7. Juliette
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.
It’s a formal notice of intent to acquire water rights, and the letterhead at the top isn’t the local outfit. It’s the parent company.
BLACK ASPEN HOLDINGS.
The signature on the executive line belongs to someone named Renton Galt, and it means nothing to me.
It’s the page behind it that stops my heart.
A capital commitment schedule, stapled behind the notice, listing the private partners funding the acquisition.
No titles. No press release. Just names and amounts.
And there, on the third line, is a signature I’ve seen on my birthday cards, on my trust fund disbursements, and on the bottom of the contract for the wedding I just ran away from.
Conrad Marchand.
The name hits me like a physical weight, knocking the oxygen right out of my lungs.
My father. My father isn't just a bystander in this.
He isn't just some distant oil tycoon who happens to be a "bad guy" in a generic sense.
He is the money behind the hand closing around this ranch.
He helped finance the company holding back its water.
He is the reason Cag is out there in the heat, his face lined with a stress that makes him look ten years older than he is.
I feel sick. It’s a cold, oily nausea that slides down my throat and settles in my gut. My father has the subtlety of a sledgehammer in a glass factory, and he’s currently swinging at the only people who have ever treated me like a person instead of a piece of collateral.
I keep reading. The dates on the documents—they aren’t new. Some of these go back months. Long before I climbed into the passenger seat of Cag’s truck at the gas station. Long before I tore my dress and realized I couldn't spend another second as an asset on a balance sheet.
"Juliette?"
The voice is gravel and heat. I bolt upright, the folder sliding across the desk, my hands shaking so hard the paper rattles.
Cag is standing in the doorway. He’s covered in a fine layer of gray dust, his jaw set tight, his eyes searching mine.
He looks tired. He looks like he’s been fighting a war he knows he’s losing.
He sees the folder. He sees my face.
His expression doesn't shift into surprise. It shifts into something worse. Guilt. A deep, agonizing flash of it that makes my stomach do another sickly roll.
"You knew," I whisper. The words feel like they’re made of broken glass.
Cag steps into the room, his boots heavy on the floorboards. He doesn't try to hide it now. He just stands there, smelling of sweat and the dry, scorched earth of the western quarter. "I knew."
"You knew my father was the one doing this? You knew he was the man behind Black Aspen, and you didn't tell me?" I stand up, my chair screeching against the floor. "That’s his signature, Cag. My father has been financing the company trying to take your water."
"I kept it from you because you finally stopped looking over your shoulder," he says, his voice low and dangerous, vibrating with a possessive edge that usually makes me melt.
But right now, it just makes me feel caged.
"You came here smelling like magnolias and terror, Juliette.
You finally started laughing. You finally started looking at this place like it was home.
I wasn't going to be the one to put that flinch back in your eyes. "
"It’s not your job to decide what I can handle!
" I snap. I’m vibrating with a mix of rage and heartbreak.
"Don't you get it? My whole life has been people 'protecting' me by keeping me in the dark.
My father 'protected' me by arranging a marriage that would secure his legacy.
My mother 'protected' me by never telling me where the money came from. And now you? You’re doing the exact same thing. "
Cag flinches. It’s a small movement, just a tightening of his eyes, but it’s there. He hates being compared to Conrad Marchand. I know he does. But the truth is a jagged thing, and it’s cutting both of us right now.
"I am nothing like him," Cag growls, stepping closer. He’s in my space now, towering over me, his shadow swallowing the desk and the damning papers on it. "He wants to own you. He wants to use you. I just want you to be able to breathe without wondering when the next blow is coming."
"Then tell me the truth!" I shout, my voice cracking. "Tell me that the man who gave me life is currently trying to kill the man I love! Don't treat me like a porcelain doll, Cag. I’m the one who walked out of that chapel. I’m the one who tore that dress. I’m not glass. I’m the one who survives."
The silence that follows is heavy, thick with the scent of the wood shavings on the desk and the ozone of a storm that isn't coming. Cag looks at me, really looks at me, and I see the internal battle playing out in the set of his shoulders. He wants to wrap me up and hide me from the world. He wants to be the shield. But he’s realizing that a shield can also be a wall.
He reaches out, his hand hovering near my face before he finally lets his fingers graze my jaw.
His touch is rough, calloused, and so familiar it hurts.
"I’m sorry," he says, and the words sound like they were pulled out of him with pliers.
"I’m a man who likes to finish what he starts, Juliette.
I started protecting you the second you climbed into my truck, and I didn't know how to stop.
I didn't know how to tell you that the monster you ran from was already at my gate. "
I lean into his hand, despite my anger. I’m so tired of being the thing men fight over. I want to be the one fighting. "He’s doing this because of me, isn't he? He found out I was here, and he’s squeezing the ranch to get me back."
Cag shakes his head, his thumb tracing the line of my lower lip.
"No. He was squeezing us before you ever showed up.
You were just the bonus he didn't expect.
He wants the land, Juliette. He wants the water rights so he can flip the valley for a pipeline or a fracking site.
He doesn't care about the cows, or the history, or my family.
He just sees a line on a ledger that needs to be erased. "
I look down at the papers again. "He’s a silent partner. His money matters, but pulling him out won’t erase Black Aspen. What this gives us is proof that the water filing isn't the clean, independent transaction they claim it is."
Cag’s hand drops. He looks at me with a new kind of intensity. "What are you saying?"
"I’m saying I know how he thinks," I say, my mind whirring. I’m calculating now, biting the inside of my cheek until I taste copper.
"He doesn't care about the land. He cares about the win.
He likes the feeling of crushing something.
But he also hates embarrassment. If I go public—if I tell the story of the runaway bride whose father is trying to starve out a local ranch for a few extra zeros—it would be a PR nightmare he can't ignore. "
"No," Cag says instantly. The word is flat, final. "You aren't going anywhere near him. You aren't being used as bait."
"I’m not bait, Cag! I’m the weapon!" I grab his shirt, my knuckles turning white. "He’s my father. I know his pressure points. I know the lawyers he uses. I know the accounts he hides his 'silent' investments in."