The words hang there. For once, I don't feel the need to take them back.
Zach rubs a hand over his face. "You don't make it easy to side with you, you know that?"
"I'm not asking you to side with me," I say. "I'm asking you to understand."
Finn leans forward, both hands on the table. "Understand what? That you chose a woman you barely knew over the brothers who've had your back your whole damn life?"
"That's not what I did."
"Feels like it."
His voice cracks just enough on the edge of that sentence to make it hit harder. I see it then—the hurt under the anger. The fear. He's not just mad. He's scared of losing the thing that's kept us going. Each other.
Pushing back my chair, I stand. "I didn't betray you and I didn't betray this ranch. Everything I've done, every call I've made, has been to protect what we built. But I can't pretend she didn'tchange me. I can't stand here and act like I didn't fall for her, because I did, and I'm not sorry for it."
Zach looks between us, eyes narrowing. "You love her?"
I swallow hard. "Yeah. I love her."
It's the first time I've said it out loud, and the sound of it lands heavy in the room— the truth has a weight of its own.
Finn stares at me for a long time. "Then you’d better pray to God she's worth what it's going to cost you."
"She already is," I say quietly.
The silence that follows is thick enough to choke on. Zach looks away first, jaw working like he's biting back words he doesn't trust himself to say. Finn finally shakes his head and reaches for his hat.
"You're too deep in this to see straight," he says. "I hope you're right, Ash. For your sake and ours."
He turns to leave. Zach hesitates at the door. "You're still my brother," he says. "That doesn't change. But you need to fix the mess between you and us before you go chasing something else."
In that moment, I decide to tell them everything. Beginning with the call with Willy and his brother on the mineral rights,the talks with the lawyer, the information, and finally about the maps Kassi brought us.
I explain how I felt I needed to shoulder it all as the oldest, how I needed to protect them and us. It's a start to what I hope will be better communication.
When they're gone, the air feels colder.
I stand there for a long time, my hands pressed against the table, staring at the spot where the folder sits. I've fought droughts, banks, and wildfires. I've fought men who wanted to take what wasn't theirs. None of it felt like this—like trying to breathe with something heavy pressing down on my chest.
The sound of tires crunching on gravel pulls me out of it.
I walk to the porch just as a familiar truck comes up the lane. It's Jenna's.
She parks crooked, jumps out, and doesn't even bother shutting her door. She looks like she's been driving fast, hair pulled back, sunglasses pushed up on her head.
"Asher," she calls, voice tight.
"What's wrong?"
She walks straight up the steps and stops in front of me. "You want to tell me why Kassi lost her job?"
The question hits harder than any punch. "What?"
"She got fired," Jenna says. "Because she was trying to protect you. She told me about taking the files. She told me everything."
My stomach drops. "She told you?"
"She didn't mean to. It came out when we were packing boxes. She tried to make it sound like it wasn't your fault, but I can put two and two together. To warn you, she risked her job, and now she's got nothing."