Page 111 of Wildflowers & Whiskey

I step closer, gravel grinding beneath my boots when my eyes lock with my mom’s—and in that moment, I’m thrown back to being eight years old, sitting on the porch step watching the end of the driveway. Ten years old, checking the mailbox every day for two weeks around my birthday. Fifteen years old, lying in bed staring at the ceiling, doing that thing where I try to picture her face and wondering whether she ever does the same.

“Hello, Son.”

She says it so easily, almost casually, like she’s picking up a conversation we were having moments ago instead of eighteen years of silence.

My throat burns. There’s so much I want to say to her, years of it stacked up inside me, but standing here with it all pressing down on me, I can’t find a single word worth using.

“Don’t.” Is all I manage.

“Oh, Colt…” She gives a practiced sigh. This is all one big performance for her. “I’ve missed you.”

A laugh crawls up my throat, because if I let anything else out, it won't be a laugh.

“Missed him?” Wade cuts in sharply, and whatever composure he was holding onto starts to fray at the edges. “Ruby, don't. Don't do that. Tell us what you want and then get the hell out of this town.”

The performance stops, but the smile doesn’t disappear. Instead, it shifts into something harsher, stripped of any fake softness she had been putting in it before.

“Half the ranch,” she says. “That’s all I want. Then I will sign those stupid documents you want so badly and disappear again.”

I hear movement behind me; Maeve rushes out through the doors, stopping dead in her tracks the moment she sees us looking like we’re about to have a three-way shoot-out. Iris is just behind her, placing a hand on Maeve’s shoulder. All we need is an audience to broadcast my family’s shit to.

“The ranch,” Wade repeats flatly.

“I want what's mine.”

Silence settles over the parking lot.

Wade stares at her without a word or a blink. One hand hangs at his side, fingers curling slowly until his knuckles whiten and I can see the tendons in his forearm from where I'm standing. Whatever is happening behind his eyes, I can't read it. I don't know what his next move is. I don't even know if he's breathing.

Then, he laughs. It's the hollowest sound I've ever heard come out of him.

“The ranch isn’t mine to give you.”

Whatever composure Mom’s held onto tonight cracks. Surprise moves across her face like a shadow, and I can see her working double time to try and pull it back. I know she wasn’t expecting that.

Hell, neither was I.

“What?” Her voice pitches up, having the same effect on everyone’s ears as nails on a chalkboard would have had. “What… What do you mean? It is yours. Don’t fucking lie to me, Wade.”

“My father signed it over,” Wade says, and his eyes slide from her face to mine. “Before he died. It belongs to Colt.”

I don’t know if it is even possible, but everything goes more silent. Either that or my head is too busy trying to make sense of all this.

I stare at Wade. “What?” The word barely makes it out.

“It's yours,” he says. “Has been since Gramps passed away.”

I own the ranch. My Gramp’s ranch. The land he spent his whole life building, the thing that's felt like the only constant through everything. Why would Gramps do that?

As if he can hear all of it, Wade looks back at Ruby. “I knew something like this would come. Knew that eventually you'd show up wanting to pick at my father's legacy. Our son's future.” She scoffs. He doesn't flinch. “Signing it to Colt was the only way we knew how to keep you from getting your hands on it.”

He skipped over leaving the ranch to me… Another thing he has quietly done for me. I think of all the times I’ve come at him in the past. All the blunt conversations, the digs I’ve made. He just took it all. Every single time, he just let me do what I need while showing up for me behind the scenes in ways I was too busy being angry to notice.

And Ruby, the Mom I idolised, she only came back to get her hands on the ranch. Not for me. The man I spent years blaming for her absence was the one quietly making sure I had something to stand on when she eventually did.

The realisation settles heavy in my chest, painful and sobering all at once. That is until I hear Ruby’s laugh, soft but with a hint of malice behind it, like she is amused by this revelation.

“Wade fucking Carter, everyone!” She claps, voice loud enough that I’m surprised the whole bar hasn’t stormed out to watch. “The great family man! Can't do a thing wrong, can he? Everyone loves him. They don't see what you really are. How you abandoned me. Left me to raise a child alone so you could run off and play cowboy hot-shot.” She's moving now, pacing in short, jerky steps, hands gesturing in a way that don’t quite match the rhythm of her words. “I deserve the money. I am not leaving here empty-handed, Wade.”