the instinct to get up and walk out, to put space between myself and the way he was framing this as arithmetic instead of blood and ground.
Please leave it, Lucas. You’re breaking my heart.
“I don’t need to hear this?—”
“You do. Listen to me, please.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead, his breath warm familiar against my skin, and his blue eyes were bright with emotion.
Then, he clicked again. “Lowstat-Meyer looked at conservation-aligned investment, or parceling it out to legacy purchasers who aren’t looking to develop, just to hold, and it dropped the value a whole load, but…”
The final slide came up.
ESTIMATED CURRENT MARKET VALUE - $85–95 MILLION
I stared at the number, waiting for the surge of emotion that our lives here were reduced to a number, but what came instead was a dull, grinding awareness of how neatly it all lined up for Lucas. Why would he want to stay here? This wasn’t his blood in the soil; this was just a stepping stone to money. He was only here for a few more months before the inheritance became real, before this place stopped being temporary for him and started being something he could choose to walk away from, even if I still blocked the sale. He was still talking, and I tuned back in.
“… achievable for us to sell. On paper, that means you would receive north of twenty million for your twenty-five percent share. Selling was the sensible move for me, because when I came here, I had no attachment to the land, and projects I could fund with the money.”
I nodded once, because it seemed to be what was expected of me, though the words had lodged somewhere between my chest and my throat and wouldn’t come out. My mouth felt dry, my head oddly light, as if the room had shifted an inch to the left, leaving me struggling to catch up.
Lucas shut the laptop. “So that’s the report,” he said, and the words mattered less than the fact he hadn’t moved away.
I stayed seated, the room feeling tighter than before, not because of the figure on the screen, but because of how clearly Lucas had framed the exit.
