The house is quiet. Too quiet. No music from the guest cabin drifting through the windows. No camera shutter clicking in the yard. No laugh carrying across the property.
My phone buzzes.
Tucker what did you do
Lena just texted me saying the project is cancelled
She's crying Tucker
CALL ME RIGHT NOW
Turning the phone face down on the counter, I stare at the kitchen. The pitcher of sweet tea is still in the fridge. Her handwriting is on the label. Tucker's tea. Two sugars. Don't argue.
Sitting down at the table, I put my head in my hands. Hank pushes his nose into my knee. Dolly sits by the door, watching the guest cabin through the screen.
She didn't do anything wrong. The photos were her job. The brand was her job. Josie approved everything. Lena did exactly what she was hired to do, and she did it brilliantly, and the onlyreason I'm angry is because I saw my own face on a stranger's phone screen, looking at a woman I'm falling in love with, and I panicked.
Because she leaves Sunday. Because Sacramento. Because she has a career that doesn't include Nevada mountain ranches. Because my dad died on this land and my mom died before him and everyone I've ever cared about has either left or been taken.
Hank whines.
"I know, buddy."
Josie I messed up
Three dots appear immediately.
I KNOW YOU DID
Fix it Tucker
She is the best thing that has ever happened to you and that ranch
Don't you dare let her leave like this
Putting the phone down, I look through the kitchen window. The guest cabin door is closed. Curtains drawn. No lights on despite it being full morning. She's in there in my flannel with her laptop closed, crying, because I called her a brand strategist when she'd just given me the most honest night of my life.
Eight hundred head of cattle. Six hundred acres. Four generations.
None of it means a damn thing if she drives away Sunday thinking I used those words because I meant them.
But I can't move. Can't cross the yard. Can't knock on her door because I don't know what to say. Don't know how toexplain that I'm not angry at the photos. I'm terrified of Sunday. Terrified of Monday morning when the coffee pot makes one cup instead of two. Terrified of the silence she filled without trying.
Dolly looks at me. Then at the cabin. Then back at me.
"Not yet," I tell her. "Give her space."
The dog doesn't believe me. Neither do I.
CHAPTER SIX
LENA
Sunday morning. My last day.
The suitcase is packed. Equipment cases stacked by the door. Camera bag on the kitchen counter next to the coffee maker I won't use because the coffee maker in the main house makes better coffee, but I'm not walking to the main house because Tucker Brant is in the main house, and Tucker Brant can choke on his brand.
My eyes are swollen. Dried out from crying, then crying again, then running out of tears around two in the morning when Dolly scratched at the cabin door. She slept on my feet all night. Even his dog knows he's wrong.
