Chapter 3

Sofia drove aimlessly, the words from Dawson and the men at the café hammering in her head. "Even the toughest break when the land dries up and debt tightens." The image of Ethan, pale in the ICU, mixed with the so-called "accident" of his father. Who the hell was Rick Dawson to cast such a big shadow?

Distracted, she took a wrong turn. The asphalt ended, replaced by tractor tracks on cracked earth. Barbed wire fences snaked over dry hills. Signs reading "Private Property - Callahan" hung, peeling from the sand. Dry Land.

Sofia parked in the sparse shade of a mesquite. The desolation was heartbreaking. The pasture, which should have been green, was a brown carpet under the merciless sun. Cattle bones bleached near the fence, and a rusted windmill creaked like a tormented soul. In the distance, the main house, a sturdy wooden structure, but with a sagging roof and windows blinded by dust.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" a harsh voice cut through the silence.

Sofia jumped. Marlene Callahan had appeared on the porch like a ghost in patched jeans. She held a .22 shotgun, not pointed, but ready. Her black eyes stared at Sofia.

"I heard you're the nurse. The one who stuck drugs in my son."

"It was sedation for surgery, Mrs. Callahan. He had the bone sticking out."

"Ethan can handle pain. He's a Callahan." Marlene spat on the ground, just like her son. "You city folk don't understand. Here, weakness kills. Like it killed Joseph."

Sofia kept her gaze on the woman's eyes. She saw not just anger, but fear. Fear of losing her son.

"He's stable. But he needs rest and strong antibiotics to avoid a bone infection..."

"I'll take care of my son!" the shout scared crows from a carcass. "And I'll take care of my land. Get out. Before I call who should have done this yesterday."

The sun glinted on the gun barrel. Sofia looked at the house, then at the woman whose pride was as dry as the land. She felt a quick pity, swallowed by instinct. She turned around.

"He'll need to see the orthopedist in a week," she said, opening the car door. "At Mary Saint. If you want him to walk again."

Marlene didn't respond. When Sofia looked in the rearview mirror, the solitary figure was still there, just a black dot against the dead brown of Dry Land.

Back at the hospital, Sofia stopped by the ICU. Ethan was awake. Still, staring at the cast on his leg as if he wanted to melt it with his gaze. His fists clenched so tightly on the sheet that his knuckles turned white. When she entered, his eyes—gray like the sandstorm—rose to meet hers. Not a thank you. Just a dry question, hoarse with pain and anger:

"How long?"

Sofia adjusted the antibiotic IV.

"Six weeks without putting weight on it. Then physical therapy."

He let out a grunt between a bitter laugh and a choke.

"Six weeks... Dawson will be laughing his ass off." He looked at the window, toward the horizon where the ranch must be dying without him. "And the calf?"

"No idea."

"Of course you don't."

He turned his face to the wall.

"Get out."

Sofia hesitated. His pain was a wild animal, biting anything that came near. But she saw the tremor in the arm covering his eyes. The weakness he'd die before admitting. She left a painkiller pill on the bedside table.

"For when pride isn't enough, Callahan."

As she left, she heard the muffled thud of the pill hitting the wall. She smiled wryly. Betty was right: in Serenity Creek, surviving was the only game worth playing. And Sofia Alves had just entered the fray.

Sofia floored the accelerator of her old Civic, the dust from Dry Land clinging to the tires. The air conditioning blew warm air, but it didn't come close to the heat raging in her head. Ethan Callahan was a sack of rage with a broken leg, his mother a gun-toting boot-wearer, and this Rick Dawson seemed like a mafia boss in the middle of Texas. "What hole did I get myself into, God?"

She was dead tired; yesterday's shift felt like a marathon. She needed three things: strong coffee, ibuprofen, and a bed. She stopped at the only pharmacy in town, "Good Remedy." The attendant, a young woman with a face like she'd seen too much, recognized her right away.

"You're the new nurse, right? The one who dealt with Ethan Callahan?" she asked, ringing up the ibuprofen. "Brave. Or crazy. Folks here say even the devil's afraid of him with a headache."

Sofia gave an awkward laugh.

"He was just... motivated. Very motivated."

"Yeah. That brother of his, Ben, stopped by earlier. Bought some bandages and a roll of tape. He had a bleeding finger and reeked of alcohol from three meters away." The woman lowered her voice. "Miguel, the Callahans' foreman, was behind him in line at the market, looking none too friendly. He only bought rice, beans, and coffee. The bare basics. Things are bad at the ranch, huh?"

Sofia paid and left, the new information sticking in her mind. Ben injured and drunk in the morning? Miguel making minimal purchases? The hole was deeper than it seemed. While opening the ibuprofen in the car, she saw just the man who had helped with Ethan, coming out of the market, carrying a meager bag. The man was strong, with a gray mustache and tired eyes. He saw her, nodded his head, a dry greeting. He didn't even stop to talk, went straight to the old, rickety truck, the engine giving a sickly roar when it started.

Everyone's on a tightrope, Sofia thought, swallowing the pill without water. The angry cowboy in bed, the problematic brother sinking, the mother armed to the teeth, the foreman holding things together... and a office shark smelling blood in the water.

She started the car, looked at the simple building of Saint Mary. It was just a small-town hospital, but at that moment, it seemed like a trench. And she, Sofia Alves, fugitive from a past mistake, had just jumped right into the middle of the biggest mess. All she wanted was a hole to disappear into. Instead, she had an angry cowboy and an entire family on the edge of the precipice to care for.

"Fuck it," she murmured to the rearview mirror, adjusting her ponytail. "If I survived Houston, I'll survive this. All that's missing now is an earthquake."

The Civic took off, kicking up dust, heading to her rented apartment.