16
Talia took the call outside the women’s bunkhouse because she did not want Lisa, Cassi, or Ruby listening from their beds and pretending they weren’t.
Not that they would pretend very hard.
The ranch had its own kind of honesty, and after nearly a week, Talia had learned that privacy at Stanley Ranch was more of a polite theory than a reliable condition.
She stood at the edge of the porch, phone pressed to her ear, watching the late afternoon settle over the ranch in gold and dust. Somewhere near the stables, a horse gave a sharp whinny.
A truck rolled along the lane toward the storage buildings.
Farther off, she could hear laughter from the direction of the main house.
Now Martin’s voice came through sharp and impatient. “Tell me you’ve got something.”
Talia leaned one shoulder against the porch post. “I have a lot.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is. It’s just not the answer you want.”
Martin sighed. She could picture him perfectly. Leaned back in his chair, one hand rubbing the bridge of his nose, the other tapping a pen against the desk like he could beat a story into shape by irritation alone.
“Talia.”
“I’m serious. There’s a lot here.”
“I don’t need a travel essay about ranch life.”
“That isn’t what I’m writing.”
“What are you writing?”
“I’m still shaping it.”
Martin went silent for one beat too long.
“That sounds like writer talk for you don’t have the story.”
“I have the story.”
“Then give me the dirt.”
Talia’s jaw tightened.
There it was.
The word she had been waiting for and dreading.
Dirt.
“I need Gordon’s personal wounds,” Martin said. “The stuff nobody else has. I need what happened in that house. Paul Windgate. The brothers. The mother. The illegitimacy. What did they do to him? What did he see? What can we put in the Lede that makes people stop scrolling?”
Talia closed her eyes.
She saw Gordon in the stable.
Gordon Cross.
Lana.
Bettie.
A boy who resented losing the last thing that belonged to his mother.
She saw him holding Malik.
She saw him beside the tractor, arms around her while she cried over a sentence her grandmother had yelled into a phone years ago.
Her grip tightened around the phone. “That’s not the article I’ve been collecting.”
Martin’s voice cooled. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not saying those things aren’t part of it. They are. His past matters. The Windgate family matters. But the heart of this story isn’t scandal.”
“Talia.”
“It’s a portrait of a man trying to rebuild himself.”
The words came out before she could soften them.
Once they were there, she knew they were true.
Martin gave a short laugh, but there was no amusement in it. “A portrait.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been at that ranch less than a week, and you’re already talking like you’re writing a literary profile for an awards committee.”
“I’m talking like a reporter who found a different story than the one we expected.”
“No,” he said. “You found a subject who got under your skin.”
Her face heated. “That’s not what this is.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.”
But the word was too fast.
Too defensive.
She heard it.
So did he.
Martin’s tone sharpened. “Let me remind you what is at stake. You wanted the feature desk. You wanted the position. You said you were tired of being overlooked, tired of being passed over. I gave you a shot. Not an easy one. Not a clean one. A real shot.”
“I know.”
“Then act like it. This story needs teeth.”
“Teeth and truth are not the same thing.”
“They are if truth bites.”
Talia stared out at the ranch road.
A truck had stopped near one of the barns. Gordon got out, and even from this distance, she knew the shape of him. The set of his shoulders. The way he paused before turning toward someone she could not see.
Her heart gave a stupid little kick.
She turned away from the view.
“I am not writing a hack job,” she said.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You’re asking for dirt.”
“I’m asking for readers.”
“You asked me to write the story.”
“I asked you to get the story that gets you the job.”
“And if it isn’t the story you expected, then let me sell you the one I have.”
Martin went quiet.
Talia’s pulse beat hard in her throat.
She had not meant to say it quite that boldly.
But now that she had, she stood by it.
“You told me to write the story,” she said, steadier now. “So let me write it. If it isn’t what you asked for, I’ll sell you what I’ve written. But I can’t force this into some cheap redemption scandal just because that’s the easier headline.”
“Cheap headlines pay bills.”
“So do good stories.”
“Sometimes.”
“Then let this be one of them.”
The silence stretched.
A breeze moved across the porch, lifting the loose curls at her temple. From inside the bunkhouse came the faint sound of a drawer closing.
Finally, Martin exhaled.
“You have one week before you check in again.”
Relief moved through her, but she did not trust it.
“All right.”
“And I want something concrete. Not feelings. Not ranch atmosphere. I want direction. I want to know where this is headed.”
“I can give you that.”
“Can you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because right now it sounds like you’re wandering around a rich man’s ranch discovering empathy.”
Talia’s teeth clenched. “That’s insulting.”
“It’s supposed to be motivating.”
“It’s not.”
“Then be annoyed and write better.”
She hated that a little because it might work.
Martin continued, “One week. I want the angle. Gordon’s arc, the ranch’s role, the Windgate history, why readers should care. And I want to see the tension.”
“There is tension.”
“Then put it on the page.”
He paused.
“And Talia?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t forget the promotion. You still have to earn it.”
Her throat tightened.
The promotion.
The future.
The respect she had been chasing so hard she had driven through the gates of Stanley Ranch under a lie and called it strategy.
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“Good. Talk in a week.”
The call ended.
Talia lowered the phone slowly.
For a long moment, she stayed on the porch, staring at nothing.
Then she sat in one of the old chairs and let the phone rest in her lap.
The angle.
Martin wanted the angle.
She wanted it too.
That was the frustrating part. She had notes, pages of them.
Details that could build something strong.
Gordon’s childhood. Lana’s love. Bettie’s reluctant protection.
Paul’s moral rot disguised as power. Beau and Logan’s cruelty.
Luke’s decision to take Gordon in. Edye’s protective watchfulness.
The ranch family making room for someone who barelyunderstood he belonged.
But it still would not settle into a single clean line.
Gordon was not clean.
Not simple.
Not the good son escaping the evil family. Not the wounded man saved by a wealthy rancher. Not the quiet cowboy with a tragic past. Not the scandal headline Martin wanted.
He was a deep well.
And Talia had only just started drawing water.
Every question lowered the bucket farther.
Every answer came up colder, clearer, more complicated.
She rubbed her thumb over the edge of her phone.
What was the story?
A man rebuilding himself?
A family chosen after blood failed?
A ranch as refuge?
The cost of a name?
The danger of being useful when what you really wanted was to be wanted?
She closed her eyes.
That last one was not only Gordon.
It was her too.
And that was another problem.
This story kept turning on her when she least expected it. Gordon asked questions, and somehow she answered them. He listened like her wounds did not embarrass him. He held silence like it had weight. He did not comfort easily, but when he did, it felt solid enough to lean on.
And then there was his body.
Talia opened her eyes and groaned softly.
No.
She was not going there.
Except she had been going there for days.
The man was built like work had carved him from patience and muscle.
His arms, his shoulders, the stretch of his shirt across his back when he bent over an engine or lifted a feed sack.
The ease with which he picked up tools, lumber, bales, children.
His hands, rough and capable, gentle with Malik, steady on a horse’s halter, careful when he had held her.
Lust she could handle.
Lust was physical. Inconvenient, yes, but familiar enough. She could recognize attraction, label it, box it up, and shove it to the side when necessary. She had done it before.
But Gordon was becoming more than a body she wanted to look at.
That was dangerous.
She admired him.
His patience.
His honesty.
The way he refused to make himself innocent by making everyone else worse.
The way he spoke of Bettie with gratitude instead of bitterness.
The way he carried shame without letting it excuse him.
The way he belonged to the ranch quietly, almost reluctantly, while everyone around him seemed to have decided he was family long before he had the courage to accept it.
Talia pressed her fingers against her lips.
Stop.
If she thought too much about who Gordon really was, she might start falling for him.
And that?
That she could not handle.
Falling was messy.
Falling made people stupid.
Falling made women forget the difference between access and intimacy, between a story and a man, between being trusted and being wanted.
She had come to Stanley Ranch with a job to do.
A story to write.
A future to earn.
She could not afford to want Gordon Windgate as anything more than a subject.
Even if he no longer felt like one.
The bunkhouse door opened behind her.
Lisa stepped onto the porch, pulling her hair into a loose knot. She glanced at Talia’s face, then at the phone in her lap.
“Editor?”
Talia looked up. “That obvious?”
“Only because you look like somebody threatened your dinner.”
Talia smiled faintly. “Worse. My career.”
Lisa leaned against the porch rail. “That all?”
“That feels like enough.”
“Careers are important.” Lisa looked out toward the ranch. “So are people.”
Talia studied her, surprised by the softness of the comment.
Lisa did not look at her. “Just saying.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Lisa pushed off the rail. “But you might.”
Then she went back inside.
Talia sat there, alone again, with the evening settling around her and Martin’s demands still ringing in her ear.
The dirt.
The wounds.
The clicks.
The job.
She opened her notes app and typed one line.
Angle: What happens when a man stops being the scandal and starts becoming himself?
She stared at it.
Not enough.
Maybe too much.
Maybe exactly the beginning.
She saved it, then looked once more toward the barn where Gordon had disappeared into the day’s last work.
Her mission was messier now.
Her heart, unfortunately, was not helping.