CHAPTER 4
Colt
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The call came while Colt was under the feed-room shelf with a wrench in one hand and Beau's afternoon schedule sitting faceup on the desk behind him.
Tuck's voice crackled through the phone, thin under wind and engine noise. "Water gap's down at the north creek."
Colt slid out from under the shelf hard enough to bump his shoulder on the bottom plank. "How bad?"
"Bad enough the calves found it."
That was all Colt needed. He was on his feet before the ache reached his shoulder, grabbing his hat, his keys, and the little paper with Junie's number circled twice. He called from the truck while he crossed the yard.
Junie answered on the third ring, feed store noise behind her, a drawer shutting, somebody laughing near the counter. "You running late?"
"Water gap failed. Tuck's there. I need another hour, maybe two."
"Beau is making a flower crown out of receipt tape and star stickers. She'll survive your ranch emergency."
The image should have eased something in him. Instead it tightened the old rope-burn place across his palms. "She had snack?"
"Crackers, apple slices, and a lecture from me about not feeding stickers to the floor fan."
"I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Fix your creek. I'll keep your girl."
He thanked her, ended the call, and put the truck in gear.
The afternoon had turned the color of old brass. Heat sat low over the Duvane ranch, pressing cedar dust into the seams of the truck and making the pasture look brittle enough to snap. Cattle had been edgy all week, nosing toward shade and water, testing weak places.
Colt knew every weak place on his land, and he knew what one loose water gap could cost. The north creek fooled outsiders.
Most days it ran shallow and clear over pale rock.
After a hard rain it rose like a thrown gate, and even in a dry week it cut under banks and worked at posts until wire, cedar stays, and weight gave up.
By the time Colt bounced down the two-track toward the crossing, he could see trouble before he reached it.
Dust hung above the north pasture in nervous bursts.
Calves bunched along the creek bank, bawling in sharp little calls while their mothers answered from higher ground.
The far end of the gap sagged into the water, posts leaned downstream, and a strand of barbed wire shivered where it had caught against a limestone lip.
Then he saw Wren Calloway in the creek.
His mind rejected it before sense caught up.
She stood knee-deep in the narrow run, both hands on a cedar stay, boots sunk in mud and skirt of her old work shirt dark where creek water had climbed. A loose calf nosed at the broken opening, and Wren slapped the stay against the water with a crack that sent a silver splash over her jeans.
"Back," she said, voice low and steady. "You are not smart enough for this much curiosity."
The calf skittered sideways.
Colt braked harder than he meant to. The truck rocked. He got out with the door still swinging.
"Wren."
She looked over her shoulder, hair stuck damp against her cheek, face flushed under the brim of a borrowed-looking hat. Cold creek water filled her boots; he could hear the suck of it when she shifted. Above her, the loose barbed wire hummed under tension in the hot wind.
"Your gap's down," she said.
"I can see that."
"Good. I hated to be the bearer of subtle news."
He started down the bank. "Get out of the water."
"I'm keeping them from crossing."
"Tuck's on his way with posts."
"Tuck went to get posts after I flagged him down. That calf there has been trying to make a life choice for ten minutes."
Colt followed her nod. A red calf stood with its front hooves close to the broken edge, ears flicking, all boneheaded hope and bad timing. Beyond it, three more pressed forward.
Wren slapped the cedar stay against the water again. The sound cracked through the creek bottom. The calves jumped back, offended and alive.
Colt should have been grateful. He was, somewhere under the first hard layer of fear. What reached his mouth was, "Why are you here?"
Her eyes cut to him. "You're welcome."
"That's not an answer."
"I brought wire staples and tie wire from Junie's. For Sudie's fence line. Tuck came through saying your north gap was down and he needed a second set of hands until he could get the flatbed. I had hands."
She lifted one, muddy to the wrist, as evidence.
It made no sense. Wren was supposed to be at the cottage or the chapel, turning ribbon and regret into something presentable while she counted the days until she could leave Dusthallow again. She was not supposed to be standing in his creek, holding his calves on the right side of a broken fence.
"Those your supplies?" he asked.
"Some of them."
"I'll pay you back."
The answer came too quick. "Don't."
He heard the door close in it. The feeling was sharper than anger. Panic hidden under neat paint.
Before he could push, Tuck's flatbed ground into view on the upper track, loaded with cedar posts, barbed wire, a come-along, spade, and post driver. He stopped near Colt's truck and climbed out without hurry, because Tuck only moved fast where it counted.
"Got company," Tuck said.
"So I noticed."
Wren raised the cedar stay. "If either one of you plans to admire my form, admire it while handing me something useful."
Tuck's mouth twitched. He looked at Colt. "She was here before me."
"I got that too."
Colt went to the flatbed and hauled down the post driver.
The steel was hot enough to bite. He set it in the dirt, grabbed gloves, then hesitated with the second pair in his hand.
Wren's hands were already wet. Mud streaked her wrists.
A thin red line showed across one knuckle where wire had kissed her.
He held the gloves out.
She looked at them, then at him. "If I get out, they'll push."
"If you stay barehanded, you'll cut yourself."
"Then throw them."
He threw them. She caught one against her chest, nearly lost the cedar stay, swore under her breath, and wedged the stay with her hip while she worked the glove over wet fingers.
It looked like something he remembered too clearly: Wren at sixteen, barefoot in a dry creek bed, arguing that a loose gate chain could be fixed with baling twine if a person respected knots.
He had thought she'd scrubbed that out of herself. He had let himself think it because it made anger cleaner.
Tuck came down with the new post over his shoulder. "Bank's undercut."
"I saw. " Colt scanned the line. The old anchor post leaned downstream, roots of dirt washed hollow around it.
One strand still held, stretched mean across the opening.
The bottom wire was in the creek, catching weeds and foam.
"We set a new deadman upbank, brace to that live oak root, pull the top strand first. Keep the calves high. "
"Root won't hold if flood comes."
"It'll hold until I can rebuild after the wedding week mess clears."
Wren snorted.
Colt turned.
She was watching the bank, not him. "Root will hold if you don't pull straight off it. Set your brace at an angle. Give the water something to slide past instead of fight."
Tuck glanced at Colt.
Colt kept his jaw still. "You remember water gaps now?"
Wren lifted one shoulder. "I remember a lot of things. Your father made us reset the south draw three times because you kept making the bottom too stiff."
The mention of his father moved through him like a boot on gravel. "That was different ground."
"It was the same mistake."
Tuck made a sound that might have been a cough. Colt shot him a look. "Get the post."
They worked.
Work saved a man from words when words had too many teeth.
Colt dug the new hole above the cut bank, each thrust of the spade biting dry crust before hitting damp clay underneath.
Tuck carried posts and set cedar stays within reach.
Wren kept the calves back with the old stay, talking to them like foolish children at a church supper.
Every few minutes the cold creek shifted around her legs and she sucked in a breath she tried to hide.
He noticed anyway. She planted her feet wide against the pull of mud, kept one eye on the calves and one on the wire, and did not complain about the heat, the water, or the blood on her knuckle. Austin had put polish on her. It had not taken the ranch out of her hands.
He set the first post with Tuck holding it plumb. The post driver rang down, metal on cedar, blow after blow carrying across the creek bottom. Dust stuck to Colt's neck. The smell of churned mud rose sharp and mineral from the bank, cutting through cedar and cowhide.
"How long until Beau needs you?" Wren asked.
Colt paused with the driver raised. "She's with Junie."
"I know. Tuck said. I asked how long."
He brought the driver down. "Long enough to fix this."
"That wasn't an answer."
"Now you know how it feels."
Her mouth tightened, but she looked back at the calves instead of taking the bait. The restraint landed harder than a retort would have.
He set another blow, then another, until the post stood solid. Tuck tested it with both hands.
"It'll do," Tuck said.
"Second brace. " Colt pointed.
Wren shifted in the creek. Water sloshed inside her boots. "You need the loose strand lifted before you brace, or it'll bind wrong."
"I know."
"Then why are you setting the brace first?"
"Because if I pull that strand with calves crowding and you standing in water, I get a whip of barbed wire at face height."
"If you set the brace first, you'll have to undo half of it."
Tuck looked at the sky as if the answer might be written there.
Colt stripped off his glove and looked at the fence. He hated that she was right. Eight years gone, city job, failed promises he was not supposed to know the details of, and she could still read a broken water gap like a ledger.
"Fine," he said.
Wren's brows rose. "Was that agreement? It sounded injured."
"Don't make me regret it."
"That's been your general policy since I got back."