Page 40 of Forbidden Rancher's Return
"I'm right." He shakes his head. "And you just walk back in here and she lets you and I'm supposed to be fine with that?"
"No. You're supposed to be angry. You've earned it."
"Don't tell me what I've earned."
"Then tell me what you need."
The question lands different from anything else I've said. Beck's mouth opens. Closes. His hands go still on the hat brim for the first time since he walked in.
"I need to know you won't do it again," he says. And the anger is gone from his voice now. What's left is worse. Fear. The fear of a man who loves two people and has already lost both once and doesn't know if he can survive it happening again.
"I'm not leaving," I say. "Not this ridge. Not her. Not you."
Beck holds my gaze for a long moment. Searching. Maybe for the boy he used to know. Maybe for the man he hopes I've become.
"If this goes wrong," he says. "If she gets hurt."
He doesn't finish it. Doesn't need to.
"I know," I say.
"You don't." His voice drops. "You don't know what it cost her. And if you break that, I won't forgive it. Not this time."
"I'm not asking you to forgive anything," I say. "I'm asking you to watch."
Beck is quiet for a long time. The rain fills the silence.
He puts his hat back on. Something moves through his face that he doesn't have words for. The grief of a man who loves two people and spent eight years angry at both for the wrong reasons.
He turns toward the door.
"Be careful," he says. To both of us. To neither of us. To the room.
The door closes behind him.
The kitchen holds the silence for three full seconds.
Then Calla exhales. Sharp. Controlled.
"He's scared," she says quietly.
"Yes."
"He thinks you'll leave again."
"I know."
She turns toward the window. Arms folded across her chest.
"He's not wrong to be afraid. Not about you." A pause. "About the pattern. People leave. That's what this mountain teaches you."
"I'm not a pattern."
She looks at me. Her eyes are too bright, and her jaw is too tight, and she is working hard to hold the expression she wears for the world.
I see underneath it. I always have.
"Prove it," she says.
