Chapter 60 The Call That Changes Everything
“He’s asking for you, Si."
The words, spoken in Cody’s breathless, uneven voice, struck Sierra like a lightning bolt, sharp, jolting, launching her up out of the deck chair. The vibrant sunset that was bathing the sky in molten gold and rose now felt like a cruel illusion, a fleeting mirage of peace shattered by the weight of reality. She stared at the horizon without seeing the last sliver of sunlight vanishing behind the waves.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she whispered, the promise hollow in her throat.
Julian’s wine glass clinked softly as he set it down. He moved from his deck chair and stepped closer, his shadow falling over her like a protective shroud as she ended the call. His hand found her arm, steady and grounding, but she barely felt it.
“What happened?” His voice was calm.
Sierra swallowed hard. “Dad,” she began, then hesitated, as if the word itself might collapse under the weight of her fear. “He’s in the final stages of his Parkinson’s, Cody said. He’s… slipping. He won’t stay in the hospital. He wants to be home. And he’s asking for me.”
Julian’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t speak. The sea breeze, warm and salt-tinged, tangled in her hair as she turned to face him fully. Her voice cracked on the next words. That her father, the man she hated and revered in equal measure, was asking for her felt like a cruel twist of fate.
“Then we get you there.” His voice left no room for argument. He pivoted, already pulling his phone from his pocket. “We’re only an hour out from Nassau. I’ll call my pilot. The jet will be waiting by the time we dock.”
Sierra should have felt relief. Instead, a wave of guilt crashed over her. Guilt for the silk wrap still draped over her shoulders, for the champagne flute she still held in her hand, for the fact that just minutes ago, she’d been lost in the brilliance of the setting sun with a billionaire, while her ailing father waited in that dusty dimly lit ranch house thousands of miles away, surrounded by the ghosts of a family that had long since stopped trying to connect.
“I should’ve been there,” she murmured, her voice barely audible as Julian barked orders into his phone. The gravity of her failure pressed against her ribs like the hull of the yacht cutting through the waves. The ranch. Cody trying to hold it together. Her father, once the definition of strength, fragile and failing. She had spent months convincing herself she had left the ranch behind, restored its finances, handed it over, and returned to Manhattan and the life she had built for herself. Had she abandoned the only life that had ever truly shaped her, defined her?
Before the yacht’s engines were fully silenced at the dock in Nassau, Sierra was rushing forward. She moved on autopilot, her body cooperating while her mind reeled.
“You belong there, Si.” Ryder’s words. His only attempt at trying to convince her to come back to the ranch lingered in her mind, his voice low and raw with emotion.
But she’d fled, as she always did whenever the past became too loud. As the door of the private jet hissed open at the Nassau airport, she wondered if she’d been running from more than just the ranch, maybe from the fear that she wasn’t enough for either world. That neither Julian’s polished life of innovation nor the ranch’s sun-baked ruggedness could truly hold her anymore.
Julian walked beside her, his presence a silent promise of support. She didn’t deserve either his loyalty or his jet, yet he offered both without question.
The flight to Arizona would take six hours. That was six hours too long. She texted Chloe as they boarded, her thumbs flying over the keypad.
“I won’t be back in the office until I’m sure Dad is stable. Promote the report as is, trust your instincts. Be brave. Be you.” The last two phrases were as much for her as they were for Chloe. She started to put down the phone and then thought of William. A text wouldn’t be the right way to tell him. She called him.
“William,” she said as the call connected. “It’s Sierra.”
“What's wrong, Sierra?” He asked, already recognizing the strain in her voice.
“My father,” she said, fighting against the tears and the growing lump in her throat. “He’s taken a turn for the worse. I won’t…”
“You don’t worry about us here, Sierra,” William interrupted, not needing to hear anything more. “We’ll keep things on track. You tend to your father.”
His matter-of-fact declaration was a comfort to her. He had been a second father to her, seeing her potential before she even knew what she was doing. In many ways, he had helped form her into the Manhattan powerhouse she’d become. The words felt hollow when they left her lips. “Thank you, William. I’ll keep you up-to-date.”
The seatbelt light blinked on as the engines wound up. Sierra leaned her head against the window, watching the darkened sky blur into streaks of silver. Her father was still indestructible in her mind, the man who’d raised her and Cody on coffee and hard work after her mother died. The man who’d taught her to ride before she could remember, who’d always insisted that Quinns never break. But he was breaking, and she had been thousands of miles away, pretending she could exist in two worlds without being torn in half.
Julian settled into the seat across from her, a silent anchor in a hurricane of emotion.
She looked at him, really looked at him, the tailored charcoal suit, the sharp lines of his face, the quiet certainty that had begun to make her feel both safe and untethered. “You don’t have to do this,” she said.
“I know,” he replied, reaching out to brush the back of her hand. “But I want to.”
As the jet climbed higher, the weight of her choices returned in full force, pressing down on her with renewed clarity. She had spent so long trying to balance the scales between Manhattan and the ranch. She had brought Julian into the mix, trying to justify him beside Ryder. There was no balance to any of it. Only the raw, aching need to be where she belonged, to hold her father’s hand, to apologize for abandoning him, to stand beside Cody and face the chaos together.
And maybe find out if the girl who had buried her grief in Prada and Dolce & Gabbana could finally stop running.
The silence on the plane was heavy, but this time, she didn’t try to fill it. Her stomach twisted as the jet banked toward home. The ranch awaited, and so did the storm brewing on her horizon.