Chapter 6
six
Gage
The rest of the day passes without either of us giving an inch.
We cross paths more than once—at the barn, near the pens, outside the office—but neither of us slows or looks for a reason to stop. Work gets done. Orders are followed. The ranch keeps moving like it always does.
The space she leaves behind feels intentional, like she’s already decided something I haven’t caught up to yet.
She finds me near the house, just close enough that walking away would make a point.
“I had every right to be there as much as you do,” she says, stopping a few steps away when I don’t move. “I’ve tried everything to make you see that I’m busting my ass to make the most out of this, but everywhere I turn, there’s an argument with you.”
“When will you see that I’m not here to screw things up?”
That’s a good question. I don’t answer.
She doesn’t wait for me to respond. She turns and walks away, leaving the space between us quiet in a way that feels decided, and then she’s gone.
I stay where I am long after she’s gone, staring at the spot she occupied like it might offer some explanation if I look hard enough. The ranch doesn’t stop for personal conflicts. Somewhere behind me, a gate clangs shut. A truck engine turns over.
Life keeps moving, indifferent to the tension still buzzing under my skin.
I tell myself I did the right thing by not chasing her. Running after her would have turned it into something bigger, something messier. It would have meant admitting there’s more going on here than frustration and bruised pride—and I’m not ready for that.
I don’t follow. I let her go. I let the space stand between us.
The adrenaline from the ring bleeds off slowly, leaving behind something heavier—not relief, not satisfaction. Just a dull pressure in my chest that I ignore the same way I ignore everything else that doesn’t fit neatly into my world.
I shove my hands into my pockets and force myself to breathe through it, grounding myself in routine.
This is my land. My responsibility. My problem to solve.
I remind myself of that as I walk away from the house and back toward the barns, putting physical space between me and the argument I refuse to finish. Distance has always worked before. It should work now, too.
After that, we keep our distance for the rest of the day, which feels like a blessing after the branding fiasco. I don’t know what came over me when I froze up with Sammy. I’ve never hesitated like that, never stopped mid-routine to question whether I was doing the right thing.
Hell, at one point, I even looked up the studies she mentioned, half expecting to prove her wrong—and didn’t.
The rest of the morning drags on, fragmented, and I catch myself noticing things I usually wouldn’t. Jesse pauses before adjusting a gate, glancing toward the paddock where Sloane’s working instead of asking me.
Hank mentions changing the feeding rotation and adds, almost casually, that Sloane suggested it might reduce waste. No one challenges it. No one even looks at me for confirmation.
I don’t say anything. I tell myself it’s nothing—just coincidence, just people making conversation—but the pattern keeps repeating. Small things. Harmless things. The kind that shouldn’t matter, except they do.
This is my operation. I’ve spent years building a rhythm here, knowing exactly how every day should run. Now there’s a second current moving through it, subtle but undeniable, and everyone seems to be flowing with it instead of against it.
By the time noon rolls around, I feel like I’m walking through my own ranch slightly out of step, like the ground has shifted just enough to throw off my balance. I hate that feeling more than the arguments, more than the noise.
I hate not being the center of gravity in a place that’s always answered to me.
Early in the afternoon, alone in the office, I find myself staring at the screen longer than I mean to. She wasn’t wrong. Not about everything, but enough.
I think about the horses I’ve branded over the years, the ones I watched my uncle and granddad brand before me, and the thought settles heavy: maybe we weren’t villains—but maybe we weren’t as careful as we could’ve been either.
When I walk out of the barn where the office is, I stop short when I see her with Bullet, our Miniature Australian Shepherd. He’s still young and green, but he’s an amazing pup—smart, steady, already figuring out his job. He’s a hard worker and good with the cattle when we need to move them.
She reaches down and pets him behind the ears, and he rolls over, offering his belly like he’s known her longer than a few hours—like she belongs here. I roll my eyes at the way she rubs his stomach, calling it coddling even though I know better.
Women don’t typically show up here, and Bullet’s usually more guarded with strangers, but with her he warmed up fast—too fast for my liking.
I think she’s bribing him when I’m not looking. That explanation sits easier in my chest than the truth—easier than admitting he chose her.
Probably saw him in the kennel one night, found his treats, started slipping them through the door so he’d fall in love with her. I cling to that version longer than I should, because believing he made up his own mind opens a door I’m not ready to look through.
Bullet isn’t wrong to like her. That’s the part that irritates me the most. He’s not a dumb dog. He watches before he acts, reads people the same way he reads cattle, and he doesn’t give his trust away lightly. I trained him that way. I depend on it.
Seeing him choose her without hesitation feels like another quiet vote cast against me, another sign that I’m the only one digging in my heels.
He presses closer to her leg, tail thumping against the dirt, and for a split second I imagine what it would look like if I stepped forward instead—if I said something neutral, something human.
The thought dies as quickly as it comes.
This isn’t about a dog. It’s about control slipping through my fingers in small, almost invisible ways. First the ranch hands. Then the animals. What comes next?
I turn away before the irritation can harden into something uglier. I won’t let myself believe this is natural or deserved. I won’t let myself think that maybe the problem isn’t her presence, but my resistance to it.
I’ve always trusted Bullet’s instincts—and that’s exactly why this gets under my skin.
It’s bad enough she has the ranch hands on her good side, but now Bullet too? When did it start to feel like everyone decided she belonged here more than I do?
Where are the people who see how she’s pushing into everything—trying to change things she hasn’t lived with her whole life? Where are the ones in my corner?
It feels like it happened all at once—like the ground shifted while I wasn’t looking, and suddenly I’m the only one still standing where I always have, watching everyone else adjust around her.
But not me. I won’t mistake preparation for charm, or conviction for manipulation. I’ve lived on this land my whole life. I know the difference between someone adapting and someone pushing, and I won’t let myself forget that just because everyone else seems willing to.
That decision settles something in me. I don’t head back to the barn or the house. Instead, I turn toward town.
I walk into Monty’s office in the late afternoon, just as he’s packing up to head home. I can’t do this anymore. The constant friction, the back-and-forth, the way every decision now feels contested—it’s disruptive, bleeding into my work in ways I can’t ignore.
There has to be something—anything—buried in the clauses that will let me get out of this mess.
Monty looks up and sighs deeply. “Gage, I’m just about to head out for the night,” he says, already reaching for his jacket, but I shut the door behind me. Not tonight. He isn’t leaving until I get to the bottom of this.
“Monty, I understand,” I say, keeping my voice even and measured, “but I need to know how we get out of this.”
He groans, rolling his eyes like he knows exactly where this conversation is headed.
“Gage—”
He doesn’t finish, like he already knows I’m not going to let him.
I cut him off. “I know what you’re going to say, all right? It’s airtight, your hands are tied—but there has to be something that can be done here.” I scrub a hand over my jaw, frustration crawling up my spine. “She’s driving me insane.”
He sighs and finally sets his briefcase down, the sound heavier than it should be.
“So does my wife,” he says dryly. “But I’m not trying to divorce her.”
I don’t smile.
“I’ve told you everything,” he continues, more serious now. “It was your uncle’s wish that this arrangement stand for six months. We can’t go around that clause without unraveling the whole thing.”
I stand there, absorbing it anyway, even though I already knew the answer before I walked in.
“She’s altering how this place runs, Monty.”
What I don’t say is that it isn’t just the ranch. She’s changing more than procedures or traditions—she’s changing me, and that’s what sticks in my throat. The branding is only the start of it.
If I give ground here, what comes next? Something else will. Another decision, another compromise, another expectation that I bend without question.
“Change isn’t always a bad thing,” he says, measured.
I close my eyes, jaw tightening, because I don’t want to hear that right now.
“I get that this is a lot for you,” he adds, softer now, “but you can imagine it’s not easy for her either.”
“I don’t know,” I mutter. “She’s warming up to everyone else real well.”
He smiles, just slightly, like he’s heard this complaint before—even if the details are different.
“Some people adapt,” he says, chuckling softly. “They make the most of what they’re handed. Doesn’t mean it’s easy,” he adds, pointedly.
I meet his gaze. It’s knowing. It says more than he’s willing to spell out, like he’s nudging me toward a conclusion without taking responsibility for it.
I try, briefly, to put myself in Sloane’s shoes and imagine what this has cost her. She’s gained a ranch, sure—but she’s lost her home. Her routines. Her autonomy.
She’s living with a group of men she didn’t know a week ago, and her assigned roommate for the next six months has made no effort to hide his hostility.
She’s used to the city.
Structure. Distance. Privacy.
Being forced into the middle of ranch life until this settles can’t be easy. She might be making the most of it, adapting where she can, but it’s taken me this long to really see what she’s giving up just to be here—and that realization sits heavier than I expect it to.
Maybe it would be better if I did her a favor.
I pace the length of Monty’s office, the soft hum of the overhead light grating on my nerves. This isn’t how I imagined this conversation going. I came here looking for a technicality, a clause I could point to and say there—that’s the fix. Instead,
I’m standing in the same place I started, boxed in by legal language and my uncle’s intentions.
Monty watches me over his glasses, saying nothing. That silence weighs heavier than any argument. He’s letting me run myself into the corner, letting me hear the shape of my own thoughts before I commit to them.
“She’s not going to stop,” I say finally, more to myself than to him. “Today it’s branding. Tomorrow it’s feed schedules. Next week it’s who makes the calls around here.”
The words come faster now, stacking on top of each other. “I can’t run a ranch where every decision is up for debate.”
I stop pacing and plant my hands on the edge of his desk, leaning forward. This isn’t anger anymore. It’s calculation.
I recognize the shift even as I let it happen.
“I just need to know what my options are,” I say, lowering my voice. “That’s all.”
Monty exhales slowly, like he’s bracing for where this is headed, and I know I’m closer to the line than I was when I walked in.
“If she leaves,” I ask carefully, choosing my words with more intention than I like, “that’s it, right?”
Monty studies me for a beat, then shrugs and nods.
“She’d have to leave willingly for ownership to turn over completely,” he explains. “The deal itself is structured to benefit her if she stays.”
I wave that part off with a short breath. All I hear is willingly.
If she decides this place isn’t for her—if the distance, the isolation, the pace wear her down—then the ranch is mine outright. No shared authority. No compromises. No constant friction.
I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, hoping I wouldn’t have to circle back to this, but I’m running out of patience.
I need her out of my hair. She’s driving a wedge into production and workflow, and that’s something I can’t afford—not here, not when everything already feels like it’s balanced on a knife’s edge.
“Sounds good, Monty. Have a great night,” I say, already turning away.
He doesn’t move. He watches me carefully, like he sees the direction I’m heading and doesn’t like it—but as my lawyer, not my conscience, he says nothing.
At the end of the day, whatever I do to secure my ranch—as long as I’m not breaking any laws—is my business. Monty never said I couldn’t do it with a little convincing, and I’m not the kind of man who backs down when the stakes are this high.
I walk back out to my truck, the gravel crunching under my boots, and I realize I feel lighter than I did going in.
The decision locks into a place in my chest, solid and resolved.
Soon, Sloane will be out of my hair and off my property, and Hollis Ranch will be mine alone again—no shared authority, no friction, no second-guessing.
I know I should feel guilty, but I don’t. Not really. I tell myself I’m doing her a favor. She doesn’t want to be here anymore than I want her here, and when this is over, she gets to go back to her life in Austin—the one she actually chose.
I count that as a win.
Starting tomorrow, I’ll start nudging her toward the truth—that this place isn't what she thought it was. I won’t force her hand. I won’t push her outright.
I’ll just make sure she sees it for herself.
I can be considerate about it. Or at least, less openly hostile.
I can pretend.