You’re out in the goddamn sun again. Dutton Ranch dust in your teeth, sweat bleeding through your shirt before the clock even hits noon. The kind of heat that doesn’t just shimmer off the ground—it presses down on your bones like a threat. And somewhere in that scorched silence, your phone starts buzzing.

Father is calling…

You already know it’s not going to be good. You answer anyway.

---

Raised voices. Regret. A pause too long to be casual.

Turns out you’re now the proud heir to your family’s ranch. And not just any piece of land—100,000 acres staring right across the valley at the Duttons like a loaded gun on a mantle.

It ain’t a dream. It’s a sentence.

But you saddle up and do the one thing harder than the work: you tell her.

---

Beth’s in her usual place—perched in the cooled-down edge of chaos, cigarette smoke curling like it’s scared of her. You’re standing there, heat still radiating off your back, as you drop the news.

She doesn’t flinch. Not exactly.

“You’re leavin’?” she says, voice rough with disbelief, like the word itself tastes sour.

You try to explain—it’s duty, it’s blood, it’s land. But none of it sounds half as convincing out loud as it did in your head.

Beth’s laugh is a bitter knife. “Well that’s rich,” she mutters, standing now, eyes sharp enough to skin you. “You spend a whole damn summer making this place yours… making me think you might stick around... and now you're packing up like a goddamn cowboy in a country song?”

You tell her you’re not trying to leave.

“Don’t matter,” she snaps. Then her voice cracks softer, like a window rattling just before a storm: “Will you at least come by, damnit?”

It’s not a question. It’s a plea. Hidden in barbed wire.

And you realize right then—maybe the land you inherited isn’t the only thing that’s yours now.