Lucas
Jesse came into the kitchen as I swallowed the pills dry, the chalky taste sticking in my throat. He didn’t say anything at first. Just stood there, one hand braced on the counter as if the room might tilt without it.
“What are the pills for?” he asked me.
I capped the bottle and shoved it into my pocket.
“Old injury,” I said.
He met my eyes, steady. “Dining hall,” he said eventually. “Meeting.”
“No.”
“I wasn’t asking, City.”
He waited as I grabbed my coat, and I fell in beside him as we walked.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, but he shook his head. Oh, man of few words.
Unless, of course, he was throwing words in anger at me in a hallway before he gave me an orgasm. The memory flashed anyway—hands, breath, heat—sharp and unwanted, barging in at the worst possible moment. I ground my teeth, irritated at myself for it. This wasn’t the time.
I stopped and grabbed his arm. “If this is business, I need to go back for my laptop.”
He glanced at me then, his lips thin, eyes bright. “You don’t need it.”
“I need my figures—”
He kept walking, waited at the door, and I was torn between running back to the house for my stuff and following him, but his expression was so bleak that I was drawn closer and went inside first.
The hall was already full when we got there.
Gunner and Jake leaned against the back wall, arms folded, boots crossed at the ankle in that casual way men get when they’re trying not to look like they’re bracing for impact.
Miguel stood near Ruth, shoulders rounded, eyes down.
Colt straddled a chair the wrong way round, phone in his hand, thumb flicking the screen, though he looked up the second we walked in.
Everyone straightened, attention snapping to Jesse, and my gut tightened.
For a split second, I wondered if I’d misread everything—if this was some kind of group defense, a line being drawn about the ranch, about selling, about all the numbers I didn’t have in my head because I really needed to go back for my notebook at least.
“This gonna take long, boss?” Colt asked, half-grinning, half-hopeful. “I’ve got fences to mend before dark.”
Ruth frowned, clearly confused, glancing between Jesse and the rest of us as if she’d missed a step somewhere. Miguel didn’t look up at all.
Jesse stopped at the head of the room. I stayed quiet at his side, headache pulsing behind my eyes, watching the people who made this place run—cowboys in worn jackets and dust-ground boots, people who knew the land better than any spreadsheet ever could—and waited to see which way the blow was going to fall.
Jesse cleared his throat. He stood with his hands loose at his sides as if he’d already accepted whatever reaction came next.
“I owe you all an apology,” he said.
That did it. The mood in the room shifted, subtle but immediate. Colt stopped scrolling. Gunner was worried. Ruth’s frown deepened.
Jesse glanced at me, quick but deliberate, and nodded.
He had the room in his grip without raising his voice, control radiating from him in a way that tugged low and unwelcome.
I shut it down just as fast. This wasn’t the moment.
Not even close. So, I guessed this apology included me too, given it was me he was looking at.
“The others know this, but in the accident where Miguel was in the barn, and Walter got him out, my dad, Abel Knox, was in there as well. Maybe drunk, possibly using a heater he shouldn’t have, maybe the one who started a fire.”
I stiffened. “He what now?” This was all news to me—although other than inheriting this place from an absent-from-my-life grandfather, I hadn’t bothered to dig. He’d had a heart attack after a barn fire; that was the end of the story for me. “That’s an awful lot of maybes you have there, Jesse.”
Jesse nodded. “No one knows for sure. He came off badly and got a brain injury from a falling beam. He’s got something like dementia from a TBI.” He gestured at me. “A traumatic brain injury, I mean.”
“I know what a TBI is.”
Given the way no one else seemed surprised, this was a truth that maybe no one outside of the ranch knew.
“Was your dad arrested?”
“No one knew for sure what he’d done; we’re only guessing.”
“I was sleeping,” Miguel said. “I can’t place Abel inside.”
“We were so caught up with trying to get Walter help, and Dad seemed okay at first, even went home after getting stitches, and it was only a couple of days later he showed signs of the brain thing.” Jesse tapped his temple.
“It makes him worse than he ever was, and I’ve hidden my head in the sand and pretended I had it under control.
Then, I find out he’s been attacking Miguel, for the same homophobic shit he threw at my brother and would throw at me for every other supposed infraction he made up in his head. ”
Miguel lifted his head. Ruth’s hand came up to her mouth.
“I know what he’s capable of,” Jesse went on. His voice didn’t rise, didn’t crack, and that somehow made it worse. “I know he’s violent. I know he’s unpredictable. I know he’s the nastiest excuse for a human being I’ve ever had the misfortune to share blood with.”
He stopped, visibly upset, but not a single person said anything, not even me.
“And I let him hurt you, Miguel,” Jesse said.
“It’s okay, boss.”
“No, it’s not. He hurts with his words. With his fists. I let him walk onto this ranch as if he still had the right.” His shoulders hitched once, barely there. “I failed to protect you. All of you. And I let you down.”
No one spoke. The silence wasn’t hostile. It was stunned.
I stood there beside him—headache forgotten, my chest tight—and for one reckless second, I wanted to reach for him, steady him, kiss him—ridiculous, badly timed, and dangerous. I crushed the urge flat. This was not the moment.
“I’ve taken legal steps to take control of his medical care.” He paused again. “And I know you’ve been trying to help, to make things okay, and I… thank you… But this stops now, with me.”
Jake huffed. “We’re all here to—”
“This is on me, Jake. I need you to come to me if he starts anything, all of you, and you can trust that I will handle it. I don’t need you to keep secrets; I can handle this.
Leaving people vulnerable to him is on me.
I’m sorry.” He met each person’s gaze in turn, and one by one they nodded, and there were a few murmured, “Yes, boss.”
“Miguel, you need to report what happened, so it’s on record. And you, Lucas, you need to report what you saw.”
“No disrespect, boss, but what’s done is done,” Miguel said and met my gaze.
I was torn for about five seconds. I’d seen violence before—had been on the receiving end of it, learned the shape of it, the way it lived in a body long after the moment passed—but I’d never seen anything like the raw pain written across Jesse’s face now or the pleading in Miguel’s expression.
Jesse wasn’t bluster, control, or anger turned inward.
This was a man standing up in front of his people and taking ownership of every failure, every bruise he hadn’t stopped, every word he should have cut off sooner. And watching him do it made me proud.
“Agreed,” I said, and it was as if the room let out a collective sigh of relief. “As long as he stays off our property.”
Jesse nodded, still pale.
“So, can we go now?” Colt asked, already standing and placing his Stetson on his head. He crossed to Jesse and shook his hand. “Here if you need me, boss. You don’t have to carry it alone.”
One by one, everyone else did the same, and I watched them go, until only Ruth and I were left.
Ruth hesitated, hands twisting in front of her like she wasn’t sure she had the right. Then, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Jesse, quick and fierce.
He went rigid at first, as if he’d forgotten how to be touched. His shoulders were locked, spine straight, breath held. For a heartbeat, I thought he might pull away.
Then something gave.
He sagged into her a little, and Ruth murmured something I couldn’t hear. Jesse closed his eyes.
I stayed where I was. Every part of me wanted to close the distance anyway—to touch him, to kiss him, to anchor him—but I held myself still.
This wasn’t my moment to step into, and all too soon, Ruth backed away, and Jesse turned to me after she left.
It seemed as if he might have a lot to say, and I almost expected him to say he agreed to selling, it was that kind of moment.
Instead, he extended his hand, and I shook it.
“Thank you,” he said, then he left in a flurry of icy wind.
I didn’t give myself time to think. I followed him.
I rushed to catch up, and he was halfway to the house when I got close. “Wait!”
He stopped and turned, catching me as my hip twinged, and I lost balance.
Whatever control he’d been gripping had finally slipped.
The look on his face—raw, stripped bare, furious—hit me low and hard, and closing the distance, he kept a hand on me going into the house, and shutting the door behind us, then he scrubbed at his eyes, and let out a low groan.
“Jesse?” I wrapped my arms around him, something telling me he needed that show of support, and I was a tactile person, my emotions upside down.
He’d said his dad was probably something to do with my grandfather passing, at least indirectly, but it meant nothing when I saw the obvious pain in Jesse.
He kissed me, hard and fast, then stumbled back, heading for his room, and I didn’t even think when I followed him and pushed him against the nearest wall, mouth hot, gripping my shoulders, my chest, he rocked into me, and the sound he made was low and wrecked and went straight through me.
I should’ve let it go. Should’ve turned around, walked out, pretended the way my pulse jumped every time he got too close was stress or some other bullshit excuse. But I didn’t.
Instead, I stepped forward, close enough to smell the sweat and leather. His brown eyes burned into mine, all that frustration and want tangled together, and I knew—fuck, I knew—if I touched him, there’d be no going back.