Chapter 3 #2
“Sit down before you fall down,” Daniel says from the table, gruff but not unkind.
I sit. Miss Maggie sets a plate in front of me. Soup, thick and golden, with bread torn instead of sliced. My hands shake as I pick up the spoon, and I grip it tighter to hide it.
“My dad, Jacob,” Ethan says from behind me.
I didn’t hear him move, but he’s there, leaning against the counter at my back. Close enough to feel. He holds a coffee mug with both hands and watches me with the quiet gravity of someone who keeps his opinions holstered until they’re needed.
Jacob nods once. Doesn’t smile. Doesn’t frown.
I eat because they’re all watching, and not eating would mean explaining why, and I don’t have the energy for that conversation. The soup is good, but my throat fights it.
The room waits. Not impatiently or with the loaded silence of adults deciding what to do about a problem child. They wait the way you wait for weather.
I set down the spoon. “I work for a company called LandCorp.”
I say it to the table because I can’t look at Ethan. Saying it out loud makes me complicit. I worked for them. I cashed their paychecks. I sat in their fluorescent office and analyzed their data, and I didn’t ask what the data was for until it was almost too late.
Daniel’s arms uncross.
“They’ve been—” My voice catches. I push my glasses up and try again. “They’ve been targeting this ranch as well as Havenridge. Both ranches. The water supply, the land value, your bank loans. I found contamination data and falsified reports. It’s systematic.”
My hands are flat on the table now because if I lift them, everyone will see the shaking. “I stole the proof. That’s why I ran.”
Silence.
Jacob leans forward. The mug comes down on the table with a deliberate care that tells me he’s controlling a reaction much bigger than the one he’s showing. “How long?”
“The documents go back at least eight months. Maybe longer.” I swallow. “I didn’t know what they were doing. Not until I started cross-referencing their internal numbers with public water data. The numbers didn’t match. None of them matched.”
I wait for the question.
Why should we trust you?
In foster care, trust is a transaction. You earn it in increments, and it can be revoked without notice. I’ve spent twenty-six years justifying my presence in rooms, proving that I deserve to stay, and bracing for the moment someone decides I don’t.
Daniel looks at his father. Jacob looks back. Something passes between them—the shorthand of men who share blood.
The question doesn’t come.
“We’ll handle it,” Jacob says.
In my experience, “We’ll handle it” means “We’ll handle you.” It means meetings behind closed doors and decisions made without your input and a packed bag by the end of the week. It means someone else has taken control, and your only job is not to make it worse.
But Jacob says it the way a man says it when he means the problem, not the person who brought it.
I grip the table edge because the room is tilting, and it has nothing to do with my head.
“Hey,” Delaney says. She hasn’t moved from her seat, but she’s leaning forward, and her brown eyes hold mine. “You’re not in trouble. You did the right thing. Don’t you dare sit there thinking you need to earn your spot at this table.”
Ethan’s hand lands on the back of my chair. The wood creaks under his grip, and his presence behind me is so solid that I could lean back and he’d catch me.
“You drove through the night to warn us.” His voice is low and even. “That’s enough.”
“Where’s this proof?” Daniel asks, his question operational rather than suspicious.
The room has already pivoted from “Are you okay?” to “What do we do?”
“A flash drive,” I say, my nerves steadying. “Yellow and black. It was in my jacket pocket.” I look at Ethan. “It’s not there anymore. I already checked.”
“Could be at the crash site,” Ethan says. There’s my problem-solver, already building a grid. “Things scatter on impact.”
“Then we’ll look.” Daniel is already pushing back from the table.
“Jenna and I,” Ethan states, quiet but firm. “We’ll check the car.”
Delaney’s hand settles on Daniel’s arm as his jaw tightens, and whatever she says with that touch, it works. He settles back.
“Eat first,” Maggie orders, aiming her spatula at me with the authority of a woman who has ended more arguments with kitchen utensils than most diplomats have with treaties. “Both of you.”
I pick up the spoon, relieved that my hands have stopped shaking.
Across the table, Delaney catches my eye and smiles warmly.
I smile back, but the foster kid in me is waiting for the other shoe to drop.
My breath stutters as all the worry and tension return in a swift rush. “That drive is the only proof. Without it, I’m just a disgruntled employee making accusations. And they’ll bury me for it.” I surge to my feet, ignoring the ache in my muscles. “I should look again…”
Ethan shakes his head. “You’re not going anywhere until you finish your soup.
You need your strength.” His hands close around my forearms instantly, steadying me.
His touch is warm and solid and safe. “If that drive is out there, we’ll get it.
But you’re not helping anyone if you collapse halfway to the door. ”
“I’m not staying here while that proof is out there.” My voice cracks. “If someone else finds it first—”
“No one’s been near the car,” he assures me. “We’re remote.”
That’s true. I remember trees. The towering mountains. The sharp skid of tires, then nothing.
Daniel mops up the last of his soup with a hunk of bread. “I’ll get the truck ready. Then you go together.”
Together. That’s… new.
Daniel disappears out the back door, with Delaney on his heels.
“I’ll get the guest room ready,” Miss Maggie says, patting my shoulder reassuringly as she moves past us into the hall.
Jacob stands and leaves with a wordless nod, leaving Ethan and me alone.
I push my glasses up, forcing myself to breathe, and pick up the spoon again. The soup is lukewarm, but I manage another mouthful.
Ethan pulls up a chair beside me, and I’m aware of every molecule of air between his body and mine.
His sleeves are rolled up, revealing tan, corded forearms marked by a thin silver scar across the left one. His hands rest on the table, fingers curled loosely. My spine is still conducting the heat of those hands on my forearms a few minutes ago.
Ethan lifts his hand, and I shiver as he tucks a lock of hair behind my ear.
“Jenna.” He says my name, followed by that familiar pause, the way he always does it on the phone. Name first, then the important thing. His mouth quirks with a wry grin as his knuckles brush my cheek, electrifying all the tiny hairs. “Meeting you in real life wasn’t how I pictured it.”
“Are you disappointed?”
“I’ve been waiting for this moment since our second phone call.”
Our gazes collide, and I instinctively lean toward him like a flower reaching for the sun.
His nose brushes mine, his warm breath fanning over my lips. “Jenna, I—”
The back door crashes open, shattering the moment like glass on tile.
Hooves clatter on the linoleum, and a tan and white goat bursts into the kitchen. It heads straight for the table and places its front hooves on my chair, stretching its neck toward my plate.
Maggie’s firm voice echoes from the hallway. “DORITO. Out. NOW.”
The goat ignores her and devours my remaining toast.
I’m still breathing hard, my hand pressed against my chest. My skin is flushed from collarbone to forehead. What was Ethan about to say? Was he going to kiss me? Did I want him to?
Yes. God, yes, I did. I still do.
But a goat named Dorito ate the moment along with my toast.