Chapter 6 #2
“You’ve got Delaney,” I say. “Henry’s got Shay.
Angus and Luna. Tom and Kitty. Everyone in this family has someone.
” I look at my hands. “I applied to Marlie’s Angels because I watched it happen four times and couldn’t look away.
Filled out the profile expecting nothing.
Checked the correspondence-only box because that was safe.
Words on a screen, a voice on a phone, something I could hold without taking.
I wasn’t hiding her. I was holding onto her.
A voice in the dark that made the loneliness smaller. There’s a difference.”
Daniel’s jaw works. I watch him process it, the way he processes everything. He runs it through the filter of a man who spent years as a Ranger learning that information withheld is a liability, then runs it again through the filter of a brother who understands loneliness.
“You could’ve told me,” he says quietly.
“I know.”
“I would’ve listened.”
“I know that too.” I meet his eyes. “But if I’d said it out loud, if I’d told you I was falling for a woman I’d never met, you would’ve looked at me the way you’re looking at me right now. And I wasn't ready to defend something I didn’t fully understand yet.”
Daniel holds my gaze for a long beat. He nods. Drinks. Sets the glass down and leans back, the armchair creaking under his weight. The subtle shift means the conversation is about to move from personal to operational.
“LandCorp will notice she’s gone," he says. “If they don’t already.”
Daniel’s in command mode, using the same tone he used overseas and is now using when the ranch is under threat.
“I’m aware.”
“She stole internal data. Contamination reports.” He ticks them off like he’s briefing a squad.
“A company that’s been systematically poisoning water and falsifying reports to force a land sale isn’t going to shrug that off.
They’ll want to know where she went and what she did with the communications. ”
“I know,” I repeat. My hands are steady. This part—the threat assessment, the plan—is the part I’m built for.
“She used her own car,” Daniel says. “If they have her plates, they can track her route.”
“The car’s in a ditch off a county road with no cameras. George is towing and storing it,” I say, naming Georgina Lucas, Clover Canyon’s resident mechanic. “But, yeah. We don't have long.”
Daniel leans forward. “What’s the play?”
“Beckett.” The name settles between us like a hand on a weapon.
Beckett “Shadow” Lawson, ex-SEAL and George’s fiancé.
He runs security across both ranches now, and his tactical brain makes mine look like a kid with a hobby.
“I’ll get him to extend the perimeter alerts to cover the county road and the east approach.
His veteran watch network can add night patrols without making it obvious. ”
“What about Dad?”
“Dad knows the shape of it. He doesn’t need the details yet. He’ll want to fight, and right now, we need him steady, not loading a shotgun.”
Daniel almost smiles at that. “And the drive? Where is it?”
“Inside a goat.”
He blinks. “What?”
“Dorito ate it.”
The silence is spectacular.
“You’re telling me that our entire defense against a corporate land grab is inside Dorito.”
“Expecting delivery in the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours. The casing’s durable.”
He presses his fingers into his eyes. “Jesus Christ.”
“Maggie’s on Dorito watch. She’s following him around with a bucket and a pair of rubber gloves like it’s a stakeout.”
“A stakeout.” Daniel’s voice is flat. “For goat shit.”
“Welcome to my week. Never in the history of this ranch has anyone monitored a bowel movement with this level of care.”
Daniel stares at me. Then something breaks behind his expression, and he laughs. Not the controlled, older-brother laugh. The real one I only hear when he’s around Delaney. It lasts three seconds before he kills it, shakes his head, and drains the rest of his glass.
“If Dad finds out our big play against LandCorp depends on a goat’s digestive system, he’ll sell the ranch himself.”
He exhales, and something loosens between us. It’s the first time in months I’ve let Daniel into the operational side of things. I’ve been running the cameras and the data trails and the quiet investigation by myself because that’s what I do. I hold things. But this is bigger than holding.
“One more thing,” I say.
Daniel looks at me, an eyebrow raised. “Don’t tell me, Major Pecker swallowed the backup hard drive.”
“Major Pecker hasn’t swallowed anything. He’s too busy fighting every living thing on this ranch.”
“He let Delaney pet him last week.”
“Major Pecker lets Delaney do whatever she wants. The rest of us are on his shit list. Literally. He shit in my boot yesterday.”
“Both boots?”
“Just the left one. I think he’s pacing himself.” I shake my head in disgust. “What I wanted to ask was if you’ve talked to Gabriel lately?”
Daniel’s expression shifts, telling me he’s noticed our brother’s absence too.
“He was supposed to help me move feed to the south barn yesterday. Didn’t show. Found him on the back porch an hour later, just staring at the tree line.” Daniel turns the glass in his hand. “He’s been pulling away. Doing his hours, doing his work. But he’s not here. Not really.”
“He’s been like that for weeks.”
“Longer. Since before Christmas.”
We sit with that. Gabriel is the youngest. He stayed behind when the rest of us left for the military.
The one who came after. Mom didn’t come home from the hospital.
Dad disappeared into his grief. Gabriel grew up in what was left.
He’s always been quieter than the rest of us, but this is different.
This is a man putting distance between himself and the people who love him, and I don’t know why.
“He won’t talk to me about it,” Daniel says. “I’ve tried.”
“He won’t talk to me either. I asked twice. He changed the subject, the way he does when he’s decided you’re not getting in.”
Daniel nods slowly. “You think it’s a woman?”
The question doesn’t surprise me. “Could be. He’s got the look.”
“What look?”
“The one you had around Delaney. As though something’s gotten under your skin and you don’t know what to do with it.”
Daniel’s mouth flattens. He doesn’t argue, which is how I know I’m right.
“Keep an eye on him,” I say. “Don't push. Just... be around.”
“I’m always around.”
“Be around softer.”
He gives me a look that says Daniel Sutton does not do anything softer, but he doesn’t say no. Which, from Daniel, is practically a hug.
He stands, collects his glass, and pauses on his way to the kitchen.
“For what it’s worth,” he says without turning around, “I’m glad she’s here. Marlie made a good match, but I’m glad you chose her.”
“She chose me.”
Daniel looks back at me then, his eyes lit with the recognition that the woman asleep down the hall chose this ranch and his brother, all by herself. “Even better.”
He disappears into the kitchen. I hear the clink of his glass in the sink, the creak of his boots on the stairs as he heads to his room and his wife.
The house settles. The cats emerge from wherever they’ve been hiding and redistribute themselves across the furniture. Crowley claims the warm spot Daniel left in the armchair. Pixel materializes on the couch beside me.
I sit in the dark and think about perimeter alerts and corporate threats and a flash drive inside a goat and a woman who reached for my hand on the porch like it was the bravest thing she’d ever done.
Tomorrow, I’ll call Beckett.
Tomorrow, I’ll start building a wall around her that LandCorp can’t get through.