12 #2
Slowly, the table warmed. Not fully. Not easily.
But enough that Talia saw something closer to real.
Rose laughing with Eli. Elise correcting three people at once.
Edye cutting Malik’s food into tiny pieces while somehow still listening to Luke and Cody talk about fencing.
Earl saying very little and somehow anchoring his whole end of the table.
Lisa teasing Cassi about a supply run. Ruby asking LaRiah about a child from the learning center.
Talia watched it all.
By the time dinner ended, her nerves were stretched thin.
She wanted to return to the bunkhouse.
Not because she had pages of notes she could not wait to write, though she did.
Not because she had no interest in staying, though part of her wished she did.
She wanted to leave because every careful silence, every polite look, every moment when someone chose civility instead of warmth reminded her exactly where she stood.
Outside.
And everyone knew why.
She stood when Lisa did, already planning to slip away with the other women.
Before she could, Edye said, “Talia, may I speak with you privately?”
The room seemed to notice, even if no one stared.
Talia’s spine straightened. “Of course.”
Gordon’s eyes moved to Edye.
Edye only gave him a small smile. “It won’t take long.”
Talia followed her out of the kitchen, down the hall, and into the office wing. They did not go to Luke’s office. Edye opened a different door and stepped inside.
Talia paused at the threshold.
This office was Edye’s.
It had to be.
Where Luke’s office was dark wood, leather, and authority, Edye’s held softer colors and cleaner lines.
Cream walls. Pale blue curtains. Framed sketches of the ranch.
A vase of fresh flowers on a side table.
A desk arranged with perfect function, but softened by small touches.
A silver picture frame. A ceramic dish full of paper clips. A throw over the chair near the window.
Beautiful.
Organized.
Warm without being soft.
Like Edye.
“Come in,” Edye said.
Talia entered.
Edye closed the door. “Sit down.”
Talia sat in the chair facing the desk.
Edye moved behind it and seated herself, folding her hands on the surface between them.
For a few seconds, she simply looked at Talia.
Talia forced herself not to shift.
“I know what Luke said to you earlier,” Edye began.
Talia nodded. “He was clear.”
“He usually is.”
“Yes.”
“Gordon has had a hard life.”
Talia’s throat tightened. “I’m beginning to understand that.”
“No,” Edye said gently. “You’re beginning to hear about it. Understanding takes longer.”
The correction landed quietly.
Talia accepted it.
“You’re right.”
Edye’s expression softened only a little. “He mostly keeps to himself. He expects people to judge him for things he had nothing to do with, or things he was too young and too powerless to stop.”
Talia thought of Gordon talking about Lana Cross.
About being eight.
About becoming proof of the wreck.
“That’s why Luke and I have tried to protect him,” Edye continued. “Not because we think he’s weak. He isn’t. But because he wasn’t ready to look after himself in this particular way.”
“This particular way?”
“Publicly. Against a story people already think they understand.”
Talia looked down at her hands.
“But something changed when we told him you were a reporter,” Edye said.
Talia looked up.
“Luke and I didn’t want him to talk to you at all.”
“I know.”
“No,” Edye said. “You don’t. We wanted to send you away and be done with this. Gordon decided otherwise. We are respecting that decision.”
Talia heard the warning beneath the words.
“But if we feel anything you say or do hurts him,” Edye said, her voice calm, “you will have to deal with us.”
Talia believed her.
Luke’s threat had been force.
Edye’s was certainty.
“I understand.”
“I hope you do.”
“I’m not here to hurt him.”
Edye tilted her head slightly. “Then why are you here?”
Talia opened her mouth, but Edye lifted one hand.
“No polished answer. No job interview version. No reporter language designed to sound noble. I want to know your angle.”
Talia’s breath caught.
“My angle?”
“Yes.” Edye’s gaze sharpened. “Are you here to write some sensational fake-news thing that will get shared online until people who don’t know Gordon feel entitled to judge him?
Are you here to turn his pain into clicks?
Are you here to make him the good Windgate and everyone else the villains because that is easier to sell? ”
Talia sat back.
No one had asked her that so plainly.
Not Martin.
Not Gordon.
Not Luke.
“What is your angle?” Edye asked.
Talia looked toward the window.
Outside, the sky was dimming. The ranch moved toward evening, but inside Edye’s office, there was nowhere to hide.
“My boss wants something like that,” Talia said.
Edye did not react.
“He wants something that will sell papers or get clicks. The Windgate name. Scandal. Redemption, maybe. A powerful ranch. Family secrets. Whatever pulls attention.”
“And you?”
Talia looked back at her.
“I wanted that job badly enough to come here dishonestly,” she said. “So I can’t pretend I’m above wanting the story to land.”
“No, you can’t.”
The honesty stung.
“But I don’t want to write something fake,” Talia said. “I don’t want to write something sensational just to go viral. I want to tell the truth, whatever that is.”
Edye studied her. “Truth is not always what sells fastest.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” Talia leaned forward slightly. “I’ve agreed to let Gordon, you, and Luke review the final version before I submit it. Not rewrite it. Not make it pretty. But approve that it’s accurate and does not violate the boundaries we set.”
Edye nodded slowly.
“Gordon is sweet,” she said after a moment. “And kind. I’m not just saying that because we care about him.”
Talia thought of him with Malik. The hat slipping over the baby’s eyes. The tenderness in his face. The way he let a child cling before returning to work.
“I know,” she said softly.
Edye’s eyes narrowed faintly, but not in anger.
“You do?”
“I saw him with Malik.”
Edye’s expression changed.
A small softness.
“Yes,” she said. “Children see him clearly.”
“I’m starting to think children do that better than adults.”
“Usually.”
Talia clasped her hands together. “I promise I’m not here to do a hack job. I know my word may not mean much right now.”
“It doesn’t mean nothing.”
Talia swallowed.
“If you want to understand me better,” she said, “look at my previous work. Not the pitch. Not what my editor wants. My work. I’ve been ambitious, and I made a bad choice coming here the way I did, but I don’t write lies.”
Edye held her gaze for a long moment.
Then she nodded. “I’ll do just that.”
Talia exhaled slowly.
It was not trust.
But it was something.
Edye stood. “You should get some rest.”
Talia stood too. “I will.”
“Gordon usually has breakfast and is working before six.”
Talia blinked. “Before six?”
“Yes.”
“Of course he is.”
Edye almost smiled. “Welcome to ranch life.”
Talia gave a tired nod. “Thank you for speaking with me.”
Edye’s expression remained composed. “Good night, Talia.”
“Good night.”
Talia left the office wing and made her way back through the house, then out toward the women’s bunkhouse.
The sky had darkened into deep blue. Lights glowed along the paths.
The ranch sounded different at night. Softer, but not silent.
Distant voices. A horse shifting somewhere. The low rumble of a vehicle. Crickets.
When she entered the bunkhouse, Lisa, Cassi, and Ruby were already inside preparing for bed.
Lisa sat on her bunk, rubbing lotion into her hands. Cassi was folding a shirt. Ruby stood near the small mirror, braiding her hair.
All three looked up when Talia came in.
“Evening,” Talia said.
“Evening,” Lisa replied.
Cassi nodded.
Ruby gave a polite half smile.
Then they returned to what they were doing.
No one asked how her day went.
No one invited her into conversation.
No one was rude.
Civil.
Talia walked to her bunk and set her notebook on the mattress.
She sat beside it for a moment, listening to the quiet movements of women who had no reason to welcome her.
Then she opened the notebook.
The first day at Stanley Ranch had given her more than she knew what to do with.
Gordon Cross.
Lana Cross.
Paul Windgate, the man who came and went.
A boy moved into a house of resentment.
Luke Stanley, honorable enough for a desperate man to gamble on.
Edye, soft office, steel spine.
Elise and the kitchen rules.
Earl and whittling lessons.
Malik reaching for Gordon.
A dinner table that tightened around a stranger, then tried to make room anyway because Gordon had placed her beside him.
Talia wrote until her hand hurt.
Not full sentences at first. Fragments.
Useful is not loved.
Correction did not mean rejection.
Family built, not assumed.
Civil is not welcome.
Gordon asks questions like he is tired of being the only one exposed.
She stopped after that one.
Across the room, Cassi turned off her lamp. Ruby climbed into bed. Lisa plugged in her phone and lay down without another word.
Talia looked at the alarm on her own phone.
If Gordon started before six, she needed to be up by five.
She set the alarm for 4:45.
Then stared at it in disbelief.
“This job better be worth it,” she whispered under her breath.
From the other side of the room, Lisa said, “Ranch jobs usually aren’t. People stay anyway.”
Talia looked over, startled.
But Lisa had already turned onto her side, conversation apparently finished.
Talia lay back on her bunk and stared at the underside of the bed above her.
People stay anyway.
She thought of Gordon.
Of Luke and Edye.
Of the table.
Of the way everyone knew exactly what she had done and still left her a place to sit.
Her mission was getting messier by the hour.
She closed her eyes.
The alarm waited.
The ranch waited.
And tomorrow, before sunrise, Gordon Windgate would be working again.