22. Elias
ELIAS
Ifollow her across the yard, boots heavy on the packed dirt, the printed pages she waved at me burning a hole in my mind.
The cottage door stands half-open when I reach it, light spilling out into the gathering dusk like an invitation I’m not sure I deserve anymore.
I push inside without knocking, finding Lila in the small living area, those same papers clutched in her hand like evidence in a trial I never wanted to face.
“Explain this, Elias,” she says, voice steady but edged with something sharper than I’ve heard from her before.
She thrusts the copies toward me, eyes locked on mine.
“Months of negotiations. Signatures stacking up while I’ve been out there pouring my work into this place.
You stood in that kitchen last week and told me it was just some recent meetings. Talk.”
I take the papers but don’t look at them. I know what they say. The words feel heavier now in her grip than they did in the Caldwell Ridge offices. “It’s not what you think. The deal’s been building slow. I didn’t lay it all out because I didn’t want it bleeding into what we’ve got going here.”
She laughs, short and bitter, tossing the stack onto the table where they scatter like fallen leaves.
“Bleeding into us? You mean like how I’ve been falling for you while you carve away the one piece of land I’ve spent weeks trying to preserve?
For my exhibit, for the history of this ranch, for whatever peace you might find if you’d just face it.
But no, you kept me in the dark like I’m some temporary guest who doesn’t get a say. ”
The argument builds fast, her words pushing against the walls I’ve kept tight around this.
I step closer, the space between us shrinking but feeling miles wide.
“You think I wanted to drag you through the mess? South Gate isn’t some pretty backdrop for your photos anymore.
It’s a liability. The resort money stabilizes everything else—the barns that need repair, the hands who count on steady pay. I made calls to protect the ranch.”
“Protect it by lying?” She crosses her arms, chin lifted in that stubborn way that first caught me off guard the night she showed up soaked.
But now it carries hurt that cuts deeper.
“I trusted you with pieces of me I don’t share easy.
My fears about chasing dead-end projects, the way I run when things get too rooted.
You held me through those nights and still couldn’t trust me with this?
That’s not protection, Elias. That’s betrayal.
I thought we were becoming something real, not just convenient nights and half-truths. ”
Her voice cracks on the last part, and it lands square in my chest. I run a hand through my hair, frustration mixing with the guilt I’ve been shoving down since Wyatt found me out there.
“I do intend to sell it. Even knowing what your project means to you. The preservation angle, the exhibit, all of it. It’s done.
The agreements are moving forward because that land needs to go. ”
She stares at me, eyes wide like I’ve struck her.
The room feels smaller, the air thick with the scent of her—coffee and faint traces of outdoor dust from her day chasing records.
“You’re really going through with it. After everything we’ve talked about down there, the stories the place holds.
Why? Just tell me straight, no more dodging. ”
I hesitate, the truth I’ve buried clawing its way up.
The keeper’s structure flickers in my mind, the dust and the silence from that day.
I’ve never said it out loud to her, not fully.
“Because it’s tied to Noah. He died right there, Lila.
Spooked horse, wrong step, and I couldn’t stop it.
I watched my brother slip away on that ground, and every time I ride past or see you framing it through your lens, it rips the scab off.
I want the land gone so I don’t have to carry that anymore.
So the ranch doesn’t keep reminding me I failed him. ”
The admission hangs there between us, raw and ugly.
Her expression shifts from anger to something softer, pained, like she’s seeing the cracks I’ve hidden.
She reaches out, fingers brushing my arm, but I feel the distance in it.
“Selling it won’t erase the grief, Elias.
Destroying the place where it happened doesn’t wipe away what you lost. It just leaves a hole where the truth used to be.
You think I don’t understand loss? My whole life has been packing up and moving before roots dig in too deep.
But you—you’re letting it eat you alive instead of letting it become part of what makes this ranch worth fighting for. ”
I pull back from her touch, the comfort too close when everything inside me feels tangled and wrong.
Words stick in my throat, the deeper stuff—the fear that facing it fully might break what’s left of me, the way her belief in the land makes me question every practical step I’ve taken.
I can’t shape it right, can’t let her see how scared I am that keeping South Gate means never moving past that day.
Instead the anger surges, hot and familiar, a shield I know too well.
“You don’t get it,” I snap, voice rising as I turn away toward the window.
The fields outside blur in the low light.
“It’s not your call. This is my land, my history, my decision.
I’ve kept this ranch running through worse than some photographer showing up with big ideas about saving every damn corner.
If you can’t see why I need this, then maybe we’ve been fooling ourselves about how much we actually share here. ”
The words taste bitter as they leave me, but I let them fall anyway, retreating behind the wall that feels safer than cracking open further. I hear her breath catch, the hurt radiating off her in waves that make my shoulders tense.
“So that’s it?” she says quietly, the fight draining but leaving devastation in its wake. “You shut down instead of letting me in? I came here ready to build something with you, Elias. Not to watch you tear it apart to protect ghosts you won’t even name fully.”
I don’t turn around. Can’t. The silence stretches, heavy with everything we’re not saying now.
When I finally glance back, her eyes are bright with unshed tears, arms wrapped around herself like she’s holding the pieces together.
We stand there, the cottage that felt like a shared haven now divided by the chasm I’ve widened with my own hands.
She looks at me one last time, the connection we’ve grown over weeks fraying visibly, then heads toward the bedroom without another word.
I stay rooted in the main room, chest tight, the agreements still scattered on the table like accusations.
The anger fades into a hollow ache that mirrors the one I’ve carried from South Gate all along.
We’re further apart than before she found those papers—devastated in the quiet way that leaves no easy road back.I want to follow her, to pull her close and find the words that might bridge it, but the shutdown holds me fast. Instead I sink into a chair, head in my hands, the heaviness of what I’ve broken pressing down as night settles fully outside.
The ranch keeps turning, but in this small space we’ve shared, everything feels cracked beyond repair.