Chapter 7
Mid-July
Rain struck the tin roof hard enough to blur everything into a single, relentless sound. Kyla stood outside the feed shed with her boots in her hands, flannel soaked through, water running down her arms and pooling at her collarbones.
Mud pressed cold against the soles of her feet, but she stayed where she was, braced and unmoving, because leaving now would mean backing down from something she had already said out loud.
The bank envelope sagged in her grip, red ink bleeding along one corner. The paper softened under the rain, edges curling, the weight of it shifting in her hand as if it might fall apart before she could force him to take it.
Her fingers stung where she had cut them earlier, the small wounds reopening, sharp under the steady downpour. She had not planned this moment in any careful way. She had followed instinct and stubbornness instead, and now both stood exposed with no room left for retreat.
The door creaked open.
Light spilled across the gravel for a brief second before Titus stepped out and the glow disappeared behind him. His shirt clung to his shoulders and arms, dark with water and work, his hat pulled low.
He stopped a few paces away, boots settling into the mud, his presence solid and familiar in a way that made everything in her chest tighten.
Kyla forced her voice steady. “You always pick Montana for your water features?”
The words were flat. She heard it the second they left her mouth.
Titus’s gaze dropped to the envelope. He did not move toward her. He did not reach for it. He only stood there, looking at it as if the answer sat written across the bleeding ink.
She tightened her grip until the paper bent. “I brought a loan. It’s mine.” The rain swallowed part of her voice, so she pushed harder. “Brooklyn money. No strings except a signature. It keeps you current. It buys you another month.”
He shook his head once.
“No.”
The refusal was immediate.
Kyla held her ground, even as something sharp moved through her chest. “This isn’t pity. You would do the same for me.”
He stepped back instead of forward. The distance widened, small but unmistakable. Rain ran off the brim of his hat in steady lines. “I said no.”
Her jaw tightened. “So that’s it? Pride keeps the lights on now?”
He did not answer. His gaze shifted past her shoulder, fixed somewhere down the road, as if looking at her directly would make this harder than he intended it to be.
She closed the space he had made, boots sliding slightly in the mud. “You think I care about your pride more than your ranch?” Her voice sharpened before she could stop it. “More than you?”
He met her eyes then. His expression stayed tight, closed off, but there was strain there she recognized. “Not yours to fix, Chef.”
The words pressed into her harder than the rain.
Kyla swallowed, anger rising fast to cover everything else. “You’re a damn idiot, Brooks.”
He blinked once, slow, rain tracking down his face into his beard. For a brief second she thought he might say something else, might shift, might meet her halfway. Instead, he shook his head again and turned.
He walked away without hesitation.
His back stayed broad and steady as he moved through the rain, shoulders set, his shape pulling out of reach with each step until the darkness took him completely.
Kyla did not move.
The envelope sagged further in her hand, nearly folding in on itself. Water soaked through her clothes, down into her boots, into her skin. She looked down at the smeared ink, then lifted her gaze toward the low sky.
That had been her last play.
The rain answered with the same steady force it had held from the start.
Two days later, Kyla stood at the prep table in Lola’s kitchen and worked through onions with steady, controlled strokes.
The first cut burned her eyes. The second burned worse.
By the third, the difference stopped mattering.
Piles built in front of her, each one pushed aside as she reached for the next.
Her phone lay face-down beside the notebook. She did not turn it over.
The faucet ran in the background while she rinsed and reset.
Carrots followed. Then celery. Then more onions.
Her shoulders tightened with repetition, muscles working past fatigue into habit.
Each time she paused, even for a breath, her attention pulled toward the phone before she forced it back to the work in front of her.
Nothing lit up.
She wiped her cheek with her sleeve and kept going. The burn scar along her wrist caught her eye when she shifted her grip. She pressed her thumb against it once, then picked up the knife again.
Work stayed easier than anything else.
By night, the kitchen filled with labeled containers stacked in clean rows. Salt worked into the small cuts along her fingers, sharp and persistent. She leaned over the sink and scrubbed her forearms, watching the water run pink before it cleared.
Her reflection in the glass above the sink looked drawn tight. Hair slipped loose from its knot. Her mouth held a straight line. Her eyes stayed sharp.
She shut the water off and dried her hands. She did not reach for the phone.
* * *
Day three stretched longer than it should have.
Kyla moved through prep lists, orders, and deliveries with the same steady focus she used when everything mattered and nothing could slip.
Her voice cut through the kitchen when it needed to.
When it did not, she let silence do the work. Her hands never stopped moving.
No one saw anything break. No one heard her voice change.
By the time midnight came, the last box was sealed, the lights were off, and the kitchen stood clean in a way that did nothing to ease what sat underneath.
The next day, dusk settled over the back lot, turning the gravel dark with moisture and shadow. Kyla dragged the last cooler toward the trailer, arms trembling from the effort. The plastic handle bit into her palm. She adjusted her grip and kept moving.
Jonah’s footsteps sounded behind her. “Chef?”
She did not turn. “Walk-in. Second shelf. Take what you need.”
He hesitated long enough for her to notice. Then he spoke too quickly. “Good thing we’ve got enough. Don’t need another mess with the bank calling the note after the rodeo—”
He stopped. Too late.
Kyla’s hands locked on the cooler handle. The plastic creaked under the pressure.
Tomorrow. Not later. Not distant. Tomorrow.
She set the cooler down with care that cost her more than dropping it would have. “Thanks for telling me.”
Jonah muttered something and backed away.
Kyla stayed where she was, eyes lifting toward the drive out of habit more than expectation. Nothing came. No headlights. No truck. No movement at all. She stood there for a second longer than she needed to, grip still tight, before forcing herself to move again.
That night, rest did not come. Kyla lay in bed with the sheets tangled around her legs, heat clinging to her skin. She shifted once, then again, then pressed her face into the pillow.
Sleep did not come. Her body remembered too much.
It remembered the solid press of him when she had nothing left. It remembered the strength in his hands, the steadiness in him when everything else had gone unsteady. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth and breathed through it.
Her phone sat on the nightstand, dark except for the steady charging light. She reached once. Stopped. Pulled her hand back.
No messages.
No calls.
She turned onto her side and stayed there, counting her breathing until the numbers blurred.
* * *
Dawn came gray and thin. Kyla stood at the sink and ran cold water over a cut on her thumb until the sting dulled. She dried her hands and moved through the kitchen, finishing what remained.
Coolers sealed. Boxes taped. Doors checked. Twice.
She stepped outside, loaded the last of her supplies into the car, and paused once more at the edge of the yard. The drive stayed empty. She got in anyway.
The engine turned over. She left the radio off and rolled the windows down, letting the morning air hit her face hard enough to keep her steady. No tears came. She drove.
Each mile stripped something away. Anger faded first. The edge of it followed. What remained settled deeper. At the stop sign outside town, she slowed and looked once toward the road that led to him.
Her hands tightened on the wheel.
Then she drove.
The fairgrounds stretched wide ahead, already alive with movement. Kyla pulled into the lot and cut the engine. She stayed there for a moment, hands resting on the wheel while everything around her kept moving.
Then her gaze lifted. Past the trailers. Past the pens. To the line of chutes.
A figure worked along the rail, back turned, one arm braced while the other drove a wrench down into metal. Broad shoulders. Familiar stance. No mistaking him.
Titus.
He did not look up.
Kyla’s grip tightened once before she forced it loose. The distance between them was not far. It felt like it was.
She opened the door and stepped out, boots striking the gravel with a force that traveled up her legs. No reaction followed. Nothing she could see from where she stood.
Fine.
She pulled her bag from the backseat, shut the door, and set her path toward the catering tent without looking again. If he wanted distance, he could keep it. Her jaw set as she walked, something inside her settling into place. She was done waiting for him to close it.