Page 25 of Stealing the Runaway Bride

I fold the map, my heart racing. It’s a risk. Taking her into town is the fastest way to draw every eye in Pine Valley. But I can't leave her. Every minute she’s out of my sight, I feel like the ground is crumbling beneath me.

We walk back out to the truck. The heat is rising, the sun beating down on the dry earth. As I climb into the driver’s seat, I look at the dashboard. The whittled cottonwood figure of the bird sits there, its wings still blocked out, unfinished.

I pick it up. I run my thumb over the wood.

“Dawson taught me to carve when I was ten,” I say quietly. “I started this hawk after he disappeared five years ago. I carved the body, started the wings, and then I put the knife down.”

“And now?” Juliette asks.

I run my thumb over the rough grain.

“Now I’ve picked it up again.”

I put the bird back down, the wings still blocked out, waiting.

I start the engine, the roar of the diesel a promise of war. We head toward the gate, toward Pine Valley, and toward the man who thinks he can take what’s mine. He wants a fight? He’s got one. And he’s about to learn that the man with the deepest roots is the hardest one to pull out of the ground.

As we hit the main road, I see the white SUV again. The man with the clipboard looks up as we pass. I don't slow down. I don't look away. I just grip the steering wheel until my knuckles are white, my eyes fixed on the road ahead.

She’s mine. The land is mine. I’ll use every road, record, and favor between Pine Ridge and the coast before I let anyone take either one.

The drive into town is silent, the tension in the cab thick enough to choke on. I can feel Juliette watching me, but I can’t tell whether she sees anger, fear, or both.

We pull into Pine Valley, the familiar sights of the Cozy Cup and Harrison’s Hardware appearing through the shimmering heat haze. The town looks the same—peaceful, sleepy, unaware of the war brewing on the ridge. But I can feel the eyes on us. The gossip network is already humming. Someone at the gas station has probably told half the town about the woman who climbed into my truck in a shredded dress.

I pull the truck around to the back of the hardware store, away from the main street.

"Stay here," I command, my voice leaving no room for argument. "I mean it, Juliette. Lock the doors."

"I'm not a dog, Cag," she snaps, but she reaches for the lock.

I jump out of the truck, the heat hitting me like a physical blow. I head into the warehouse, my mind already calculating the footage of pipe we need. I’ll fix the water. I’ll fix the ranch. And then I’m going to find a way to make sure Conrad Marchand never sets foot in this valley again.

The rest of that closing beat stays as it is, so the full end of the chapter reads:

Because this isn't just about water anymore. It’s about her.

We’re back on the Ridge before noon with less tubing than we need and a bill Frank refused to write. Juliette goes into the house without being told. I go straight back out to the western quarter with Andy.

I don’t think once about what’s sitting on my desk.

7

JULIETTE

The ranch office smells like old leather, spilled coffee, and the dust Cag tracked in from the western quarter. I shouldn’t be in here, poking around through the stacks of yellowing ledgers and legal files, but Cag is out in the western quarter with Andy, checking how far the upstream diversion has already reduced the flow. Dust from the trucks has settled across the windowsills, and the whole ranch seems to be holding its breath.

My fingers itch. I’ve never been good at sitting still while the world burns around me. Back in the city, when the couture house would go into a tailspin before a show, I was the one with the pins in my mouth and the steamer in my hand, fixing the hems while everyone else panicked. Here, I’m the runaway bride in borrowed jeans and a blouse, feeling like a guest who stayed too long at a party that’s about to get raided by the cops.

I move a stack of envelopes on the heavy oak desk—Cag’s desk. It’s messy in a way that makes sense to him, covered in whittled wood shavings and bits of twine. I see the cottonwood hawk resting on a coaster. Cag finished it last night. Both wings are spread now, every rough edge carved away, as if the bird has finally decided it’s ready to fly. It’s beautiful, precise, and entirely at odds with the foreman who keeps dismissing his carvings as pieces of wood. My heart does a stupid little skip-hop in my chest. I’m falling, and I’m falling hard, which is usually the part where I should be looking for the nearest exit. But Cag Kramer isn't an exit. He’s the first place that’s ever felt like a destination.

Then I see it.

A manila folder is tucked under a heavy livestock manual. It’s thick, stuffed with legal-sized pages that have the kind of crisp, expensive weight that only comes from law firms with four names on the door and a view of the lake. I shouldn’t look. I really shouldn't. But the words on the tab are written in Cag’s blocky, neat handwriting: Black Aspen Correspondence.

My breath hitches. This is the monster under the bed. This is the corporate shadow trying to swallow Pine Ridge whole. I pull the folder out, my pulse thrumming against my fingertips. I expect to see names of developers I don’t know, or maybe a list of local politicians who’ve been bought off. I expect numbers and charts and the cold language of eminent domain.

I don’t expect the letterhead on the first page.