“Ginny, wait!”

“Let her go,” Cookie said. “There ain’t nothing you can say that’s gonna make her feel better.”

Emily looked at him, surprised to see a suspicious gleam in his gray eyes.

“I’ll miss you,” she said. “You’ve been a good friend. And I’ll especially miss your son-of-a-gun coffee.”

“You sure you have to do this?”

She drew in her breath. “It’s…what Chase…what we both want,” she stammered. Never could she have imagined how hard it would be to leave. She’d lived at the ranch for only two months. Yet it felt like she was about to leave a lifetime of memories behind.

“Take care of yourself,” Cookie said. Turning abruptly, he quickly left the room.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Emily picked up her carpetbag. Big-Foot Harry would help her with the rest of her baggage. She was leaving with fewer belongings than she’d brought with her. In addition to the brown printed dress, she had given Peggy Sue her wedding dress. Maybe it would bring Peggy Sue better luck than it had brought her.

She walked outside and set her carpetbag on a wicker chair. What was taking Big-Foot Harry so long? She’d hoped to leave before Chase came back to the house. Seeing him would only make things that much harder.

After pacing the porch for several moments, she started down the steps. Maybe Rusty knew what was keeping Big-Foot Harry. Just as she reached the stables, Peggy Sue ran out of the double doors, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Alarmed, Emily stopped her. “Peggy Sue, what’s wrong?”

Peggy Sue wrung her hands together. “It’s Rusty,” she sobbed. “He’s leaving.”

“Leaving? Why?”

Peggy Sue struggled to get the words out. “Mr. McKnight is selling half the ranch and said he would no longer need as many employees.”

“Oh no!” Emily didn’t think she could feel any worse.

“It’s true,” Peggy Sue said. “Rusty and I…” She bit her bottom lip and lowered her gaze.

“I know,” Emily said. “I know.”

Peggy Sue’s lashes flew up, exposing fresh tears. “If he loses his job, he’ll have to leave town. There aren’t many ranches that can afford to hire a full-time groom.”

“Oh, Peggy Sue… I wish there was something I could do.”

“I don’t know that there’s anything.” Peggy Sue picked up her skirts and ran sobbing to the house.

Emily curbed the impulse to chase after her. Nothing she could say would make things better.

Instead, she stood in the middle of the yard, staring at the cattle grazing peacefully on the rolling hills. At first, the vastness of the land had overwhelmed her, even frightened her, and made her feel small and insignificant. Now the spread seemed to make everything else seem small in comparison. It was easy to imagine that nothing existed outside of the McKnight ranch. Not Boston. Not anything.

Dividing the land in two as Chase had proposed would bring the rest of the world closer. What remained of the ranch would always be under the shadow of Fields & Fields. Future generations would never know the full extent of the McKnight legacy. But it wasn’t just the ranch that would suffer from the split.