I follow his line of sight, picturing it as he talks, the walls, the wrap around porch. The way it’ll sit against the land, and it doesn’t take much to see it anymore, not like before when it was just an idea I hadn’t said out loud.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “That’s it.”
Brooks steps in beside us, flipping open his clipboard. “We’ll need to stagger deliveries if we don’t want this turning into a bottleneck,” he says. “Lumber first, then foundation work, then we build up from there. I’ll make calls this afternoon.”
“Do it,” I answer, already driving a stake into the ground with a firm hit that sends a dull thud through the dirt, something about the sound settling deeper than it should.
It’s real.
Each strike after that makes it more so, the outline taking shape one point at a time, and for a while, the work takes over, the rhythm steady enough that the rest of it fades back just enough to let me focus.
But it doesn’t stay gone.
Not with what I found yesterday sitting in the back of my mind like a warning I haven’t figured out how to read yet.
“Keep your eyes open,” I say after a bit, not loud, but enough that all three of them hear it.
Wade snorts. “Was planning on it.”
“More than usual,” I add, meeting his gaze briefly.
That wipes the last of the humor out of it.
“Yeah,” he says, quieter now. “Got it.”
We work through the morning like that, focused and tight, no wasted movement, no unnecessary talk, just getting as muchdone as we can while the ground is still cool enough to work without fighting it.
By midday, we’ve got the outline staked, a section cleared, and enough progress to make it look like something’s taking root out here, not just an idea we’re kicking around.
I step back to take it in, wiping a hand over the back of my neck, the sun climbing higher and the heat settling in, and for the first time since we started, I let myself breathe a little deeper.
Then I turn toward my truck.
Something’s off.
It’s not obvious at first, just a feeling that doesn’t line up with everything else being exactly where it should be, but the closer I get, the sharper it becomes, the way instinct kicks in before logic has a chance to catch up.
“Jace?” Luke calls, picking up on the shift before I say anything.
I don’t answer right away, just move the last few steps and drop into a crouch beside the front tire, my fingers brushing along the rubber before I even fully register what I’m looking at.
A clean slice.
Not a blowout.
Not wear and tear.
A cut.
Deliberate.
My jaw tightens as I run my hand along the sidewall, feeling where the blade went through, precise and controlled, like whoever did it knew exactly how to make sure it wouldn’t hold once I tried to drive it.
Behind me, boots hit the ground in quick succession.
“What is it?” Wade asks, already closing in.
I straighten slowly, stepping back just enough to give them a clear look. “Take a guess.”
