Jake’s POV
I watch Tommy and Paige work the south pasture like they've been doing it together for years instead of weeks, and something about their easy synchronicity makes my chest ache in ways I refuse to name.
They move around each other with the natural certainty of gravity—no calculations, no second-guessing, just want and choice and the kind of simplicity I haven't felt since the morning I left Adison standing in her penthouse with my son growing inside her.
Tommy catches me staring from where I'm leaning against the fence post, and the look on his face tells me I'm about to get a reckoning I've been avoiding since I stepped off that plane.
He says something to Paige, who nods and keeps working, then he's crossing the pasture toward me with purpose in his stride that makes my stomach tighten.
"What the hell are you doing?" He stops three feet away, arms crossed, and the directness in his voice sounds like me fifteen years ago. "Hiding out here while your pregnant girlfriend is in Manhattan alone?"
The accusation lands exactly where he intended—right in the center of everything I've been trying not to think about for the past week.
"The ranch needs me." The deflection sounds weak even to my own ears. "I can't just abandon everything I've built here."
"Can't?" Tommy's laugh is sharp, humorless. "Or won't?"
I grip the fence post harder. "I don't belong in her world, Tommy. I'm a ranch hand. She's running an empire. Those two things don't—"
"Don't what?" He steps closer, and there's something in his expression that looks like disappointment. "Don't fit? Don't make sense? You sound like you're trying to convince yourself more than me."
"The age difference is real." I force the words out. "The money difference is real. I'm fourty-four years old and I barely graduated high school while she's got degrees and connections and a life I'll never understand. What happens when she realizes I'm just some cowboy who doesn't belong in penthouses?"
Tommy stares at me for a long moment.
"The ranch will always be here." He gestures toward the land spreading out around us. "It'll always be yours. You can visit anytime. You can come back whenever you need to remember who you are underneath all the bullshit you're telling yourself."
"It's not bullshit." The words taste defensive. "It's reality."
"Reality is you're using this place as an excuse." Tommy's voice sharpens. "Using it to avoid the terrifying fact that Adison chose you anyway. Chose you despite every logical reason not to. And you're repaying that choice by abandoning her when she needs you most."
The truth of it hits like a fist to my sternum.
I've been running. Been hiding behind the same cowardice I spent years despising in other men, wrapping it in rational objections about geography and belonging and all the ways this relationship was always going to be impossible.
"She's pregnant with your son." Tommy's not letting up, and some distant part of me recognizes this is exactly what I taught him to do—press the advantage when someone's defenses are cracking. "Your kid is going to be born into a world where his father chose dirt and distance over showing up when it mattered."
My hands are shaking on the fence post. "You don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly." He cuts me off. "You're scared. Terrified of what it means to build a life that doesn't look like the one you've always known. So you're running back to what's comfortable and calling it responsibility."
I close my eyes, and all I can see is Adison's face when I told her I was leaving.
"Tommy and I have it handled." Paige's voice joins the conversation, and I open my eyes to find her standing beside Tommy with dirt on her jeans and conviction in her expression. "The ranch. The work. All of it. We've been handling it just fine."
"That's not the point—"
"Then what is the point?" Tommy challenges. "Because from where I'm standing, you taught me everything I know about showing up when things get hard. About not running from responsibility. And now you're doing exactly what you always told me not to do."
The hypocrisy tastes like ash.
I've spent years building this ranch into something solid and real, something I could control and understand. And the first time life demanded I build something equally real with another person—something messier and more complicated and infinitely more terrifying—I chose the dirt over the woman carrying my child.
"She chose you." Tommy's voice softens slightly. "Despite knowing exactly who you are and where you come from. She looked at all your rough edges and decided they were exactly what she wanted. And you're throwing that away because it's easier than believing you deserve it."
The words strip away the last of my defenses. Because he's right.
"Your son needs his father." Paige adds quietly. "Not a visitor who shows up on scheduled weekends. A father who's there. Who chooses to be there even when it's hard."
My throat tightens.
I think about Adison working herself into exhaustion because I'm not there to make her rest. About my son growing inside her while she builds a future alone because I'm too scared to help her build it. About all the moments I'm missing because I convinced myself distance was somehow nobler than commitment.
"The ranch will survive without you." Tommy's certainty sounds like absolution. "It survived before you bought it, it'll survive while you're in Manhattan building a life with the woman you love. This place isn't going anywhere."
He's giving me permission to leave. Permission to choose something other than the life I've spent decades constructing. And standing here in Texas dust with Tommy watching me like a student who just became the teacher, I understand something fundamental.
Love isn't about keeping your world intact. It's about having the courage to build a new one with the person who matters more than your comfort ever could.
"I'm going back." The decision forms as I speak it, and the certainty in my voice surprises me. "I'm agreeing to what Adison wants. Not because it's easy. Because it's right."
Tommy's face breaks into a grin. "About damn time."
"Manhattan." I say the word like I'm testing its weight. "Raising my son in a penthouse. Being the kind of father who shows up every day instead of visiting on weekends."
"Sounds terrifying." Paige smiles.
"It is." I push off the fence post, standing straighter. "But so was buying this ranch. So was learning to run it. So is anything worth doing."