Chapter 13
Early October
Kyla climbed the stairs two at a time, the old pine shifting under each step, portfolio braced tight against her ribs. The air upstairs carried grain dust and the lingering trace of stale coffee, sharp and familiar.
Her boots struck hard on the final steps. The boardroom door stood half-open, letting in a slice of wind and the dry sweetness of October fields.
Inside, two tables bore stacks of documents and mismatched chairs marked the worn floor. A copy machine churned behind a thin partition, pushing out invoices in steady rhythm.
Titus stood at the far end of the table, shoulders squared beneath a navy shirt. The tie sat tight at his throat, the knot drawn higher than comfort. His jaw showed the rough edge of missed shaves. His attention stayed fixed on the legal pages in front of him.
She took him in without thinking. The set of his stance. The tension in his neck. The way his shoulders carried strain he refused to shift. He looked the same way he had riding through floodwater, reins locked in his grip.
She stopped that line of thought before it settled. This room was not a stage. He was not a performance. Neither was she.
Kyla stepped inside and closed the door with care. She crossed the room, stepping around an abandoned mug, and placed her portfolio on the table. The contract came out in one motion, edges crisp, ink stark under the morning light. The stack carried a presence that had nothing to do with size.
She set one pen down and angled it toward him. Then she took the chair beside him, not across, not touching. She stayed close enough to matter.
He stayed standing until the last possible moment. His breath stayed shallow. His hand hovered above the page.
Kyla reached across the empty stretch of wood and closed her fingers around his wrist. His skin ran hot under her palm, pulse uneven beneath her thumb. She pressed lightly, not urging, not pulling, only making sure he felt her there.
His grip tightened around the pen. He glanced toward her, tension rising along his collar. She did not move her hand.
The silence stretched. The clock on the wall marked each second. A car idled somewhere below. Voices drifted up from the street, softened by glass.
She stayed steady. His forearm carried a small tremor. If she let go, he would either pull back or push through alone. Neither would hold.
She leaned in just enough for him to catch the scent of vanilla from her skin.
His jaw tightened, then eased. The contract lay between them, the blank lines waiting.
Kyla looked at the page, then at him. No challenge showed in her expression.
She offered only a quiet insistence that he not carry it alone.
Her thumb pressed once more against his wrist.
Stay.
Alex McCray took the head of the table, clipboard angled toward him, pen tapping once against a page marked with numbers and soil-stained edges. Kyla kept her hand in place on Titus’s wrist as Alex began, his voice even and direct.
“Feed prices run high through March. If diversification doesn’t carry, you both feel it.”
His gaze moved from Kyla to Titus and back again, measuring, waiting for hesitation. Under her fingers, Titus’s pulse jumped. Not enough for anyone else to see. Enough for her.
The contract shifted a fraction beneath his hand. The future they had written into those pages pressed close, no room left for distance. Their names sat side by side in print, waiting to be made real.
Alex leaned forward, chair legs moving across the floor. “Together, you come in second east of Billings. Brooks and Lee. That’s what goes on the trucks, the bins, the contracts. If I need to lean on an old rancher to make space, I do it. You tell me if that’s a problem.”
Kyla heard her name carried in his voice, unfamiliar in this setting, shaped by someone else’s expectations.
Beside her, Titus straightened, tension running the length of his spine.
His jaw set hard. His free hand hovered above the pen, thumb dragging once across his palm.
Pride sat visible in the lift of his chin.
The question stayed between them without needing words. Who bends. Who stands.
Her grip tightened. His forearm flexed under her hand as Alex moved through projections, numbers laid out without regard for history or habit. Titus’s body carried the pull to step back, to draw a line and keep it. She felt it in the set of his muscles, in the uneven rhythm under her fingers.
For a moment, she measured the possibility. He could pull away. He could stand and leave the rest behind.
He did not.
Kyla pressed her thumb into his wrist, firm enough to register. Stay with me. Not as a demand. As a choice.
From the outside, it would read as nothing more than closeness, her hand partly hidden by the spread of papers. No one needed to understand the message inside it.
Alex flipped to the next page, fingers marked by work that never left him. “Two signatures. Brand affidavit. You both sure you want your names tied together on every load that leaves this place? This doesn’t come apart easy.”
Titus’s breath caught low in his chest. Kyla kept her hand steady. Around the table, someone shifted in their chair. Another cleared their throat. No one interrupted.
A breeze moved through the open window, lifting the corner of one page.
Sunlight cut across the contract, sharpening the lines where Lee met Brooks.
Kyla held where she was. She felt the conflict in him, the pull between standing alone and stepping forward with her beside him. She did not try to ease it.
She stayed.
Alex set his pen down against the clipboard. “You both in, or you walking?”
Kyla did not look away from the page. Then she turned her head toward Titus. They would sign together, or not at all.
Alex nudged the stack forward, a faint smile edging into place. “Welcome to the co-op, Mrs. Brooks.”
The title settled into the room, carried in plain tone, without ceremony. Titus drew in a sharp breath under her hand. His grip tightened around the pen, then paused before the paper. Color rose along his neck.
Kyla did not react outwardly. For a moment, the names she had carried slipped through her thoughts. Lee. Ky. Chef. Each one earned in a different room, under different expectations.
She did not correct him.
She shifted her hand, sliding her fingers beneath Titus’s, threading through his grip. Her palm pressed against his, steady and clear. He squeezed back. The tension in his arm eased.
The name Alex had given her remained where it was, unchallenged, unclaimed out loud, but not denied. Kyla let it settle. Not because it erased who she had been, but because it marked where she stood now.
Across the table, Alex watched for resistance. Kyla tightened her hold once more. Titus’s thumb moved across her knuckle, a small motion that steadied him as much as it did her.
No one spoke. The room carried only the sound of paper shifting and breath evening out. She took in what it meant, one moment at a time. He did not need to say anything for it to matter. They were already in it.
Titus moved first. His grip stayed firm. Ink pressed into the page, his name set down in a stroke that carried the same force he used on reins and fence wire. Brooks stood there in black, unchanged in form, changed in what it meant.
Kyla felt the shift through his wrist before she saw it in the ink. She released him only long enough to draw the pen toward herself. Her hand stayed steady. She wrote her name in one motion, the letters clear and unapologetic, Lee placed beside his without shrinking to fit.
Two names. Same line. She set the pen down.
Air moved easier through her chest. Not relief in a rush. Something quieter. Something that settled in place and stayed.
Alex gathered the pages, scanning once more before stacking them with a practiced hand. He gave Titus a short clap on the shoulder as he rose.
“That’s it,” he said. “We’ll get copies done.”
His footsteps carried down the hall, the door closing behind him with a soft click. The room emptied without ceremony.
Kyla stayed where she was for a moment, listening to the low churn of machinery below, the steady rhythm of work that never stopped for signatures or contracts. Dust drifted through the beam of sunlight.
She turned back to Titus. He stared at the page, his throat working over something he did not voice. The set of his shoulders loosened a fraction. She reached for him again, her hand finding his without hesitation.
He looked up. She leaned in and brushed her mouth against his, soft and brief. The taste carried ink, breath, and everything they had just made real.
He did not pull away. He met her gaze instead. It was enough.
Outside, the door opened onto hard sunlight and open air. Kyla stepped out first, blinking once as the brightness settled. The yard stretched wide, trucks idling, voices carrying across gravel and metal. The scent of hay and diesel sat thick in the air.
Titus followed close behind. They moved a few steps before he caught her elbow, stopping her at the edge of the loading dock. He turned her toward him, his grip steady.
She let him. His hands came up to her face, callused fingers resting along her jaw. His thumbs traced once along her cheekbones, grounding, measuring. She held his gaze. No hesitation. No question.
He lowered his head and kissed her. His mouth moved over hers with intention, slow enough to be seen, clear enough to leave no room for doubt. This was not the urgency of closed doors or borrowed time. This belonged in daylight.
Kyla stepped closer, her hands settling at his hips, fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt. The world continued around them. A loader shifted in the distance. Someone laughed near the trucks. No one interrupted.
He broke the kiss only to draw breath, his forehead resting against hers.
“Brand’s official now,” he said, voice low.
She adjusted his collar with one hand, smoothing it back into place. “Good,” she answered. “I signed my name to it.”
A hint of a smile pulled at his mouth. They stayed like that for a moment longer, close enough to feel the steady rhythm between them, neither stepping back. Then they moved.
Side by side, hands brushing before settling together, their pace matched without thought. The yard opened in front of them, work already waiting, the day moving forward without pause. Kyla lifted her chin and stepped into it. This time, she did not stand alone.