Chapter 22 #2
Dark hair pulled back sleekly. Sunglasses even though the sun was half-hidden behind clouds. A pale blouse tucked into dark slacks, shoes that would never survive mud. The slim cigarette tucked between two fingers.
There was something about her face that made me wonder how much of it had been chosen—smoothed, adjusted, refined by intention rather than time.
I found myself thinking that if she’d never touched it, never corrected or sharpened or erased, she might have looked entirely different.
Or maybe not different at all—just softer. More human.
She looked like she’d stepped out of a different life and into ours without bothering to wipe her feet.
My stomach turned.
I pulled my car in behind my father’s truck and got out.
The moment my feet hit the gravel, Sunny started barking again—furious now, his whole body vibrating with it.
“Joy!” my momma called, and the relief in her voice was immediate, even as fear sat behind it like a shadow.
My father took one look at me and his jaw tightened. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “I couldn’t not.”
My siblings closed in around me instinctively, a protective half-circle. Familiar. Comforting.
The woman turned her head slowly toward me.
Even from this distance, I could feel her attention land like a hand on my throat.
“Joy McKinley,” she said.
Not a question.
A claim.
I kept my voice even. “That’s me.”
She lifted her sunglasses and slid them onto her head, exposing eyes that were too calm for someone standing on a stranger’s property being barked at by a dog that wanted to eat her.
“Hello,” she said, as if we were at a cocktail party instead of a gate.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Her mouth curved slightly. “I think you know.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t blink.
Because I didn’t know.
Not really.
I had a guess.
But I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of watching me flinch at it.
“I don’t,” I said. “Tell me.”
She looked past me—over my shoulder—toward my family as if she were taking inventory.
Then her gaze returned to me. “I’m looking for answers.”
“So, am I,” I said.
A beat.
Then she smiled again, and this one was sharper. “I’m told you’ve been spending time with Micah Dane.”
My brothers shifted. Sunny barked louder.
My father stepped forward. “Ma’am, you’re done here.”
The woman didn’t even glance at him. She kept her eyes on me, like he was scenery.
“He’s not your business,” I said carefully, my voice low enough that it didn’t tremble.
“Oh,” she said softly. “But he is.”
The way she said it made my skin crawl.
My momma’s hand landed on my shoulder from behind—warm, steady. A reminder of who I was before this moment.
My father’s voice went cold. “Last warning.”
The woman finally turned her attention to him, like she’d just remembered he existed. “I’m not here to threaten you, Mr. McKinley.”
My father didn’t blink. “Then you’re here to threaten my daughter.”
The woman’s eyes flicked back to me, and for the first time, something like irritation surfaced.
“Threats are such a crude tool,” she said. “I prefer clarity.”
“Clarity about what?” I asked.
Her gaze dropped briefly to my left hand, as if looking for a ring that wasn’t there. Then back to my eyes.
“You’re in over your head,” she said quietly. “And you don’t even know it.”
My heart hammered, but my voice stayed steady. “You came to my parents’ home to tell me that?”
“I came,” she corrected, “because you’re close to something you shouldn’t be close to.”
I felt it then—the line she was trying to draw. The boundary she was trying to enforce.
Keep away from Micah.
Keep away from whatever he was connected to.
But she had chosen the wrong place to deliver that message.
Because this wasn’t my shop. This wasn’t a city sidewalk where I could swallow my fear and let her walk away.
This was my family.
My land.
My history.
And suddenly, my anger rose—hot, clean.
“You don’t get to show up here,” I said, each word measured, “and speak to me like you own the air.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly, evaluating.
Then she said, almost pleasantly, “Call him.”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
“Call Micah,” she repeated. “Tell him to come.”
Sunny lunged against the leash, snarling now.
My sister tightened her grip, knuckles white. “Joy—”
I held up a hand behind me without looking, a silent signal: stay back.
I stared at the woman. “Why?”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Because I want him to understand that the truce can still stand.”
My skin went cold.
“The truce,” I repeated.
She nodded once. “If he chooses it.”
My pulse pounded so hard it made my vision pulse at the edges. “And if he doesn’t?”
The woman’s gaze flicked toward the house—toward my momma’s porch swing, toward the fields, toward the line of people behind me.
She said nothing.
But her silence said everything.
A hand slid into my back pocket where my phone sat like a weight.
Every instinct screamed: call him.
And another part of me—newer, more stubborn, more changed—said:
Not yet.
Not on her terms.
I lifted my chin. “Get off our property.”
Her eyes held mine for a long moment.
Then she reached into her pocket slowly, careful and deliberate, as if she knew how the movement would read.
My daddy tensed.
Sunny bared his teeth.
The woman pulled out a small card and held it up between two fingers like an offering.
“I’ll leave,” she said, “because I’m not here to start something today.”
Today.
The word landed like a promise.
She slid the card through the bars of the gate and let it fall onto the gravel inside, right at my feet.
Then she lowered her sunglasses, turned, and walked back to her car.
No rush. No fear. No urgency.
As if she knew, with absolute certainty, that she could come back anytime she wanted.
The car door shut with a soft thud. The engine started. The tires rolled away down the driveway.
Only when the black car disappeared behind the trees did I realize I’d been holding my breath.
My momma’s arms wrapped around me from behind, tight. “Joy, honey …”
“I’m okay,” I lied automatically.
My father bent, picked up the card, and handed it to me without looking at it.
My fingers shook as I took it.
The card was plain. White. No logo.
Just a name.
Victoria.
And a number.
No last name.
No explanation.
Just certainty.
I stared at it until the letters blurred.
Because now she had introduced herself.
And she had said Micah’s name on my family’s land like a warning.
My siblings started talking all at once—questions, anger, disbelief—but their voices faded to background noise as my mind narrowed to one single, pounding thought.
I needed to tell Micah.
I needed to tell him right now.
And the fact that I hadn’t—because I was trying to protect him, or protect my family, or protect the fragile illusion of control—suddenly felt like the most dangerous choice I could have made.
I lifted my phone.
My thumb hovered over his name.
For one brief second, I saw his face in my mind—the way he looked at me when he thought I might be threatened.
Then I thought of Victoria’s calm eyes.
I hit call.