Page 95 of Tessa and Nash

Because they also say we weren’t clean.

They say we weren’t villains, and neither were they.

They say it was survival.

Fear.

And then pride hardened it into a story both sides could live with.

I close my eyes because shame comes in hot and heavy.

My dad’s notes. Mom’s silence. Virgil’s warning.

They knew.

They all knew fragments.

And I’ve been walking around town thinking the land was clean because the deed said so.

Tessa’s voice is tight. “My uncle⁠—”

“Your uncle’s been pushing this,” I finish, because the anger in my chest needs a place to go. “He’s been trying to stop my project because he knew there was a fault line.”

Tessa snaps her gaze to mine, eyes flashing. “You think this is my fault?”

“No,” I say quickly. “No. I’m saying he’s been waiting for the right moment.”

“And your family wasn’t?” she shoots back.

I blink. “What?”

“You just read it,” she says, stepping closer, heat rising. “Your ancestor literally wrote that he filed a claim to protect himself. While the Longs were grieving. While they were in upheaval.”

“Because they were starving.”

“And my family wasn’t?” Tessa’s voice sharpens. “You think grief doesn’t starve you too?”

My stomach twists. “That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what you implied,” she snaps. “That the Longs were just bitter, just proud, just… dramatic about paperwork.”

I feel the anger flare because shame is a nasty fuel.

“My family told me we worked the land,” I snap. “That we built this ranch from nothing. That the Longs were always trying to take it back.”

“And my family told me you took it,” she fires back. “That you smiled in our faces and stole behind our backs.”

The words ring in the office loud as a gunshot.

We stare at each other, both breathing hard.

This isn’t banter. It’s the old thing… the feud that existed before we did and now sits between us.

“Neither story is full,” I remind her.

Tessa’s eyes glint. “Yours is convenient.”

“So is yours,” I snap.