Chapter 3
THREE
FLIC
Jake and I pass the drive chatting easily about football and our chances in the playoffs and, just over thirty minutes later, he takes the track straight off the highway that leads to Oakwood Ranch. Buck leaps up the second the wheels leave the smooth asphalt, tail wagging, panting in excitement.
Before the ranch house even comes into view, I catch sight of the brown craggy foothills that border the land and, beyond those, the distant snow-covered Rocky Mountains. We pass the tall spruce trees where there’s a hidden lake that I’ve swum in every summer for as long as I can remember.
Then the paddocks come into view—lush green grass, glittering with frost in the sunlight.
Jake pulls to a stop in the big driveway beside the old, solid ranch house with its wraparound porch.
The house overlooks the red barn with the storeroom and horse stalls where Dylan and Izzy keep their horses.
The doors to the barn sit wide open, and I already know that’s where I’ll find Izzy.
Beyond the paddocks, hidden from view, is the new training ring Dylan installed to train the foals before they’re ready to sell at the rodeo auctions.
And right at the back, before the land becomes scrub and foothills, is the football field Mama built when the boys started to live and breathe football, giving them a space to channel their energy after Harry died.
Jake kills the engine and we both draw in deep breaths, allowing the calm of the ranch to take hold of us.
Like always, my mind is thrown back to the hundreds of weekends I spent here growing up, after Harry Sullivan took pity on the little kid collecting glasses and falling asleep in the booths at the bar.
He and Mama welcomed me in like I was just as much a Sullivan as Dylan, Jake, and Chase.
Harry’s kindness changed everything. I learned to ride horses here.
Learned what family looked like here. Snuck cookies from Mama’s kitchen and played endless games of truth and dare with Dylan, Jake, and Chase.
Most weekends, Chase’s childhood best friend, Serena, was with us, too. I lived for those days.
Even after Harry died when I was nine, Mama insisted I still stayed every weekend. I helped her with Chase, and tried to support Dylan and Jake, too. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to repay the kindness this family has shown me.
I throw open the truck door and Buck bounds out first. He races across the drive toward the barn, and a second later, just as I suspected, Izzy appears in the doorway.
She strides toward me, a bucket of water in one hand, dark blonde braid swinging over her shoulder, her belly rounded and straining against one of Dylan’s red flannel shirts.
A second later, Dylan steps out behind her.
In seconds, I’m racing to her, pulling her into a hug.
Izzy Brooks—now Izzy Sullivan—has been my best friend since we met at a rodeo competition years back.
She was there to check out a horse, and I was running the rodeo’s bar.
She’s sharp-tongued, takes no shit. The kind of friend I could call in the middle of the night and ask to bring shovels, and she’d be there, no questions asked.
Izzy had her daughter, Madison, at nineteen and became a single mom after her whirlwind marriage to country singer Hooper Greene fell apart when Mad was only a few months old. She moved in with her grandaddy and worked on his ranch, fifty miles east of Denver.
“You’ve got so big.” I grin.
Izzy rolls her eyes as she pats her stomach. “Still two months to go.”
I move from Izzy to Dylan, hugging him just as tight.
He’s still built like he could single-handedly take on any team in the NFL, but now sports a thick, dark beard and a cowboy hat.
When Dylan’s football career ended, and he bought Izzy’s grandaddy’s horses, Izzy was thrown into the deal to help Dylan with the ranch.
I didn’t think anything could knock the grump out of Dylan, but being a rancher, a stepdad, and a husband suits him.
“Where’s Chase?” I ask as I step back. “I may have been a bit harsh to him at the bar last night.” I wince, remembering how I caught him sulking in the corner early in the celebrations.
Dylan laughs, the sound deep and low and still a little unfamiliar after years of nothing but scowl. “Glad to hear it. What did you tell him?”
“Something about him needing to get his shit together if he didn’t want to lose Serena,” I reply, thinking of the fake-dating plan the pair cooked up at the start of the season after Chase became Denver’s most eligible bachelor and Serena landed herself with an ex who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Izzy moves to slide her arm around Dylan’s waist. “Well, considering Chase dragged us all out at sunrise to help him with his ‘show Serena I really love her’ gesture of finally buying some furniture for his house to make it feel like home, whatever you said worked.”
Jake’s smile widens. “Pretty sure we won’t be seeing either of them today then.”
“Took them long enough to admit they’re disgustingly perfect for each other,” I say with a warmth in my chest.
“Damn straight,” Jake replies.
I draw in another long breath of cold, fresh air.
Everything feels right in the world when I’m here.
Movement from the back door of the ranch house has us all turning to find Mama standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.
Her silver-blonde hair is cut to her chin and pinned away from her face in the same style she’s worn since I’ve known her.
She’s barely five feet tall but commands every inch of space around her.
“You all gonna stand out there in the cold all morning, or are you coming in to eat the cake I made?”
“Cake,” we all say in unison, before I hurry forward to give Mama a hug.
There isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not completely in awe of this woman.
If I ever start to doubt my capabilities, I think of Mama and how she’s everything to everyone at once.
She’s a savvy businesswoman and sports agent, always thinking one step ahead.
And she’s Mama. Always there with a cocoa and a pep talk when we need it.
She’s become a doting grandmother to Izzy’s daughter, Madison.
And she does it all with a fresh loaf of bread in the oven.
“You look tired, girl,” Mama says in my ear as she wraps me into the kind of hug that’s been anchoring me for what feels like forever. “You need anything?”
“I’m good, Mama. Thank you.”
She lets me go and ushers me into the big ranch kitchen with units on one side and a long oak table and benches on the other. Like always, the air smells like coffee and sweet treats that make my mouth water.
The main house belongs to Dylan, Izzy, and Mad now. Mama had three new houses built among the trees by the lake last year. One for her, one for Jake and Harper, and one for Chase, giving everyone their own place to stay at the ranch when Jake and Chase aren’t staying at their city apartments.
A step behind me, Dylan is ribbing Jake about a fumbled pass in yesterday’s game and Izzy is moving to fix coffee, ignoring Mama’s attempts to get her to sit down and put her feet up.
I make my way to the table and start slicing the chocolate cake, adding thick slabs to each plate, throwing out my own commentary of last night’s game.
And that’s when every phone in the kitchen buzzes at once.
“Harper’s calling,” Jake says, putting the phone to his ear, just as Mama does the same to hers and Dylan and I pull ours out. I guess from his expression he’s got the same Stormhawks news alert that’s staring back from my screen.
brEAKING: SECRET BUYER REVEALED AS PROPERTY BILLIONAIRE
I click the link and scan the article, words hitting like punches.
Billionaire. Ruthless restructure record.
New York. Property tycoon. Ashborne Holdings.
Communities in ruin. And a single name—Grayson Ashborne.
I stop reading and share the link to the Red Zone forum for the fans that rely on my page to get their news.
At the last second I add a hashtag that feels like it sums up a lot of what I’m feeling right now. #NotMyOwner.
Jake calls across the kitchen. “Harper says hi. She’s on her way. News about the new owner just broke.”
“I got it,” I reply, tension snaking across my shoulders. There was still a part of me that had hoped the rumors about the new owner were just that—rumors. Except he is a billionaire from New York, which means the other part about his lack of football knowledge is probably true too. Dammit!
I look up to see the worry written across Dylan’s face as he nods to where Mama is still on the phone by the sink, her back to us.
“Who’s she talking to?” I whisper.
Before Dylan can reply, Mama is saying goodbye and waving us to the table. “We should all sit down. I just got a call from Coach Allen. This is worse than we feared.”
Izzy passes out mugs of coffee and we all sit—Izzy and Dylan, Mama, and me and Jake. We’re quiet as we wait for Mama to fill us in on her call.
“You remember Front Range?” she asks.
Dylan frowns. “The manufacturing plant on York Street? The one that closed down a few years back?”
Mama nods.
“I don’t know it,” Izzy says, looking from Mama to Dylan.
“It was a big employer in Denver. They built utility trucks—snowplows and fire engines, agricultural machinery, that kind of thing,” Dylan explains.
“Coach Allen’s brother ran the plant for twenty years.
Then it got bought by a New York company who promised streamlining.
What that translated to was pulling back on its community outreach and the little league teams it sponsored.
Then it started letting people go and selling some of the high-tech equipment.
Two years after it was bought, it closed completely and the land was sold. ”
“It’s a mall now, right?” Jake asks.
Another nod from Mama. “The company that bought Front Range was Ashborne Holdings. They’re a New York company who buy struggling businesses and strip them for parts, making a profit in the process.
And anyone in their way is crushed, like Coach Allen’s brother and his family, who are still struggling to make ends meet. ”
“And they’ve just bought the Stormhawks,” Dylan says with the same anger and hurt in his voice that’s crowding me. “What the hell were the Huberts thinking?”
I sigh. “That’s what I want to know. Why did the Huberts sell in the first place, and what do Ashborne Holdings want with the Stormhawks?”
Mama looks equally horrified. “I don’t know. But if they follow the same pattern as Front Range and no doubt hundreds of other businesses they’ve bought, we should assume they’ll strip and sell and not give a damn what gets destroyed in the process.”
“I can’t believe this,” Dylan says, jaw clenching.
Izzy leans forward looking just as furious as Dylan. “According to the articles online, Grayson Ashborne is in real estate, right? I bet the training ground is worth a lot of money if he tears it down and builds apartment blocks.”
I open the Red Zone page and read the comments flooding in beneath the article I just shared. “Fans are as worried as we are. There’s already talk of a protest outside the stadium later this week.”
Mama shakes her head. “Commendable. But it won’t do any good. The likes of Grayson Ashborne won’t care about the fans.”
Jake drops his head into his hands. “So he cuts back the community outreach and sells the training ground, but what about the team?”
Mama squeezes Jake’s arm. “We don’t know, honey. My guess would be that the team will limp on, but he’ll start making trades of our best players.”
Jake looks up, and the sadness in his eyes hurts to see. “I’ve got two good years left if I don’t get injured. I don’t wanna play anywhere else.”
“Chase won’t, either,” Dylan says. “But you know as well as I do, it won’t be your choice.”
My shoulders tighten another notch. I hate seeing how much this news is destroying this family.
The Stormhawks mean everything to them, as well as to me.
Dylan was drafted to the Stormhawks straight from college and spent his entire career in the team.
He might be a rancher now, but he’s still involved in their community outreach program, giving underprivileged kids access to football and coaching.
I can tell by the worry in his eyes, he’s thinking of all the kids and families who are going to suffer when the program gets shut down.
And Jake and Chase won’t get to play side by side anymore, and could be sent anywhere in the country, far away from Oakwood Ranch and home and family. It isn’t right.
“Rookies will get rushed into starting roles because it’s cheaper, and we’ll be left exposed and torn apart every game,” I add, a lump forming in my throat. The Stormhawks might survive on paper. But they’ll never be the heart of Denver again once Grayson Ashborne is through with them.
We fall silent, lost to our emotions and spiraling thoughts. I drink my coffee, trying to process what the future is going to look like and failing.
Izzy swipes her phone. “He doesn’t look much like the devil, but I guess that’s the point, right?”
She turns the screen of her phone to show us a photo of Grayson Ashborne.
I freeze.
My mouth drops open.
My breath catches in my lungs as I stare at the photo, brain malfunctioning.
New York billionaire, ruthless businessman, new majority owner of the Stormhawks, and…
“You have got to be kidding me!”
All eyes turn to me.
“What is it?” Izzy asks.
“That’s the guy!”
Dylan looks from the screen back to me. “What guy?”
Jake snaps his fingers. “From the bar.”
“He was the guy who helped out last night,” I hiss.
Izzy gasps. “Grayson Ashborne was the hot guy? Why was he at The Hay Barn?”
I don’t have an answer. The only thing I know for sure is that Grayson Ashborne is currently the most hated man in Denver. And I’m the idiot who let him behind my bar.