Chapter 7
BLAINE
S he likes me.
She'd said it herself, standing in the barn with Starlight calm between us. I like you, Blaine. I do.
And then she'd told me about her boyfriend. The long-distance relationship that wasn't really a relationship anymore. The heart emojis instead of phone calls. The loneliness in her voice when she'd said yeah, it is.
I'd wanted to pull her into my arms. Wanted to tell her she deserved better. Wanted to be better, for her.
Instead, I'd let her go. Because she wasn't mine to hold. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But God, I wanted her to be.
I'd never felt like this before. Not once.
All those women in San Francisco—the ones who'd looked at me and seen dollar signs, the ones who'd wanted the lifestyle more than the life—none of them had made me feel like Caitlin did.
Like I wanted to be a better version of myself just because she might be watching.
It was inconvenient as hell. And I couldn't stop thinking about it.
Saturday morning, I threw myself into work.
It was the only thing that helped. When my hands were busy and my muscles were aching, I didn't have time to think about Caitlin. About the way she'd looked at me in the dim light of the barn. About the crack in her voice when she'd talked about Preston.
Physical labor had become my therapy out here. Back in San Francisco, I'd had a gym membership I barely used and a therapist I saw every other month. Here, I had fence posts and feed bags and a tractor that refused to cooperate. It wasn't elegant, but it worked.
Jake found me in the equipment shed, trying to get the old tractor started.
"You've been out here since five," he said. "Have you eaten anything?"
"I had coffee."
"Coffee isn't food."
"Coffee is a food group." I turned the key again. The engine coughed, sputtered, and died. "Come on, you piece of?—"
"Blaine." Jake's hand landed on my shoulder. "Talk to me."
I sat back, wiping sweat from my forehead. The morning was already warm, promising another hot day. "Nothing to talk about."
"Right. That's why you've been acting like a man possessed since last night." He leaned against the tractor wheel. "Something happened with Caitlin."
It wasn't a question.
"She has a boyfriend."
"I know."
"She told me she likes me. And then she told me about the boyfriend." I stared at the uncooperative engine. "He sounds like a jerk, Jake. Doesn't call her, doesn't visit, sends her heart emojis instead of actual words. She's lonely. I could see it."
"And you want to fix it."
"I want to be there for her. But I can't. Because she's not mine." I shook my head. "So I'm fixing the tractor instead."
Jake was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "She'll figure it out. Women like her—smart, independent—they don't stay in bad situations forever. They just need time to see it for themselves."
"And in the meantime?"
"In the meantime, you be her friend. You be the guy who shows up. And you fix the damn tractor." He almost smiled. "Speaking of which—the tractor's been acting up for a while, actually. Hector mentioned it last week. Said it was running fine and then just... stopped."
"Great. One more thing falling apart."
"Speaking of things falling apart—" Jake pulled out his phone, scrolling through something. "I've been going through the ranch finances. The expense structure doesn't look right."
That got my attention. "What do you mean?"
"Profits took a big hit this past year. And when I dug into it, I found way more spending on supplies and repairs than there should be. Equipment replacements, vet bills, feed costs—all higher than the year before. Significantly higher."
"Could be bad luck. Things break."
"Could be." Jake didn't sound convinced. "But Hector said last season should have been strong. Good bookings, healthy mares. Instead, the numbers show a ranch bleeding money on things that keep going wrong."
A cold feeling settled in my stomach. "You think someone's causing the problems on purpose."
"I think it's worth looking into."
Before I could respond, Tre came jogging around the corner of the shed, looking unusually serious.
"We've got a problem," he said. "The north fence is down. Looks like someone cut the wire."
We drove out to the north pasture in Jake's 4Runner, Hector riding shotgun with a grim expression.
The fence was definitely down. Three sections of wire, cleanly severed. Not broken from age or weather—cut. Deliberately.
"Could have been kids," Tre suggested. "Vandalism."
Hector shook his head. "Kids don't come out here. Too far from town. And they wouldn't know where to cut to cause the most damage."
"Most damage?" I asked.
"This fence borders Cole's property." Hector pointed toward the neighboring ranch. "Vernon Cole. He's been after Sierra Sol for years. Wanted to buy it from your grandmother, but she wouldn't sell."
"You think Cole did this?"
"I think it's convenient." Hector's jaw was tight. "Our horses get loose, wander onto his land, he claims damages. Or worse—one of them gets hurt, and he's not liable because they were trespassing."
I stared at the cut wire, the cold feeling in my stomach spreading. "This isn't the first time something's gone wrong, is it?"
Hector was quiet for a long moment. He walked along the fence line, examining the cuts, his face unreadable. When he finally spoke, his voice was lower than usual.
"There have been... incidents. Last season, we had feed go bad. Lost two weeks of nutrition for the pregnant mares. Before that, the water pump failed—supposedly from age, but it was only three years old."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I wasn't sure. Could have been bad luck. Could have been coincidence." He met my eyes. "But this? This is deliberate."
"How long has Cole been doing this?"
Hector's expression darkened. "Started about two years ago. Right after your grandfather passed. Cole came to Mae with an offer—lowball, insulting. She told him this land would never belong to anyone outside the family." A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "She used some words I won't repeat."
"That sounds like Grandma."
"Your grandfather would have done the same.
Earl never backed down from a fight—not once in forty years.
" Hector looked out toward Cole's property, his jaw tight.
"He used to say that land isn't just dirt.
It's blood and sweat and generations of people who refused to quit.
You don't sell that. Not for any price."
I thought about Grandpa Earl. The stories I remembered from childhood visits—how he'd built this place from nothing, how he'd weathered droughts and recessions and everything else the world threw at him.
He'd been a quiet man, not one for speeches.
But he'd had a core of steel that nothing could bend.
I wondered if I had any of that in me.
Jake was already taking photos of the damage. "We should document everything. File a report with the sheriff."
"Sheriff won't do anything," Hector said. "Vernon Cole plays golf with him every Sunday. Has since they were kids."
"Then we find another way." I crouched down, examining the cuts. Clean. Precise. Someone had taken their time. "If Cole wants this ranch, he's going to have to go through me to get it."
"Blaine—" Jake started.
"No. This is my family's legacy. My grandfather built this place from nothing. My grandmother kept it running for five years after he died." I stood up, anger replacing the cold. "I'm not going to let some neighbor sabotage us into selling."
Hector studied me for a long moment. Something shifted in his expression—respect, maybe, or at least the beginning of it.
"Your grandfather said something like that once," he said quietly. "When Cole's father tried the same thing, thirty years ago. Different tactics, same goal." He nodded slowly. "The apple doesn't fall far."
Coming from Hector, that was the highest compliment I'd ever received.
"We'll need to increase patrols," he said. "Check the fences every day. Keep an eye on the equipment."
"What about cameras?" Tre suggested. "Security system?"
"This is a ranch, not a tech company," Hector said.
"I can make it both." Tre pulled out his phone. "Motion-activated cameras, solar-powered. We can cover the main entry points, the equipment shed, the breeding barn. If anyone comes on the property who shouldn't be here, we'll know."
Hector looked skeptical, but he didn't argue. Progress.
I looked at Jake and Tre—my friends, who'd dropped everything to help me with this insane venture. Who were now talking about security systems and patrols like they'd been ranchers their whole lives.
"Thank you," I said. "Both of you. For being here."
"Where else would we be?" Jake clapped me on the shoulder. "Now let's fix this fence before any horses decide to go exploring."
We spent the morning repairing the damage, stringing new wire, reinforcing the posts.
It was hard work—the kind that left your hands raw and your back aching—but there was something satisfying about it.
Something real. Tre complained constantly, of course, but he never stopped working.
Jake moved with quiet efficiency, anticipating what needed to be done before anyone asked.
And Hector... Hector watched us with an expression I couldn't quite read.
At one point, I caught him showing Tre how to properly tension the wire—actually demonstrating, hands-on, instead of just barking orders. Tre listened without a single sarcastic comment, which might have been a first.
"You're holding the pliers wrong," Hector told me, coming up beside me. "Grip it like this. Use your whole hand, not just your fingers."
I adjusted my grip. The wire tightened smoothly, no slipping.
"Better," he said. Which, from Hector, was practically a standing ovation.
By noon, the fence was solid again. Not pretty, but functional.
"Not bad for a bunch of city boys," Hector said, surveying our work. It was the closest thing to a compliment he'd ever given us as a group.