Page 47 of Forbidden Rancher's Return
Beck's eyes move to me. Searching. Looking for doubt, for second thoughts, for the crack that tells him I've made a mistake.
He doesn't find one.
He exhales through his nose. Looks away. Looks back.
"All right," he says. "All right."
From Beck, that's everything. Not forgiveness. He's not there yet. Not approval. He may never be. But acceptance.
The grudging, hard-won acceptance of a man who loves his sister enough to stop standing in her way.
Rowan's hand presses slightly at my back. One small point of warmth.
I look up at him.
His eyes are already on me.
And above the tree line, above the ridge, a thin column of dark smoke begins to rise. Gray against the clear cold sky, climbing fast from the direction of Whispering Stream Ranch.
My stomach drops before my brain catches up.
"That's my barn."
Not a breath. Not a whisper. A claim. My father's barn. My grandfather's stones. My land, my legacy, my life climbing into the sky in a column of smoke.
And we're already running.
Rowan
We run!
Calla hits the truck first. I'm half a step behind her. Beck's boots are already pounding gravel toward his own vehicle before either of us says another word.
The engine roars. Tires bite deep into the lot and we're moving.
The ridge road unspooling fast beneath us, trees blurring on both sides, the smoke column thickening against the sky with every turn.
Calla's hands are white on the wheel. Her jaw is locked so tight the muscles in her neck stand out. She drives the way she does everything when the stakes are high. Precise. Furious. Fast.
Neither of us speaks. There's nothing to say that the smoke isn't already saying louder.
By the time Whispering Stream Ranch comes through the trees the flames are already high. Orange tongues licking along the barn roof, heat shimmering above the pasture in visible waves.
The smell hits through the truck vents before we stop.
Smoke and burning wood and the sharp bite of hay catching fast. Under all of it, the chemical sweetness of accelerant. The smell of something set on purpose.
Calla kills the engine before the truck fully stops.
We're both out and moving.
"Horses," she says.
"Already out." I can see them. Three mares bunched at the far pasture fence, heads high, nostrils wide. Scared but clear.
Someone or something spooked them out before the fire got hot enough to trap them.
Thank God.
