Chapter Twenty-Three
Nora
Sleep hadn’t been an escape; it had been a betrayal.
Instead of rest, I’d spent the night tangled in sheets that felt too hot, haunted by the ghost of a kiss that still hummed on my skin.
Closing my eyes only brought Evan back—the sudden, heavy heat of his mouth and the way his fingers had threaded through my hair.
He’d looked at me afterward with a terrifying honesty, a look that said he was finally dropping his guard.
And every time I started to drift back into the safety of that memory, my father’s voice spiked through the dark, cold and sharp enough to draw blood.
He’ll lose everything.
By dawn, my brain had worn deep, exhausted grooves into the same three impossible choices.
Option one: Tell Evan. My stomach cramped at the thought.
What if he saw it as a move in a game he didn’t want to play?
What if he thought I was just another Burke using a Holliston’s weakness to get my way?
I couldn’t bear the idea of our new, fragile trust shattering before it had a chance to set.
Option two: Tell Drew. I killed that thought before it could fully form.
Drew had earned his peace. He and Bella had fought through a literal lifetime of family wreckage to build something of their own.
I’d promised him I would handle our father.
I wasn’t about to dump my failure on his doorstep because I was scared.
Option three: Go to Mabel. I could almost see the steam rising from a cup of coffee at the diner while I confessed that my father was planning to dismantle a family’s legacy for sport. No. The shame of it burned behind my ribs.
By afternoon, the four walls of my father’s house felt like they were closing in, the air too thin to breathe. I needed the one place where the world made sense.
I went to the barn looking for Harper to tell him Palila and I were planning to ride later so we should feed early. He wasn’t there, but he’d left a note that he’d be back later that evening. I brought Sunny and Untouchable in to brush them down, stalling one while I pampered the other.
The scent of sweet timothy hay and oiled leather wrapped around me, calming me as not much else could. “Well,” I muttered, while brushing down Untouchable, “this is officially the part where I start talking to you like we’re friends. I hope you’re a good listener.”
She blinked, her dark eyes reflecting the afternoon light, completely unimpressed by my drama. In the next stall over, Sunny let out a long, vibrating snort of agreement.
I let out a dry, tired laugh and slipped into the stall. I pressed my palm against Untouchable’s neck, feeling the powerful, steady thrum of her life through the velvet of her coat. “You don’t happen to have an idea for stopping a man from destroying everyone in his path, do you?”
The mare blew out a long breath, the sound echoing in the quiet barn.
“Yeah,” I whispered, resting my forehead against her shoulder, “that’s about what I figured.”
The silence of the barn settled over me, broken only by the rhythmic shift of hooves on rubber mats. In the stillness, the truth I’d been dodging all day finally surfaced.
I didn’t only want advice. I wanted my mother to come around the corner, find me there, and tell me what to do.
She wouldn’t come.
She couldn’t.
She was gone.
The thought landed quietly, without panic.
No one was going to walk through that barn door with the answer. Not my father. Not Drew. Not Evan.
I let out a slow breath, my hand still resting against Untouchable’s neck. “So it’s me, then,” I whispered.
The words didn’t feel brave. They felt heavy. Final.
I closed my eyes, and a memory drifted up through the static. My mother used to ride out before the rest of the house was awake. She’d come back hours later, the tension gone from her shoulders, her eyes looking . . . lighter.
As a girl, I’d asked her once where she went when she disappeared into the trees. She’d smiled that secret, sad smile of hers. To see the woman in the mountains, Nora.
“Evie,” I murmured into the mare’s mane.
The town called her an oracle, a healer, a hermit. Half of Firebrook Valley swore she could see right through a person’s skin to the secrets underneath.
“It must have been good advice,” I told Untouchable, “if it kept my mother coming back to this valley. And made her want to stay even when we left.”
I straightened up, looking at the mare’s intelligent, waiting expression. A wild, desperate hope flared in my chest. “What would your oracle say to me today?”
The barn remained silent, but the answer felt obvious.
Evan told me to do whatever it took to get through this.
“This is insane,” I whispered, even as I reached for the saddle.
Untouchable didn’t move, her stillness a silent challenge.
“You know what? Desperate times.” I swung the saddle onto her back, the cinch tightening with a decisive creak.
If there was even a shred of a chance that the woman in the mountains held a key—some piece of leverage, some secret history that could check my father’s hand—I had to find it. My life was clicking into place. Firebrook Valley felt like home. The horses felt like family.
And Evan?
There had to be a way to make us possible.
I swung into the saddle, the familiar height and power of the mare grounding me. Untouchable shifted, her muscles bunching with an eagerness that mirrored my own.
“Alright,” I said, my voice steadying as I gathered the reins. “Take me to the woman Mom trusted. Take me to the mountains.”
I nudged her sides, and we moved out of the shadows of the barn and into the light.
“And do it fast.”