Page 103 of The One Who Saw Her: Boone

This was trust shattered into a dozen pieces, and he was the unlucky guy tasked with picking them up.

He'd thought she understood. He'd thought she saw the lines—what was hers to touch, and what was his to carry alone. And yet there she was, sending letters, bending the rules without so much as a backward glance.

Boone dropped onto the nearest stool and pressed his hands over his face, trying to breathe through the storm of it. He'd trusted her—let himself believe, for the first time in longer than he could say, that someone was fully on his side. And now all that trust felt like it had been ripped straight out from under him.

Why couldn't she just listen?

He'd asked, he'd been clear, and she'd chosen her way over his, and it cut deeper than he'd expected, which told him everything he didn't want to know about how far gone he already was.

"You trying to strong-arm me?" Virgil snapped, eyes flashing. "Make me look bad around town so I'll lower the water prices?"

"Flap your gums all you want, Virgil, but last I checked, you're the only one runnin’ your mouth around town. I didn't send anyone to talk to you. I didn't make a scene of things, and I as hell didn't send that letter." He held it up. "Didn't even know about it until right now."

"I don't care. I'm not raising the price. And I'm not taking orders from you or—" He waved a hand like Boone had personally insulted four generations of his family tree. "— whoever that little spitfire thinks she is."

Boone blinked. That wasn't what he'd braced for. Not a win—but not the fight he'd been dreading either. "You're not raising the price?"

Virgil's expression darkened further, which Boone hadn't thought was physically possible. "I'm not lowering it either. Hell, I'm not selling to you at all." He stepped closer, all simmering fury and wounded pride. "I'll find another buyer. Someone who doesn't think it's clever to play games with a man's reputation. I won't have it, Callahan. Not from you. Not from anyone."

There it was, he thought. The end.

No water. No deal. And the trust he'd built with Vivi—the careful, hard-won thing he'd let himself believe in—had just gone up in smoke, courtesy of one letter he never asked her to write.

He squared his shoulders and kept his voice low. "This isn't over, Virgil. Not by a long shot. I'll see you in court."

"Go ahead and spend your money," Virgil spat. "For every hundred dollars you have, I've got a thousand. I'll bury your lawyers in so much paperwork you'll be broke before we ever see a courtroom."

The barn door rattled on its hinges when Virgil slammed it behind him.

The echo faded, leaving behind a silence Boone fucking hated.

The lawyers, court, he could handle all of that—well, except the money. He didn’t have the first clue as to where that was supposed to come from. But he'd figure it out. He'd been fighting uphill since the day he inherited this land, and that hadn't stopped him yet.

But as the quiet crept back into the rafters, the real truth walked in behind it—in one afternoon he'd managed to lose the two things he cared about most.

His ranch—his legacy, his blood, every drop of sweat and sacrifice he'd poured into this land—was now hanging by a thread, strangled between Virgil's pride and Vivi's attempt to play hero.

And Vivi.

Boone braced a hand on the stall door, head bowing. His throat burned because she wasn't just some woman who'd wandered onto his property and turned his head. She was sunlight and sharp wit who made him feel like the man he used to be—before the accident, before the loneliness, before he'd quietly stopped wanting things for himself.

She'd gone behind his back and in one fell swoop, one letter he never asked her to write, it was over.

Now he was standing in a barn that felt too damn empty, staring down the barrel of losing the ranch he'd kill to protect—and the woman he'd started to fall for without ever seeing it coming.

Fall for wasn’t the right phrase. Boone was so in love with her it felt like someone had lit a bonfire under his ribs—and no matter how angry he was, no matter how raw and how blindsided he felt, he couldn't put it out. Every freckle, every spark of mischief in her eyes, every stubborn streak she wore like a crown? He'd fallen for all of it, completely, without a single defense left standing.

Now, in the empty barn, the weight of what she’d done pressed down on him, but underneath it all was the raw ache that losing her would hurt worse than losing the ranch itself.

Hell of a thing, losing your whole world before lunch.

Vivi’s hands were sticky with peach syrup, and she was rolling out dough with a precision that made everything else—deadlines, apps, small-town drama—fall completely away. The kitchen smelled like peaches and cinnamon, and for once she was just here, present, the soft give of dough under her palms and the sweet promise of tomorrow's Summer Sunflower Spectacular the only things on her mind.

She slid another perfect lattice top onto a pie and let herself smile. Really smile—the kind that curled warm and fizzy in her chest. Tomorrow wasn't just about the festival or the ribbon or proving to an entire town that a former city girl could hold her own in a bake-off. Nope. Tomorrow held sweeter promises than peaches and sugar.

Tomorrow meant Boone. Seeing him, talking to him, maybe brushing fingers when he walked past her booth or stealing a quiet moment behind City Hall. She could already picture the way he'd look at her—like she was something worth slowing down for. Something worth choosing.

God help her, she was looking forward to that more than anything cooling on the rack.