5 #2
“The guest suites?”
“No. You’ll stay in the women’s bunk house.”
“All right.”
“Talia.”
Her breath caught at the sound of her name.
No Miss Monroe.
No reporter.
Talia.
“Yes?”
“You embarrassed?”
Heat moved up her throat. “About what?”
“That they figured out your plot.”
The man had no mercy.
“Yes,” she said, because lying now would be pointless. “I’m embarrassed.”
“Good.”
Her eyes widened. “Good?”
“Means you know it was wrong.”
The words stung.
But they did not feel cruel.
That made them sting worse.
“I know,” she said quietly.
“Then we can start there.”
The line went dead.
Talia sat frozen, phone still pressed to her ear.
Then slowly, she lowered it to her desk.
For several seconds, she did nothing.
She only sat there with her heart beating too fast and her face still warm, caught somewhere between humiliation and excitement.
They knew.
Luke and Edye knew.
Gordon knew.
Her clean little plan had been pulled apart, inspected, and handed back to her with terms. She had never been good at lying. Talia had no idea why she ever thought she could pull it off. They had found out via a background check.
She should have felt defeated.
She did feel defeated.
But beneath that, bright and dangerous, was excitement.
Because Gordon Windgate had called her himself.
Because he had not hidden.
Because he had taken control of his own story before she could turn him into a subject from a distance.
Because he wanted her back at Stanley Ranch.
No.
Not wanted.
Had agreed to allow.
There was a difference.
She needed to remember that.
Talia grabbed her notebook, her phone, and the folder of preliminary research from the edge of her desk. Then she stood and hurried toward Martin’s office.
His door was halfway open.
She knocked once, barely waiting.
Martin looked up from his computer. “Tell me you’ve got something.”
“I’ve got something.”
His attention sharpened. “Come in.”
She stepped inside and shut the door behind her.
Martin leaned back in his chair. “Stanley Ranch?”
“Yes.”
“They offer you the admin job?”
“No.”
His expression flattened. “Talia.”
“They figured it out.”
He stared at her.
She lifted a hand. “Before you start, Gordon Windgate just called me directly.”
That stopped him.
“Gordon called you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He’s granting me the interview.”
Martin sat forward. “On record?”
“On record.”
“What changed?”
“He changed it.” Talia dropped into the chair across from him. “He knows I was deceptive. Luke and Edye ran a background check. They know I work here. They are not hiring me for the admin job.”
Martin’s mouth tightened. “Not surprising.”
“No. But Gordon is willing to talk. Under conditions.”
“What conditions?”
She ticked them off. “I go back to Stanley Ranch as a reporter, not an applicant. I stay there until the feature is complete. Everyone will be civil, but I don’t interview anyone about him unless he agrees to it.
He is my source of information. I can ask him anything, but he can refuse to answer.
He reviews before submission for factual accuracy and boundary concerns. ”
Martin’s brows climbed. “He wants review?”
“Not approval. Review. I made that clear.”
“And he agreed?”
“Yes.”
Martin leaned back again, studying her.
Talia waited.
She knew how this looked. A lot of access, but also a lot of control from the source. Still, it was better than nothing. Better than trying to sneak around a ranch full of people who now knew exactly what she was.
Better than losing the story entirely.
And if Gordon truly agreed to answer anything, even with the right to refuse, that gave her a path.
A narrow one.
But a path.
Martin tapped one finger on the desk. “You said you’d stay at the ranch?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Until the story is complete.”
His eyes narrowed. “That could be useful. Immersion. Stronger atmosphere. Better detail.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“What about the limits?”
“I’ll work within them.”
“You don’t get soft.”
Talia stiffened. “I know my job.”
“Do you?” Martin’s voice was not harsh, but it was pointed. “Because from where I’m sitting, Stanley Ranch already got under your skin enough for them to catch you.”
Her pride flared. “They caught me because Luke Stanley runs background checks.”
“And because you underestimated them.”
She had no answer for that.
Martin nodded as if she had spoken. “You want the feature?”
“Yes.”
“You want the job?”
Talia’s throat tightened.
The job.
The permanent position. The chance she had been chasing. The reason she had driven to Sunset Springs in the first place. The reason she had sat across from Luke and Edye pretending to be one kind of woman while being another.
“Yes,” she said. “I want it.”
“Then you have four weeks.”
Her pulse jumped. “Four?”
“Four weeks to get the story, write the feature, and prove this was worth the risk.”
“That’s tight.”
“It’s generous considering the first plan failed.”
Fair again.
Too much fairness in one day.
Martin leaned forward. “This can’t be a puff piece.
It also can’t be a hit job without substance.
I want clean reporting. Good detail. Tension.
History. The Windgate name. Why Gordon is at Stanley Ranch.
What the Stanleys are protecting and why.
If he’s taking control of the narrative, fine. Let him. Then show me what that means.”
Talia nodded slowly.
“And Talia?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t get dazzled by the ranch.”
Her mind flashed to the guest suites, Eli’s grin, Edye’s calm intelligence, Luke’s watchful eyes, the learning center, the helicopter, the unfinished cottages, the sense of an entire world growing behind one gate.
Too late, part of her whispered.
“I won’t,” she said.
Martin did not look convinced.
Neither was she.
“Go pack,” he said. “And buy boots if you don’t have any.”
Talia stared at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Of course.
Even Martin knew she was not dressed for ranch life.
She stood and gathered her things.
At the door, Martin said, “Four weeks.”
She looked back. “I heard you.”
“Bring me something worth printing.”
Talia nodded. “I will.”
She left his office and walked back to her desk with her mind already moving through lists.
Clothes. Recorder. Notebooks. Laptop. Research files.
Chargers. Questions. Boundaries. Timeline.
The drive to Sunset Springs. The call to Luke’s office.
The fact that she would have to face Edye Stanley knowing she had lied.
The fact that Luke Stanley would probably look at her like he had already measured the size of her mistakes and filed them alphabetically.
And Gordon.
Gordon Windgate.
The man in the driveway.
The man on the phone.
The man taking back his own story.
Talia sat at her desk and opened a blank document. For a moment, she only stared at the cursor blinking on the screen.
Stanley Ranch was not just a workplace.
She understood that now.
Not fully, maybe. But enough.
It was a family.
A chosen one. A complicated one. A protective one.
That made her mission messier.
Because families did not behave like institutions.
They loved. They guarded. They remembered. They forgave slowly. They punished quietly. They fed people who embarrassed themselves, apparently, and then handed them rules.
Talia looked down at her phone.
No more pretending.
Gordon had said that.
She wondered if he knew how dangerous a condition that was.
Not only for the story.
For her.
Because pretending had carried Talia a long way.
And tomorrow, she would drive back to Stanley Ranch without it.