Chapter 17-Sawyer
I’m walking on air—but there’s still that tightness in my chest, like my heart’s running faster than it knows how.
Everything’s moving quick. Too quick.
She’s been here only a few days, but somehow the house already smells like her shampoo and laughter, and hell if that doesn’t do something to me.
I don’t want her to think it’s a mistake, though, so I’m taking it slow.
As slow as a man like me knows how, anyway.
This morning, I caught her voice drifting down the hall while I was pulling on my boots.
She was in the kitchen with Angie, talking about that old trunk full of clothes we found in one of the storage sheds when I bought the place.
Thing hadn’t been opened since Eisenhower was president.
Angie was talking about vintage prints and fabric and who-knows-what, and then I heard Bit ask if there was a sewing machine she could use.
Angie told her there was one in the pantry—hell, I know all about it.
I bought it for Angie when we moved her, back when I thought every housekeeper in America sewed buttons for a living.
Turns out she didn’t know how.
So the thing’s been gathering dust.
I grin to myself, wondering what Lil Bit’s up to this time.
Could be anything with her—she’s got that spark.
Always moving, always thinking, finding beauty in corners I don’t even look at.
But that is all the time I have for daydreaming.
A new shipment of bulls came in midmorning—a shipment I’d bid on at auction last month. Prime stock.
The kind of muscle that makes a rancher’s reputation.
They thundered off the transport truck like royalty—huge, restless, and pissed at the change of scenery.
We got them settled in the breeding paddocks and went through the paperwork, the health checks, the quarantine protocols.
The sun is high, dust hanging in the air, and for the first time in weeks, I let myself think maybe this is what peace looks like for men like me, Benji, and Micah.
Jersey Iron Ranch is still small by comparison to the giants out west, but we’ve got a plan.
We’re not just raising bulls—we’re raising champions.
Bulls with superior genetics.
Every sale, every contract, every auction, every goddamn drop of sweat we’ve put into this place has been for that.
We sell directly to commercial cattle producers and other seedstock operations for natural service breeding.
But the real goldmine is in the straws—frozen semen from these genetically advanced bulls.
It’s not glamorous, but it’s genius.
Producers get the best bloodlines without needing to keep a dozen bulls on their property, and I get steady, recurring income that keeps my ranch growing.
It’s sustainable, smart, and scalable—three words I never thought I’d use outside the military.
We’re going to milk champions to build an empire.
And as I stand at the edge of the pens watching those new bulls settle in, the noise of the world fades.
For the first time, it’s not just about the land or the business.
It’s about what the three of us are building here, what I’m building here—with her in it.