8. Cag
CAG
My muscles scream as I heave the edge of the cast-iron pressing table.
It’s a beast, a relic from my grandmother’s sewing days, built to last longer than any promise made in a chapel.
It spent years gathering dust in the old workshop.
Now Benjamin and I are wrestling it across newly sanded floorboards toward the north-facing window, where the light will hit the fabric just right.
"Easy now, Cag. You’re gonna pop a lung if you keep grunting like a damn bull," Benjamin says, his voice a low rumble from the other side of the table. He’s got the easier end, but his jaw is set, his eyes tracking the movement as we shuffle the heavy bastard across the newly sanded floorboards.
"Just move, Ben," I growl. My heart is a frantic drum against my ribs.
Not from the strain. From the anticipation.
Juliette is back at the main house with Linda, probably going over those damn legal documents that prove her father is a monster.
I hate that those papers are in her hands.
I hate that his name is etched into her mind again.
I want to replace every memory of Conrad Marchand with the scent of sawdust and the weight of my hands on her waist.
We set the table down. The legs hit the floor with a final, heavy thud that vibrates up through my boots.
Benjamin wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead and looks around the small building.
The restored walls smell of fresh-cut wood and beeswax, the clean scent cutting through the heavy summer heat.
The wedding collapsed three years ago. For the first year afterward, I did nothing but work the ranch and try not to think about the empty chapel.
Then I came out here one sleepless night and found another ruin waiting for me.
I’ve spent the last two years replacing rotten boards, sanding beams, and bringing my grandmother’s abandoned sewing room back to life.
"Gran would probably be pissed you moved her favorite shears to the left side of the bench," Benjamin says, cracking a rare, crooked grin. "She’s probably haunting this place right now, waiting to smack your knuckles for putting a scratch on that table."
"She’d be happy someone is finally using it," I say. My voice is thick. I don’t look at him.
I look at the vintage sewing machines that once belonged to my grandmother, their black enamel shining after six months of cleaning, oiling, and rebuilding them one stubborn piece at a time.
I look at the rolls of silk and lace I’ve been hoarding, hidden away in crates, waiting for a reason to be unpacked.
"She would," Benjamin agrees, his tone softening. He claps a heavy hand on my shoulder, a brief, silent acknowledgement of the years I spent out here in the dark. "Don't keep her waiting, Cag. The girl’s been through enough today. Give her something that isn't a lawsuit."
He walks out, the screen door clicking shut behind him. I stay. I breathe in the silence. It’s different now. It’s not a tomb anymore. It’s a workshop. It’s a beginning.
I head back to the main house, my boots kicking up dust that shouldn’t be there.
The western quarter is already showing the strain.
The creek has narrowed, leaving bands of wet mud exposed along its banks.
Black Aspen is squeezing us, trying to turn Pine Ridge into a wasteland, but they don't know who they're fucking with.
They think they can take our water and we'll just wither away. They don’t realize hardship only makes a Kramer work harder.
Juliette is on the porch in the blouse and jeans Linda found for her.
Her shoulders are squared, her jaw locked as she stares toward the western quarter.
The ranch hasn’t swallowed her. If anything, Pine Ridge is starting to look like it was waiting for her.
She’s a fighter. I saw it the moment she climbed into my truck, wrapped in torn silk and desperation.
I see it now as she stares toward the horizon, her jaw locked.
She hears me coming. She doesn’t turn, but her body shifts, leaning into my presence before I even reach her.
"The documents say he bought the rights six months ago," she says, her voice flat. "He’s been planning this since before I even knew the wedding was a real possibility. He wasn't just selling me to a bank, Cag. He was clearing the board so he could own the whole valley."
I step up behind her. I don’t touch her yet. I just let my heat roll off me, wrapping around her like a blanket. "He hides behind paper. Fine. We use the paper against him, and we hold the ground while we do it."
She turns then, her brown eyes searching mine. There’s a shadow in them, a lingering fear that she’s still just a piece of a puzzle her father is putting together. "He’s going to come for me. Now that he knows I’m here, he won’t stop. He thinks I’m his property."
"Let him come," I say. The words are a growl. My hands find her waist, my fingers digging into the soft fabric of the blouse. "He’ll find out real quick that his property rights don't mean shit on my land. You aren't a transaction. You aren't a line on a ledger. You’re mine."
"Cag—"
"Come with me." I hold out my hand and wait until she places hers in it. Her fingers are cold, even in the heat. I need to fix that. I need to burn away the chill her father left in her bones.
I lead her past the barn, past the equipment sheds, toward the edge of the woods where the land starts to roll up toward the ridge.
She follows me without question, her trust a heavy weight in my chest. I don't deserve it. Three years I avoided anything that reminded me of the future I lost. Bringing Juliette here feels like the first time I’m choosing to face it.
We reach the small building. The exterior is weathered gray wood, blending into the trees, but the windows are sparkling clean. I stop at the door. My heart is thumping so hard I'm worried she can hear it.
"What is this?" she whispers.
“My grandmother kept this place,” I say, my voice raspy. “She made wedding gowns for women all over the valley. She used to say a wedding dress wasn’t just clothing. It was a woman’s armor for the life she was choosing.”
I reach for the handle, but I hesitate. The empty chapel flashes through my mind, followed by the first night I came out here and tore a rotten board from the wall because I needed something broken that my hands could fix.
“Benjamin helped me move the heavy pieces,” I tell her. “My brothers knew I was restoring the building, but I never showed anyone what I meant it to become. Not until you.”
"Cag, you don't have to—"
"I do." I push the door open.
The smell hits us first. Fresh wood. Beeswax. A faint trace of lavender trapped in the old floorboards. Even light fills the room through the tall north window, revealing every surface without throwing harsh shadows.
Juliette gasps. She takes a step inside, her hand flying to her mouth.
Her eyes roam over the pressing table, the heavy iron base solid and permanent.
They drift to the rows of antique sewing machines, their black enamel shining.
They land on the cutting table I built from reclaimed oak, the surface smooth as glass.
And then she sees the dress forms. Four of them, standing like silent sentinels in the corner, waiting to be draped.
"It’s a workshop," she whispers. She walks forward, her hand reaching out to touch the oak table. Her fingers tremble. "A real couture workshop."
“I restored it,” I say, standing in the doorway.
I don’t move. I can’t. Seeing her in this room is like watching the final piece of something settle into place.
“Every beam. Every window. I rebuilt my grandmother’s machines and brought her pressing table over from the old workshop.
I’ve spent two years bringing all of it back. ”
She turns back to me, tears shimmering in her eyes. "Why?"
"Because a man is what he finishes," I say, the words raw. "I started this because I thought I was building a life. When that life fell apart, I kept building because I didn't want to be the man who left things half-done. I didn't know who it was for. I just knew I had to finish it."
I walk toward her, my boots heavy on the floorboards. I stop inches away, my shadow falling over her. "And then you climbed into my truck. A woman who tore her own dress to find her freedom. A designer who lost her craft because her father turned it into a cage."
I catch a tear with my thumb before it can fall. “This isn’t a cage, Juliette. It’s a place where no one gets to tell you what to create.”
I cross to the cutting table and open its shallow top drawer. A folded deed and a small brass key wait inside. Her name is typed across the ownership line: Juliette Marchand.
For one hard second, I stare at the name. Her father used it to mark her as his property. I want her to see it attached to something no one can take from her.
“The land stays with Pine Ridge,” I tell her, returning to her. “But this building and everything inside it belong to you. You want to make gowns, you make them here. You want to burn the fashion world down, you do it from this ridge.”
I place the deed and key in her palm and close her fingers around them. “It’s yours.”
She looks around again, her breath coming in short, jagged hitches. She notices the rolls of silk in the corner, the ones I’ve been keeping covered in plastic. She walks over and peels back the edge of a deep, emerald green velvet.
"You even have the fabric," she says, her voice breaking.
"I have everything you need," I say. I step up behind her, my chest pressing against her back.
I wrap my arms around her, my chin resting on her shoulder.
"Your father thinks he can take the water. He thinks he can take your future. But he doesn’t own this room or what you create inside it. Neither do I anymore. You do."