14 #2
“She was tired. I understand that now. She had raised her own children. Then she got us. Two girls who weren’t hers to raise, not really.”
Gordon’s gaze sharpened.
Talia’s fingers tightened around her notebook.
“I heard her once,” she said.
She had not meant to.
The memory came out anyway.
“I was maybe nine. Serena was little. Grandma was on the phone with my mother. I don’t know what they were fighting about, but Grandma yelled, ‘These girls are yours, not mine.’”
Her throat had closed around the words.
She could still hear it.
These girls are yours, not mine.
The sentence had lived inside her for years like a door that never fully closed.
“I know she didn’t mean for me to hear it,” Talia said quickly. “And she was angry. Tired. Probably right, in her way. They were her daughter’s children. My mother should have been there more. My father too. I know all that.”
She had looked down, blinking hard.
“It still hurt.”
The last word barely made sound.
For a moment, there was only the tick of the hot tractor engine and the distant calls from another part of the ranch.
Then Gordon was there.
Not asking.
Not hesitating.
He simply stepped close and pulled her into his arms.
Talia had frozen.
Completely.
Her notebook pressed awkwardly between them. Her cheek near his shoulder. His arms warm and strong around her, one hand steady at her back.
She had not realized she was crying until her breath broke against his shirt.
That embarrassed her.
Terrified her.
But for several seconds, she could not move away.
Because he did not say the usual things.
He did not tell her it was okay.
He did not tell her her grandmother had done her best.
He did not tell her her parents loved her in their own way.
He did not try to make the wound behave.
He just held her.
And somehow, that made her cry harder.
Talia Monroe did not cry in front of sources.
She did not cry at work.
She did not talk about her family. Never. Not really. She might give facts if facts were required, but she did not hand people the sharp pieces and let them see where they still cut.
But somehow, Gordon had gotten it out of her without really trying.
Or maybe that was the problem.
He did not try to pry things loose.
He just asked and waited.
Like the answer had room to arrive.
When she realized how much she had given, panic rushed in.
She stepped back quickly, wiping her face with the heel of her hand.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Gordon’s arms fell to his sides.
“For what?”
“That was inappropriate.”
His eyes held hers. “Crying?”
“This is supposed to be professional.”
Something flickered across his face.
Disappointment, maybe.
No.
Not disappointment.
Resignation.
Like he had expected her to retreat eventually and was irritated with himself for minding.
“I’m sorry for the lapse of professionalism,” she said, hating how stiff the words sounded.
Gordon looked at her for a long moment.
Then he sighed, turned back to the tractor, and picked up the wrench.
“Hand me the rag,” he said.
That was all.
The interview resumed, technically.
But not really.
Something had changed in the air between them, even if neither acknowledged it.
Now, hours later, Talia sat on her bunk and stared at her notes.
She had written about Gordon. About Lana. About Bettie. About Paul. About the tractor. About the way gratitude could grow in soil that had never been warm.
But her own words were there too.
These girls are yours, not mine.
She highlighted the sentence, then deleted it.
Then undid the deletion.
Then stared at it again.
Her job was to write about Gordon Windgate.
Not herself.
And yet this story, this ranch, this man, kept turning the mirror toward her.
Talia rubbed both hands over her face.
The bunkhouse was quiet. Lisa snored softly from the far bed. Ruby shifted under her blanket. Cassi’s phone screen glowed briefly, then went dark.
Talia lowered the laptop brightness and kept organizing.
By the end of the first week, she knew more than facts.
She knew Gordon had been Gordon Cross before the Windgate name claimed him.
She knew Lana had loved him imperfectly but well.
She knew Bettie had not loved him, but had still given him shelter.
She knew Paul had been smaller than his money made him seem.
She knew Gordon carried gratitude in places other people might have stored only resentment.
She knew he listened too closely.
She knew his arms were dangerous because they felt less like temptation than refuge.
That was the part she did not type.
She finished her notes shortly after midnight.
Then she saved the file, backed it up twice, closed the laptop, and set it beside the bed.
For a long time, she lay awake in the dark, staring at the underside of the bunk above her.
She thought of Gordon’s hands on the tractor engine.
Gordon’s voice saying, “I resented losing the last thing that still belonged to my mother.”
Gordon’s arms around her.
Her own voice, too soft and too broken, saying she had felt alone her whole life.
Even with her grandmother.
Talia turned onto her side and pulled the blanket up to her shoulder.
Tomorrow, she would be professional again.
Careful.
Focused.
A reporter with a job to do.
Tonight, she let herself be tired.
And sometime before her alarm dragged her back into ranch life, she finally slept.