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“You’ve reached Garrett Luck. Please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a good one, y’all.”

My face crumples. His voice mail beeps.

If I’m still so angry, why can’t I stop fucking crying? Anger means yelling. It means frosty silences and heated exchanges. It does not mean crying your eyes out every time you think about the person you loved but hated, too.

I hang up, wishing all the while I could ask him why he put that stipulation in his will. Maybe I wouldn’t hate the idea of living in Hartsville so much if I understood why he wanted me there. He had his chance to bring me back to the ranch—many chances, in fact, over the course of many years—but he never did. Why insist on it now?

The thought comes out of nowhere:Cash might have the answer to that question.He said he was close with Dad. Who better to ask than the man who apparently worked side by side with Dad for over a decade?

Too bad Cash is a jackass. I’d rather pry my eyeballs out of my head with a rusty spoon than talk to him again.

I just wish I had other options.

My memories of the first six years of my life on the ranch are, like the city skyline, hazy at best. But they aren’t all bad. I remember riding a pony, Dad leading the horse in a slow circle around a corral. I remember Mom in the front seat of an ATV, the breeze catching in her hair as she turned around to smile at me in the back. And I can still smell the leather-and-hay scent of the horse barn.

I jump when my phone chimes. It’s a Gmail notification: my business checking account has reached zero dollars.

I think about Goody’s email. The one that detailed howmuch money I’d get at the end of every month if I lived on the ranch.

WhatifI go back to Hartsville? Just for thirty days, only long enough to get paid? Maybe Mom’s lawyers will have gotten a judge to strike down the stipulation by then. Wheeler and I crushed an interview with an influencer earlier today, and we only have two more meetings set up this week. Surely, she can handle those while I’m gone?

I jump again when my phone vibrates. Wheeler is calling.

A white-hot flash of pain slices across my middle. Shit.

Shit-shit-shit. She definitely saw the notification from our bank too. We’re both on the account.

Wiping my eyes, I move my thumb across my screen.

“Hey, Wheeler. I’m so sorry I keep missing you. I’ll handle the negative balance.” I take a deep breath. “I’m going back to Hartsville.”

“Wait.” She pauses. “You’regoing? As ingoing, going?”

“I’m done waiting for our lawyers to figure this shit out. I’m going to get us our money.”

Another pause.

“Mollie, you don’t have to do this.”

“I do, though. I don’t see any other way to keep us from going under.”

“Let me go with you, then. You can’t walk onto your dad’s ranch by yourself.”

My eyes burn at the thought. Still, I say, “We need you here in Dallas for meetings and social media outreach. I can’t imagine there are many influencers or boutiques in Hartsville that are up for a collab.”

“We could open one,” Wheeler replies with a laugh.

“Next to the tractor supply store? Somehow, I don’t think Bellamy Brooks will fit in.”

“Every woman likes to feel pretty. Even cowgirls.”

“Not the kind of cowgirls you’ll find there. At least that’swhat Mom says. I got this, Wheeler. Really. I can do anything for a month.”

“Maybe you’ll end up doing some cowboys while you’re at it.”

I scoff. “No thank you.”

“I swear, you’re the only woman on earth who isn’t into dudes in Stetsons with Wrangler butts.”