4
A few days later, Sunday dinner at Stanley Ranch was loud enough to make the windows nervous.
That was Gordon’s private opinion, anyway.
He sat near the middle of the long table, his plate half-full, his fork resting untouched beside it.
Around him, conversation moved in every direction at once.
Cody was telling some story that had Sierra laughing even while she told him he was exaggerating.
Eli and Rose were leaning close, talking quietly until Eli said something that made Rose swat his arm.
Dwight was answering a question from Luke about a fence line, while Edye and Elise discussed whether the rolls needed another minute in the warmer.
They did not.
Gordon had already eaten two.
Across the table, LaRiah said something to Wyatt that made his mouth curve, and for a moment Gordon wondered what it felt like to be that comfortable in a room full of people.
He was getting there.
Slowly.
He had come to Stanley Ranch with a name that weighed more than he wanted it to. Windgate. Around Sunset Springs, that name did not arrive quietly. It dragged history behind it. Paul’s legacy. Beau and Logan’s cruelty. All the damage done before Gordon had enough courage to stand apart from it.
Luke had taken him in anyway.
Not softly. Not carelessly. Luke Stanley did not do careless.
But he had given Gordon work. A place to stay. A reason to get up in the morning that was not shame. Edye had treated him with kindness that never felt foolish, and Eli had made it impossible for anyone to disappear completely unless he was willing to be rude about it.
Gordon was not rude enough.
Not anymore.
He picked up his glass of tea and took a drink, content to stay quiet while life happened around him.
Then Eli leaned back in his chair and looked toward Luke and Edye.
“So,” Eli said, “did y’all make a decision on who to hire for the admin position?”
The table quieted a little.
Not fully. The Stanley Ranch table did not quiet fully unless someone was bleeding, praying, or Elise had raised her voice.
Luke set his fork down. “We’re going to call one of the applicants in the morning and offer them the job.”
Edye nodded. “We had two strong choices, but one fits better with what we need right now.”
Eli’s eyebrows lifted. “Did you choose Talia?”
Gordon barely heard the name.
Then he did.
Talia.
The sound of it moved through him for no reason he could explain.
Luke and Edye both hesitated.
It was small.
A pause.
A glance.
But Gordon had spent most of his life learning how to read rooms where people decided whether his last name made him a threat or a problem. He saw the hesitation. He saw Luke’s eyes shift. He saw Edye’s follow.
Both of them looked at him.
Gordon’s hand tightened around his glass.
He froze.
“Why are you looking at me?”
The table went quieter then.
Eli’s easy expression faded.
Rose looked between Luke and Gordon with interest sharpened by concern. Cody leaned back slightly, no longer smiling. Edye folded her hands near her plate, and that, more than anything, told Gordon the conversation had taken a turn.
Luke did not soften the truth. Gordon appreciated that, even when it cut.
“We had a really promising applicant,” Luke said. “Talia Roberts whose real name is Talia Denise Monroe.”
Gordon sat still.
Luke continued, “On paper, she looked strong. Interviewed well. Eli gave her a tour and liked her.”
“I did,” Eli said quietly. “I still do, I guess. I mean, I liked what I saw of her.”
Luke’s eyes remained on Gordon. “But the background check turned up something she did not disclose.”
Gordon already knew.
Somehow, he knew before Luke said it. She was a reporter.
“She works for the Houston Current,” Luke said.
The words landed in the room like a plate set down too hard.
Gordon’s shoulders went rigid.
Edye’s voice came gentler, though no less serious. “More than likely, she was hoping to get close to you for a story.”
A few people shifted at the table.
No one spoke.
Gordon stared at Luke, but for a moment he did not see him.
He saw headlines. Old accusations. The Windgate name dragged into print again.
His brothers. His father. Speculation. Whispers.
Some reporter deciding that the youngest Windgate son hiding out on Stanley Ranch would make a fine thread to pull.
Of course.
Of course it would happen.
Edye added, “Thanks to Luke having the background check done, we won’t be hiring her.”
Eli exhaled slowly and shook his head. “That’s too bad.”
Luke looked at him.
Eli lifted both hands slightly. “I know. I know why we can’t. But it is too bad. I liked her. She seemed easygoing. Smart. Reliable.”
Gordon’s jaw tightened.
Reliable.
A reporter trying to sneak onto the ranch under false pretenses did not sound reliable.
And yet the name moved in his mind again.
Talia Monroe.
He did not know why it would not leave him alone.
Maybe because he had been hiding so long that even danger felt like movement.
Maybe because a part of him was tired of being protected like something fragile.
Maybe because he had sat at this table long enough to understand that the people around him were not only sheltering him. They were claiming him.
And he had been too lost to see it clearly.
Gordon set his glass down carefully.
“Maybe,” he said, voice quiet, “you and Edye should show me the file on her after dinner.”
Everyone looked at him.
Eli’s brows lifted.
Luke studied him. “Are you sure?”
Gordon forced himself not to look away. “I’m sure.”
Edye watched him for a long moment, her eyes soft but searching. “After dinner, we’ll talk in Luke’s office.”
Gordon nodded.
The conversation moved on because Sunday dinner could not stay heavy forever.
Elise would not allow it. She came in with another dish and told everyone if they had room for gossip, they had room for seconds.
Cody made some comment that got him threatened with less dessert.
Brad offered to take Cody’s piece. Eli tried to lighten the mood and mostly succeeded.
Luke asked Dwight another question. Rose started telling LaRiah something that made both women laugh.
But Gordon stayed quiet.
His body remained at the table.
His mind went elsewhere.
He had been hiding.
That was the truth he did not want to face, so of course it was the one that would not leave him alone.
He had let Luke and Edye protect him. He had let Stanley Ranch become a place where the Windgate name could fade behind chores, repairs, long days, and other people’s stories. He had told himself he was being useful. He was. He had told himself the ranch needed him. Sometimes it did.
But he had also used the work like a wall.
A good wall.
A respectable wall.
Still a wall.
Luke had never made him feel like a burden.
Edye had never treated him like a problem to manage.
Eli had never let him vanish entirely. Elise fed him as if his place at the table had been decided before he knew it.
Cody grunted at him like he did at everyone else, which was somehow its own kind of welcome.
Rose smiled when she saw him. Dwight asked for his help without making it strange. LaRiah checked on him without hovering.
They had not simply taken him in.
They had not merely offered him work and a place to hide out until the rest of the world forgot him.
In their own ways, they had made him part of this growing, noisy, impossible family.
Gordon looked around the table.
Luke at the head, steady and watchful.
Edye beside him, attentive to everything.
Eli laughing with Rose.
Cody stealing a roll and getting caught by Sierra.
Wyatt listening more than speaking, but not alone.
The ranch family, wide and strange and stitched together from blood, marriage, grief, work, forgiveness, and choice.
This was not the family he had been born into.
Maybe that was the point.
Maybe this was the family he was meant to belong to.
The thought settled in him with a force that nearly stole his breath.
He had been so busy looking down at the wreckage of his old life that he had not seen what stood in front of him.
Not escape.
Not pity.
A place.
A real one.
And if that was true, then he owed it to himself and to them to stop letting everyone else stand between him and his own life.
After dinner, the plates were cleared, leftovers were covered, and Elise ordered anyone not helping to get out of the kitchen before they became obstacles.
Luke gave Gordon a look from the doorway.
Gordon stood.
Edye joined them, carrying a slim folder in one hand.
No one else followed.
For that, Gordon was grateful.
Luke’s office felt different at night. Quieter. The warm light from the desk lamp softened the walls, the shelves, the polished wood, but it did not soften Luke. He sat behind the desk and gestured for Gordon to take the chair opposite him. Edye sat to the side, the folder resting on her lap.
For a moment, none of them spoke.
Then Edye placed the file on Luke’s desk and slid it toward Gordon.
“Talia Monroe,” she said.
Gordon opened it.
The first page held basic information. Name. Employment history. Address. Education. Recent work. Houston Current. He turned the page and saw a printed copy of her résumé, the one she had submitted to Luke and Edye, scrubbed clean of the one fact that changed everything.
Then he saw her photo.
He went still.
Luke noticed immediately. “You recognize her?”
Gordon did not answer right away.
He stared at the image.
Talia Monroe.
Yes.
He knew her.
Not truly. Not by name. Not by history. Not by anything that should make recognition feel like this.
But he had seen her.
The woman sitting in her car near the edge of the drive that day, looking as if the weight of the world had settled on her shoulders and dared her to move beneath it.
He had noticed her because she was beautiful.
That had been the first truth.