The slap echoed across the ranchyard like a gunshot. Every man froze. Evelyn Harper stood there, hands still raised, facing down a cowboy twice her size while the owner watched from the shadows. She just crossed a line no woman in Red Hollow had ever dared to cross, and everyone knew there was no coming back from it. But what brought a desperate girl from a failing home to this moment of reckoning?
The morning Evelyn's life changed forever started with her brother's fist slamming onto the kitchen table hard enough to rattle the empty tin cups. "You're going." Evelyn didn't look up from the pathetic excuse for breakfast she was scraping together. Two eggs between three people, watered down coffee that tasted like dirt, and half a loaf of bread so stale she'd had to soak it just to make it chewable. Her hands kept moving, mechanical, practiced.
She'd gotten good at pretending she didn't hear Thomas when he got like this. "Did you hear me, Evie? I said you're going." "I heard you the first time." Her voice came out flat, tired.
She was always tired these days. "And I already told you no." Thomas moved fast for a man who'd been drinking since dawn. He grabbed her wrist hard enough that the knife clattered against the cast iron pan. "We don't have the luxury of no anymore.
Look around you. Look at this place." She didn't need to look. She'd been looking at it every day for the past year, watching their father's legacy crumble one piece at a time. The Harper family homestead, if you could even call it that anymore, consisted of a sagging two-room cabin with a roof that leaked when it rained, a barn that housed exactly one aging horse, and 20 acres of land so depleted that nothing would grow on it except weeds and regret.
Their father had died owing money to half the town. Their mother had followed him 6 months later, taking what was left of Evelyn's hope with her. I'm not going to work as a cook at some ranch. Evelyn jerked her hand free, turning to face him properly. I don't care what it pays.
Thornridge Ranch. Thomas spoke the name like it was supposed to mean something. Dawson Ridgewell's place. 20 miles north, biggest operation in three counties. They need a cook and they're willing to pay real money.
Enough to cover the debts and then some. Then you go cook for them. Don't be stupid. They want a woman. Someone who can actually make food fit to eat, not burn everything like I do.
He grabbed a piece of paper from his pocket, creased and slightly damp with sweat. Mrs. Patterson at the boarding house gave me the details. They've been through four cooks in 6 months. Nobody wants the job because it's too remote, too rough. But that means they're desperate enough to pay well.
Evelyn felt something cold settle in her stomach. If nobody wants it, why would I? Because we're about to lose everything. Thomas's voice cracked on the last word. For just a second, she saw past the anger and the drinking to the scared younger brother she'd practically raised.
The bank's giving us until the end of the month. That's 3 weeks, Evie. 3 weeks and they take the land, the house, everything. This job is the only chance we've got. She turned back to the stove, moving the eggs around the pan even though they were already done.