Page 16 of Lost in the Reins

She exhales slowly, her fingers still moving over the paper. "I used to love writing. It wasn't just about the cowboys or the romance; it was about creating something real. Something that mattered." Her voice drops. "But lately... I can't seem to find the right words anymore. Everything feels forced, hollow."

I set down the papers I'm holding, recognizing something in her tone that hits closer to home than I'd like. She's talking about more than just authentic details.

"The last book..." She shakes her head. "I stared at the blank screen for weeks. When I finally wrote something, it was like I was just going through the motions. My agent said the characters felt flat, and she was right." Her laugh holds no humor. "I gave my rancher a meditation practice because I couldn't figure out what real ranchers actually do with their time."

"Besides mucking stalls and wrestling with feed costs?"

"Besides that." This time her smile is genuine, if brief. "I keep wondering if maybe I'm done. If I've run out of stories to tell. First retail, now this..." She gestures vaguely. "Maybe I'm just someone who quits things when they get hard."

The vulnerability in her voice catches me off guard. This isn't the confident writer who showed up yesterday with her designer boots and city grace. This is someone wrestling with the same kind of doubts that keep me up at night, staring at bills and wondering if I'm fighting a losing battle.

"Writing's not like retail," I find myself saying. "Or ranching, for that matter. You can't measure it in profit margins and feed costs."

"No?" She looks up, and the morning light catches the gold flecks in her eyes. "Then how do you measure it?"

I think about Sarah's journals, still sitting in her old room. How she wrote about everything: the ranch, Emma, the changing seasons. Not for profit or publication, but because the words mattered to her.

"By whether it matters to you," I say finally. "The rest is just details."

She's quiet for a long moment, studying me like she's seeing something new. "Is that how you measure the ranch? By whether it matters?"

"The ranch is different." I tap the stack of bills. "This is generations of history. Family. Legacy."

"And my books?" Her voice is soft. "They're just stories?"

I weigh my words carefully, remembering how Sarah used to spend hours lost in her romance novels after long days of ranch work. "Everyone needs stories. But right now, you're asking about reality."

Something shifts in her expression at that, the vulnerability disappearing behind a mask of determination as she straightens in her chair. "Then teach me about your reality. Everything."

She leans forward, elbows on the table, all business despite wearing my old clothes. "How many head of cattle do you run? What's your breeding schedule? Do you do your own hay or buy it? What percentage of your operation is purely cattle versus other income streams?"

The rapid-fire questions catch me off guard. "Thought you learned about ranching fromYellowstone."

"I did. And clearly, I did it wrong." She taps the feed invoice with one finger, her chipped manicure a stark reminder of this morning's reality check. "So, teach me. Help me understand how a real ranch operates."

I blow out a breath, running a hand through my hair. "We run about three hundred head. Used to be more, but drought years hit us hard. Lost nearly a quarter of the herd three years back."

"That must have been rough." Her voice softens, and I have to look away from the understanding in her eyes.

"Rough doesn't begin to cover it." I flip through the papers, pulling out last year's projections. "We do our own hay when weather permits, but last season's rainfall was poor. Had tosupplement with bought feed, which is killing our margins now that prices have spiked."

She nods, taking it all in. "And the breeding program?"

"Fifty registered Black Angus breeding pairs. Premium bloodlines." Despite everything, I can't keep the pride out of my voice. "Been building that program for three generations."

"That's your primary income?"

"Should be." I tap another invoice. "But medical bills from Sarah's accident ate into our reserves. Couldn't expand the program like we planned. Now we're stuck in this cycle of—" I catch myself, wondering why I'm telling her all this.

But she's already grabbed on to the thread. "Of trying to maintain premium quality without the cash flow to support it properly?"

"Something like that." I study her face, surprised by her grasp of the situation. "You got all that from one morning with our books?"

"I got that from watching you just now." She meets my gaze steadily. "The way you talked about those breeding pairs—that's where your heart is. That's the legacy you're trying to protect."

My chest tightens at how easily she's read me. "Legacy doesn't pay bills."

"No, but it might be the key to solving them." She pulls the papers closer, scanning numbers with a focus that seems at odds with the romance writer I'd expected. "Have you considered marketing your genetics program more aggressively? Premium bloodlines like these?—"

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