Chapter 11 - The Uninvited Storm
For five days, the silence between Denver and Alliance was absolute.
No phone calls. No texts. No late-night check-ins.
Cassidy threw herself into her work with a vengeance, completing two major corporate branding projects in record time and reorganizing her entire apartment down to the spice rack. She told herself she was being sensible. She told herself she had no business entangling herself in the generational grief of a farming family in western Nebraska.
Yet, on Friday night, as she sat alone in her apartment watching the snow begin to dust the Denver skyline through her window, a heavy, familiar ache settled into her ribs.
She realized something terrifying: she didn't just care about the eccentric grandmother or the stoic, protective grandson. She cared about the farmhouse. She cared about the broken circle that was desperately trying to heal.
By Saturday morning, her internal restraint snapped completely.
She packed a single duffel bag, threw her heavy winter coat into the passenger seat of her car, and hit the interstate heading north.
If I’m an outsider, she thought grimly as she watched the mile markers tick away toward the Nebraska border, I’m going to be a very stubborn one.
The drive was grueling. A fresh winter storm system was sweeping down from the Dakotas, spitting freezing rain and swirling snow across the interstate. By the time she turned off the main highway onto the county road leading to the Reed farm, the wind was howling, whipping blinding sheets of white across the open fields.
She pulled her rental car up the long, wind-scoured driveway of the Reed farmhouse just as dusk was beginning to bleed into the freezing twilight.
The house looked dark, foreboding, wrapped in the solemn silence of a family honoring a ghost. Only a single porch light burned against the gale.
Cassidy cut the engine, took a deep breath, and stepped out into the freezing fury of the storm. Her boots crunched against the fresh snow as she marched up the wooden steps of the porch.
Before she could lift her hand to knock, the front door swung open.
May you like
Ronan stood in the doorway. He looked exhausted, his hair uncombed, his eyes dark with a mixture of shock, disbelief, and sudden, fierce alarm.
“Cassidy?” he breathed, his voice barely audible over the roar of the wind. “What in God’s name are you doing here?”
