Page 9 of Tessa and Nash

Grandma reaches across the table and covers my hand with hers. “You were a child. Loss has a way of taking up all the space.”

“My father didn’t even come back,” I say. The words are flat. “He just sent a card. Like we’d drifted apart instead of him leaving.”

Nell’s jaw tightens, just a touch. “He was never brave enough for responsibility. Your mother knew that.”

“And still tried,” I say.

“And still loved,” she replies. “That was her choice. Loving deeply, even when it hurt.”

I stare down at our hands, at the contrast between her skin and mine. “Sometimes I think that’s why Thomas is the way he is. He mistakes control for safety.”

Grandma nods. “Fear can wear a very convincing mask.”

I take a breath, the knot in my chest easing just enough to function again. “I don’t want to be like him.”

“You aren’t,” she says immediately. “You question. You listen. And you care about the truth, not just the outcome.”

The words settle into me, quiet and solid.

“I should go,” I say after a moment. “I can already hear Thomas working back there. I need to be thorough. Or he’ll spiral.”

She smiles. “You’ve always been thorough.”

I stand and lean down, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Thank you. For… everything.”

She squeezes my hand once more. “You were never a burden, Tessa. You were a gift.”

I pause at the door long enough to look back at her, then turn down the short hallway, past the sitting room no one ever really sits in, and stop in front of the heavy oak door at the back of the house.

The one most guests assume is a closet or a relic of some forgotten renovation.

Thomas’s office.

The archives.

He’s rolling up his sleeves as if we’re about to perform surgery instead of dig through paper.

“Lock it,” he says without looking up.

I do, more out of habit than obedience.

The room smells of old wood, lemon polish, and paper that’s been cared for properly. Floor-to-ceiling shelves line every wall, boxes stacked with precision. Each one labeled in my handwriting. Each one indexed, cross-referenced, preserved.

This is my domain, even if Thomas likes to pretend otherwise.

I pull on the cotton gloves from the drawer, my posture straightening automatically as I scan the shelves.

“McCoy,” I murmur. “M… Mc… ah.”

Third shelf down. Exactly where it should be. Everything the Longs have kept over the decades: boundary surveys, water right filings, old correspondence… copies Thomas requested any time a McCoy signature touched a courthouse ledger.

I pull the first box free and set it on the long table in the center of the room. Thomas hovers at my shoulder, restless energy radiating off him, while I lift the lid and start laying documents out in neat rows.

Deeds. Surveys. Hand-drawn plats from before Buckhorn was Buckhorn. Correspondence so old the ink has browned with age.

I move quickly, but carefully. Alphabetical order first. Then chronological. Then, cross-checking adjacent properties, because land rarely exists in isolation, no matter how much people want it to.

Minutes turn into hours.