Page 54 of Eight Second Hearts

She talks slowly, as if choosing her words very carefully. “I apologize if there’s been any sort of confusion, Mr. Savage. We were approached by Darla Savage to complete the sale. She acted as the liaison and assured us you were a part of this process.Since the deed is in your name, we can’t proceed unless you sign the contract.”

“Good,” Tripp growls. “As I said, Fairview Acres is not for sale now, nor will it ever be. That ranch has been in the Savage name for four generations, and I don’t plan to change that anytime soon.”

“Of course, Mr. Savage. I’m sorry to bother you. I’ll shred the paperwork and let the buyer know. Have a good day,” she replies, her voice panicked at the thought of making such a mistake.

She hangs up the phone rather than Tripp. The sound of the steel guitar fills the cabin of the truck again suddenly, making me jump at the abrupt change. Ram hits the volume button, turning it completely off as he looks at Tripp. Beau sits in the back seat silently, and none of them speak for a few minutes. I don’t interrupt their thoughts, feeling the tension hanging in the air. Whatever just happened, it’s clearly bad. I just don’t understand what’s happening.

Tripp drops the truck back into drive. “Looks like we’re making a detour,” he says.

I glance between them. “If you need to drop me off at an airport or something, that’s?—”

“No time,” Tripp growls. “You’re along for the ride.”

And then he guns his truck to get back on the road. He hits the navigation button on the screen and when it beeps to let him know he can speak, he takes a deep breath.

“Navigate. . . home,” he says.

Chapter 32

Indie

“Do you think they were just trying to get you to sell it in general?” Ram asks sometime later once the tension had cracked. It’d taken a few hours. I hadn’t interrupted their thoughts the entire time, not certain if I had a right to considering how serious the situation seems to be. I don’t know a lot, but I do know Fairview Acres is one of the famous thirteen ranches in the Green River Basin. It isn’t often they change ownership outside the family, but it happens. The Savages though have owned Fairview Acres for a fair number of generations to be selling it now.

“They weren’t asking,” Tripp growls. “They already had the paperwork done. They’d been through the entire process. My signature was the only thing holding them back, which means this has been going on for at least a month. That kind of stuff doesn’t happen that quick, not in Steele.”

Beau settles against the backseat, his own smile gone in the face of the recent events. “The realtor mentioned Darla.”

Tripp’s eyes narrow. “Which means she’s trying to sell it out from underneath me. Luckily, I’d had Dad sign things over to me years ago before. . . you know.”

I straighten, figuring it can’t hurt to ask questions and remind them I’m here. “Who’s Darla?”

In all my research, I hadn’t seen that name mentioned anywhere.

“His sister,” Beau comments.

“Half-sister,” Tripp corrects bitterly. “She’s only a half-sister.”

Clearly, I shouldn’t mention that being a half-sister doesn’t necessarily make her any less his sister. It just means they share one parent instead of two.

“I take it you two aren’t close?” I hazard.

“No,” Tripp answers honestly. “We’re not.”

Ram turns around in his seat and smiles gently at me. “Sorry to kidnap you again,periodista.”

I wave away his apology. “No need to apologize. Besides, I’m along for the ride wherever you guys go, remember? The next rodeo hardly matters if you guys aren’t there.”

His eyes crinkle. “Of course. You go where we go.”

Which somehow seems more like a promise than a statement of fact. I’m not sure how to respond to that, so I don’t. Instead, I settle back and watch the map. Our twelve hour trip turns into a nine hour one, and they don’t seem to be slowing down as it gets dark. Apparently, we’re going to keep going until we reach our destination.

We don’t talk much on the way, the anger within the truck cabin palpable. I decide it’s best not to interrupt their brooding and instead pull out my laptop. I end up searching for a Darla Savage in Steele, Wyoming, and finally find information. She’s not easy to find. She has no social media presence, not under that name, and there aren’t any recent pictures I can find. I do find her birth announcement and see she has a different mother than Tripp and that she’s younger than him by six years, putting her at twenty-six. I know she lives there in Steele since Tripp hadsaid she was, and I know Tripp’s father is still alive, but I don’t find any information about either of their mothers. I don’t know what that means, and I certainly can’t just ask, so I close the tabs and put it to rest.

We make it to Wyoming by the time the sun sets, stopping only to use the restroom and grab food we can eat in the truck. We don’t linger before we’re on the road again.

The highway is mostly empty as we close in on our destination. My eyes stare at the little flag on the map that says we’re only a minute out. The truck slows and then turns, and we point toward a large iron gate, twin bulls bucking on either gate.

Above them, the words, “Fairview Acres,” stand proud and strong, if not a little rusty. On the gate is what looks like a fancy logo, a backwards F and V with horns.

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