CHAPTER 18 #2
Colt killed the engine and stepped out. Wet mineral soil and cattle hide rose around him, thick and honest. This was the kind of problem that could be named: pipe, valve, coupling, pressure, cost. A man could get both hands on it and come away with proof he had done something.
He left the phone in the truck.
For the next hour, he let the work take him. He shut off the line, pulled the cracked coupling, and cursed the old threads that refused to give. Tuck held the wrench while Colt leaned into the pipe. The metal shrieked. Water leaked down his wrist, cold despite the rising heat.
"Need new parts," Tuck said.
"I know."
"Feed store'll have them."
"Junie will have one and tell me I should have bought two last month."
"She'd be right."
Colt shot him a look.
Tuck's mouth barely moved. "Usually is."
They patched what they could, enough to slow the leak from a spit to a mean drip.
Then they moved the cattle toward the shade pasture before the mud made the trough pad dangerous.
Colt swung the gate wide and rode the truck along the fence line while Tuck pushed from behind on the four-wheeler.
The cattle resisted, then gave as one body.
Colt watched for the limping calf from Saturday's sort and counted cows under his breath because numbers stayed where he put them. Fifty-six through the gate. Seven lagging. Two heifers circling back. One repair bill he did not need. One woman he had left with morning light on her face.
He gripped the wheel harder.
"You all right?" Tuck asked when they met at the far gate.
"Trough's broke."
"Wasn't asking about the trough."
Colt swung down to latch the chain. "Then ask about something useful."
Tuck leaned on the four-wheeler handlebar and studied him with the irritating calm of a man who did not waste words. "Beau okay?"
"Yes."
"Then you're making the rest harder than it needs to be."
"That's a lot of wisdom for a Monday."
"Used up my supply."
Colt fed the chain through the post loop and dropped the pin. The cattle spread under the live oaks, tails flicking. He should have felt the satisfaction of a problem contained. Instead the quiet opened too much room.
"She asked if Wren could come to her art show," he said.
Tuck did not pretend to misunderstand. "When?"
"Next month."
"That's a kid asking."
"That's the point."
"Wren know?"
Colt looked toward the truck. His phone sat somewhere in the console or under the feed receipt on the seat. All morning, it had been easier to imagine the message than face it.
"Not yet."
Tuck spat into the grass. "Might start there."
Colt's answer came rough. "And tell her what? That my daughter is already making room for her in a month Wren may not choose? That I don't know how to want something without handing Beau the sharp end of it?"
Tuck's face changed only a little. For Tuck, that was a flinch.
Colt turned away before pity could land.
There were things men said when grief had cooled enough to be handled in company.
Harlow had been good. Harlow had deserved more years.
Beau had her smile. Colt had said all of those and meant them.
What he had not said was uglier: after the funeral, with Beau crying against his chest and half the town bringing casseroles and soft words, he had understood that love did not promise to stay just because it was true.
Wren had left once. Harlow had died. Different wounds. Different reasons. A child's heart did not care about categories when the chair stayed empty.
"Colt," Tuck said.
"I need parts."
"You need your phone."
"I said I need parts."
Tuck let him have the lie. "Then get both."
Colt walked back to the truck, boots dragging mud onto the running board.
The phone lay facedown beside the preschool sign-out card Beau had used as scrap paper.
A crooked star filled one corner. Under it, in purple marker, she had drawn three tall figures and one small one.
The small one had boots. One tall figure wore a hat.
Another had long hair. The third might have been Harlow because Beau still drew her in stars, or Della because wedding talk had taken over every child's picture in town.
Colt could not ask the drawing to explain itself.
He picked up the phone.
Three missed alerts. One from the weather service. One from Junie about the feed order being ready whenever he could get by. One from Wren.
His thumb hovered too long before he opened it.
Wren's message had come while the toast was still smoking.
Good morning. I know you had to leave early. I hope Beau's breakfast went okay. Last night mattered to me, Colt. No pressure to solve the whole world before noon. I just wanted you to know I am here.
He read it once.
Then again.
No pressure. That was Wren all over, offering him room even while she told the truth. Eight years ago he had mistaken distance for ease. He knew better now. Wren's steadiness cost her. She paid for it in swallowed questions and a spine held straight.
He should have called.
He should have said, Beau asked about next month and it scared me because I want you there. He should have said, I left before dawn because I was trying to be a father, not because I regretted touching happiness.
His finger opened the reply field.
The cattle shifted under the oaks. Tuck started the four-wheeler.
A repair bill lay folded in the cup holder, damp at one corner from his wet sleeve.
The Bennet Orvell envelope was back at the house under the ledger, but Colt felt it anyway.
Money he would not touch. Help he would not ask for.
A future he would not name because naming it made him responsible for keeping it.
Beau's art show sat in his mind like a chair saved beside him.
He typed: Morning got away from me. Trough broke. Bills are stacking up and I need to keep things steady for Beau this week.
He stopped.
The words looked bare. They were true and false in equal measure.
He added: We should keep things simple until after the wedding.
His thumb hovered over send.
There was still time to erase it. Still time to write like a man instead of a locked gate. He could call her. He could tell her the panic had come after happiness, not instead of it, and Beau's one question had shown him how fast hope could become a child's expectation.
The patched trough gave a hard metallic knock behind him as pressure shifted in the line.
Tuck shouted, "Colt."
Colt hit send.
The message vanished into delivered silence.
He stared at the screen with his stomach dropping as if the phone had kicked back in his hand.
"Colt," Tuck called again. "Line's knocking."
Work moved in fast, and he let it. He shoved the phone into his pocket and went back to the trough.
The coupling held poorly. The old line shuddered when he opened the valve farther than a trickle.
They needed a replacement, seal tape, washers, and likely a section of pipe if Junie had one that fit.
Every new item added itself to the running tally in his head.
He told himself this was why the text had to be plain.
A ranch could bleed money from ten small cuts before a man noticed he was standing in a flood.
A child could get attached one breakfast, one picnic, one flower crown at a time.
A woman who had finally told him the truth deserved more than his half-built life and less than his fear.
None of that changed the taste in his mouth.
By late morning, the heat had thickened and the temporary patch had bought them enough time to leave the cattle shaded.
Colt sent Tuck to check the south fence and took the truck toward Junie's feed store himself.
He could have asked Tuck to pick up the parts.
He could have stayed on ranch ground and pretended the message would soften if he did not see what it did.
Instead he drove, because the part mattered and because cowardice had started to feel too much like standing still.
The feed store parking lot was half full. A flatbed with hay strapped down. A dusty sedan near the door. A ranch truck he recognized by the dented tailgate but did not name, because the town had enough eyes already. He parked near the side and killed the engine.
His phone showed no reply.
That should have relieved him. It did not.
Inside, the bell over the door gave its tired jangle.
Cool air carried feed dust, coffee, paper invoices, and the faint metal tang of rain gear drying near the back.
Junie stood behind the counter, talking to a ranch hand about mineral blocks.
Wren was at the account desk near the bulletin board, sleeves rolled, hair pinned up and loosening around her temples.
Receipts sat to her left. A calculator clicked under her fingers.
Colt stopped just inside the door.
For one foolish second, his whole body moved toward her.
Then Cressie Ames shifted near the coffee counter, her cup paused halfway to her mouth, and her gaze slid from Colt to Wren with bright, waiting interest.
Wren had not seen him yet. She was focused on the receipts, lips moving soundlessly over numbers. Competent. Tired. Beautiful in a way that had everything to do with staying upright when the floor had not been kind.
Her phone lit beside the calculator.
Colt knew before she touched it. Maybe the service had lagged. Maybe the building's thick walls had delayed the thing he had already done. Maybe a man did not get to choose the privacy of damage after he sent it into the world.
Wren glanced down.
Her thumb crossed the screen.
Colt stood by the door with mud on his boots, a broken trough part in his hand, and no decent word ready as Wren read his cold text in Junie Mabry's feed store while Cressie Ames watched her face change.