Page 6 of Forbidden Rancher's Return
Calla steps off the porch before he gets the last word out.
Her boots crunch over gravel with the hard-won confidence of a woman who has spent eight years refusing to let this mountain swallow her whole.
She's filled out nicely since I saw her last.
Stronger in the shoulders. Fuller through the hips. Built like a woman who hauls feed and fixes fences and doesn't apologize for the body that work gave her.
The wind lifts a strand of hair across her face. She pushes it back without thinking.
Same habit. Same girl. Just harder now, in the best possible way.
"I told him to stay."
Beck turns toward her slowly. His expression tightens like she just handed him a problem he never prepared for.
"You did what."
"I told him to stay."
Calm. Like she already counted the cost and decided she didn't care.
Beck laughs once. Short. Disbelieving.
"You remember who you're talking about."
Calla folds her arms. "I remember."
Beck's gaze cuts back on me. Harder now.
"Do you."
The yard holds the tension like a wire pulled too tight. I look at the barn. The ridge behind it. The tree line where the stream runs fast after rain.
I remember everything.
"I remember."
Beck takes two steps closer.
Close enough that the old years press between us. Best friends, brawls, fence repairs, summer nights when we were too young to understand how fast things could break.
He was the first person I ever trusted on this mountain. The first one I let close enough to hurt me.
And I left him the same night I left her, without a word, because their father's voice was the kind that didn't leave room for goodbye.
His voice drops.
"You almost died down there."
Behind him, I hear Calla go still.
"I fell."
"You were there because of her."
The words hit the air like a thrown knife. Calla's breath catches. I hear it even from here.
I don't look at her yet.
