Page 67 of Tessa and Nash

“You got yourself into something,” he says.

Heat crawls up the back of my neck. “It’s… new.”

Virgil’s gaze flicks to the ring. “New, but old, huh?”

Tessa doesn’t react, but I feel her body tighten beside me, just a little.

“I’ll tell you one thing, son. Folks in this town don’t forget. Not the good, not the bad, and damn sure not the history between McCoy and Long.”

I swallow. “Yeah. I know.”

Virgil’s mouth twists, trying to decide how much to say. Then he tips his head toward the gazebo, toward Dottie still sitting as a queen on her chair.

“Dottie’s got a way of stirring ghosts,” he says. “But she ain’t wrong. The story ain’t as clean as people like to tell it.”

Tessa’s eyes flash toward him. “What do you mean?”

Virgil shrugs one shoulder. “Means there’s always been more land talk than either family wanted to admit. More agreements. More… handshakes.” His gaze lands on me again. “You boys don’t know everything your daddy knew.”

My breath catches.

I hear the words as a warning and a dare at the same time.

“You saying there’s something I should know?” I ask, trying to keep casual when my pulse is climbing in my throat.

Virgil’s eyes soften, just slightly. “I’m saying you oughta ask questions before you build things that wake old fights.”

Tessa’s hand tightens around mine.

Virgil pats my shoulder once, firm, almost fatherly, then turns and walks away as if he didn’t just drop a bomb in the middle of Founders’ Day.

I stand there, frozen.

Tessa turns her head. “You’re thinking too loudly.”

“I didn’t know there were… handshakes,” I say.

Her expression shutters. “Neither did I.”

That should reassure me.

Instead, it unsettles the hell out of me.

Because if she didn’t know, and Virgil is acting as everyone over fifty does… then that means the rivalry isn’t just family drama.

It’s adult decisions.

It’s secrets.

It’s land.

And land is not something Buckhorn treats as a story.

I pull my little notebook from my coat pocket before I can overthink it and flip it open with fingers that suddenly feel clumsy.

Tessa watches me, brow lifting. “What are you doing?”

“Writing,” I mutter.