Chapter 10
Tristan
The sun hasn’t cleared the ridge when I park near the old water line.
Mist drifts through the vines below, gold at the edges where the light catches it. From here, I can see the Voss house—windows glinting faintly, chimney still dark.
The world looks calm, but it isn’t.
I know because I didn’t sleep. Not even an hour.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her.
Her defiance is burned into my brain. I keep replaying it, over and over again. The flash of lightning on her face when she stepped onto the porch. The way she stood her ground even when she should’ve run. The rain sliding over her bare arms until she looked half-drowned, half-holy.
I tell myself I came up here to make sure she’s safe—not struggling alone in that massive house with cracked windows, pipes older than she is, and a vineyard that hasn’t seen genuine care in decades.
That the generator’s still working. That the roof isn’t leaking.
But the truth hums under my ribs like a second heartbeat.
I came because I wanted to see her again.
A faint movement in the kitchen window catches my eye.
Raine.
Hair loose, damp from a shower, wearing an oversized T-shirt and leggings. She moves through the kitchen like someone trying not to think too hard—setting a mug on the counter, staring out the window toward the vines.
I shouldn’t be here.
But my hands stay on the steering wheel, knuckles white.
When she leans closer to the glass, the sunlight hits her hair, and it glows like liquid gold. Even from here, I can imagine the way she smells—warm, sweet, wild honey and rain.
The words come before I realize I’ve thought them.
My chest tightens.
She glances toward the ridge.
For one dizzying second, I think she’s looking straight at me.
My breath catches.
Then she turns away, completely unaware that I’m sitting less than a hundred yards from her house, watching like a man who’s forgotten how to stop.
The phone buzzes on the seat beside me.
Calder.
I let it ring twice before answering.
“You alive?” he asks.
“Barely.”
“You sound like you haven’t slept.”
“I haven’t.”
“Right,” he says dryly. “Because you were checking roads again, weren’t you?”
I stare at the house. “Something like that.”
He sighs. “Tristan, whatever this is—let it go. You scare the shit out of people when you start acting like Dad.”
That hits harder than it should.
I end the call without answering.
When I look back toward the house, Raine’s gone from the window. The kitchen light flickers off.
For a moment, all that’s left is the valley, silent and waiting.
I start the engine, but I don’t drive away.
The sound of it rumbles low through the fog, vibrating against the quiet morning like a warning.
From inside, a light comes on again—faint, second-floor, bedroom window. She moves past it, unaware.
I rest my hand on the steering wheel, my thumb tapping anxiously.
“She’s fine,” I mutter to myself. “She’s fine. You’ve done your part.”
But the longer I sit there, the clearer it becomes.
It isn’t the land I can’t stay away from.
It isn’t the feud or the ridge or the water.
It’s her.
And the way she keeps drawing me back like gravity—bright, stubborn, untouchable.
Like sunlight that doesn’t realize it burns.