The code complaint against Callum's barn is dismissed three days after the town meetin'.
Mr. Caldwell proves the filing was retaliatory: the barn has passed inspections for decades, and the anonymous complaint came from an office computer used by one of Wade Prescott's consultants.
Wade's next move arrives by certified mail.
CEASE AND DESIST.
His attorneys demand that I stop discussin' his property transactions, retract my statements at the town meetin', and warn Mateo Vasquez against publishin' "unverified allegations."
I read the letter once.
Then I photograph every page and send it to Callum and Mr. Caldwell.
Callum calls within thirty seconds.
"You alright?"
"Angry. Not scared. Maybe both."
"I'm comin' over."
"Bring coffee."
No hidin' the letter. No decidin' I have to fight alone to prove the fight belongs to me. No secrets dressed up as strength.
When Callum arrives, we read the letter together at the kitchen table.
"Caldwell says don't answer," I tell him. "Mateo says the threat makes him more interested, not less."
"Wade's tryin' to make noise sound like power."
"Then we keep buildin' the record."
Callum folds the letter and returns it to the envelope. "Together."
"Together."
The next week is the best one yet.
Not because anythin' dramatic happens—no confrontations, no revelations, no code complaints. It's the best because it's normal. Because for the first time since I got here, life on the ranch feels like... life.
I develop a routine that works. I wake up with the rooster. I make coffee. I walk the property with Ranger and Scout. I feed the chickens. I check the cattle. I fix what needs fixin'. I eat lunch—sometimes at the house, sometimes at Magnolia's, sometimes sittin' on a hay bale in the barn with a sandwich and a bottle of water.
In the afternoons, I work on the business side of things. I'm learnin' that ranchin' ain't just physical labor—it's also paperwork. Taxes, insurance, permits, the lease agreement with Callum, the partnership agreement from 1948 that Earl hid in his desk. There's a lot of legal stuff I don't understand, and Mr. Caldwell is patient about explainin' it.
I also start thinkin' about the ranch's future. Not just preservin' it—improvin' it. My grandfather ran it the same way for sixty years. It worked. But it could work better.
I start researchin'. Direct-to-consumer beef sales. Agritourism. Farm stays. Educational programs for kids. Community-supported agriculture. There's a whole world of possibilities out there for small ranches that are willin' to adapt.
I make notes. Lots of notes. I fill a notebook—the same kind my grandfather used, big and spiral-bound—with ideas and projections and plans.
I don't share them with anyone yet.
They're not ready.
I'm not ready.
But they're there. Growin'. Like seeds in soil.
Callum and I settle into somethin' that ain't quite a routine but ain't quite random either.
He comes by every day. Sometimes for work—checkin' fences, movin' cattle, fixin' equipment. Sometimes for coffee. Sometimes for no reason at all, which is the kind of visit that makes my heart do things it shouldn't.
We don't talk about the hand-holdin'. We don't talk about the almost-kiss in the rain. We don't talk about the thing between us that's growin' faster than the wildflowers in the pasture.
We just... exist. Together. In the same space. With the same silence. And the same unspoken truth that sits between us like a third person—present, undeniable, waitin' to be acknowledged.
I learn more about him. Slowly. The way you learn about a place you're settlin' into—piece by piece, day by day, each new thing makin' the picture more complete.
He reads books. Actual books. Not just ranch manuals and cattle guides—novels. He reads Zane Grey and Larry McMurtry and a science fiction series he won't tell me the name of because he says I'll make fun of him.
"I won't make fun of you."
"You'll make fun of me."
"I won't."
"It's about space cowboys."
"Okay, I might make fun of you a little."
He cooks. Not well—not like Darla, who could make a shoe taste good if she battered and fried it—but competently. He makes chili that's so spicy it makes my eyes water and my sinuses clear and my soul leave my body for a second.
"What's in this?" I gasp, reachin' for water.
"Peppers."
"What kind of peppers?"
"All of 'em."
He plays guitar. I find this out by accident—I stop by his place one evenin' to drop off a book Darla lent me, and I hear music comin' through the open window. Not country. Not rock. Somethin' else. Somethin' quiet and intricate and beautiful.
I stand on his porch and listen for five minutes before I knock.
When he opens the door, guitar in hand, he looks like a kid caught doin' somethin' he wasn't supposed to.
"How long were you listenin'?" he asks.
"Long enough."
"It's nothin'."
"It's beautiful, Callum."
He puts the guitar down. Turns away. But not before I see the color rise in his cheeks.
"My mama taught me," he says quietly. "Before she left."
"Your mama left?"
"When I was twelve. Just... walked out one day. Packed a bag and drove away and never came back."
The words hit me like a punch.
"Callum—"
"It's fine. It was a long time ago."
"It's not fine. A mother leavin' her child is never fine."
He looks at me. And in his eyes, I see it—the thing he carries. The wound that never healed. The abandonment that shaped him into the man he is now—guarded, quiet, loyal to a fault, showin' love through actions because words left with his mama.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"Don't be. It made me who I am."
"That doesn't make it okay."
"No." He picks up the guitar. Strums a chord. "But it makes it mine."
I want to reach for him. I want to touch his face and tell him that he didn't deserve that—that no child deserves to be left, that the people who leave are the ones who are broken, not the ones who stay.
But I don't.
Because I'm learnin' that Callum Brennan is a man who needs to be approached slowly. Like a wild thing. Like a horse that's been spooked. You don't run at him. You stand still and let him come to you.
So I stand still.
And he comes.
Not with words. Not with gestures. Just with presence—his guitar and his silence and the space between us that keeps shrinkin', day by day, like a wound closin'.
"Play me somethin'," I say.
He plays.
And it's beautiful.