Chapter 3 #3
“Either?” She glances at me apologetically. “That’s not my side of things most days. Jake handles operations, Cody handles the books, I mostly deal with payroll, scheduling, admin support, making sure no one accidentally sets fire to a printer.”
“That happened once, didn’t it?”
“Twice,” she admits. “Neither time was Duke.”
“Comforting.”
She smiles, then looks back down at the paper. “Could be legit, though. We have consultants in sometimes for expansion stuff, tax structuring, event planning, all kinds of weird boring grown-up nonsense.”
“Sure.” I take the invoice back. “It’s just vague.”
“Welcome to ranch accounting.”
“No, this is extra vague.”
That gets a little laugh out of her, but she shakes her head. “Sorry. I really don’t know anything about that one.”
I nod, though her expression nags at me.
It’s genuine uncertainty layered over the fact that Ironwood’s systems are split across too many people for anyone but Cody and maybe Silas to see the full picture all at once.
Which is how things slip.
Which is how people steal.
Which is how you end up hiring an outsider with a caffeine problem and trust issues.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Anytime.” She hesitates. “Everything okay?”
“Probably.”
That answer satisfies neither of us.
Still, she returns to her desk and I go back to the records.
By late afternoon, I’ve found six consulting charges across three months, all tied to the same vendor family. All annoyingly neat, all just small enough to be waved off as operational overhead if no one’s paying attention.
I print them, highlight them, and make a note to cross check against contract dates and shipment cycles tomorrow.
Then I tuck the pages into a folder I label REVIEW in block letters because subtlety is for people who don’t expect madness.
When I finally look up, my neck aches and the office light has shifted gold.
The day has stilled around me in that strange Ironwood way, where work doesn’t stop so much as streamline itself into softer motion.
I should call it.
Instead, I stare at the screen until the numbers blur.
This is the problem with noticing things.
Once you start, it’s hard to stop.
By evening, I need air so badly it feels medical.
I grab my camera and slip out through the side door before anyone can ask if I’m still working, where I’m going, whether I need company, or whatever version of polite surveillance this ranch has mistaken for care.
The paddocks shine under the last stretch of daylight, everything brushed with that soft gold hour light photographers are legally obligated to get emotional about.
The world is cooler now, carrying the scent of pine and clean hay and horses, and finally, my shoulders drop.
This is what I love about ranch life. How beautifully peaceful it can be.
The camera in my hands. The click of settings adjusted by instinct. The world narrowing into light and shape and timing.
I lift the camera and frame the edge of a fence line against the sky. Click.
A horse turning its head, mane catching the light. Click.
The open barn doors, shadows striped across the packed dirt floor. Click.
My thumb taps once against the camera body while I review the image, a tiny beat of thought, then I adjust and shoot again.
The habit started years ago, back when I was learning to trust my own eye. One tap meant wait. Two meant look closer. Three usually meant there you are.
I tap twice now, then crouch to get a lower angle on the paddock gate.
Somewhere behind me, a horse snorts softly.
I lower the camera and breathe.
This is why I carry it everywhere. Not because I think I’m building some grand artistic legacy or because every moment needs to be turned into evidence that I existed, but because the lens gives me distance when I need it.
Control when I don’t have any.
A way to look hard at something without having to explain why it matters.
I wander farther than I mean to, circling the side of the main barn, catching details as I go. A coil of rope on a peg. Boot prints in dust. Sunlight breaking across a water trough. The geometry of Ironwood is beautiful in a way that almost makes me resent it.
Everything here is so carefully held together, which makes me wonder what it looks like when it cracks.
I lift the camera again, zooming toward the barn office windows catching the last light.
Click.
Then a movement at the edge of the frame makes me pause.
I lower the camera and look.
Nothing.
Just the far line of trees and the soft sway of branches in evening wind.
Still, the fine hairs along my arms rise.
Probably nothing.
Almost definitely nothing.
But I wait another second anyway, thumb tapping once against the camera body.
Then again. Thinking. Listening.
The ranch stays quiet.
No footsteps. No voice. No obvious shape where there shouldn’t be one.
I exhale and tell myself to stop being dramatic.
Which, in my defense, is difficult when I work at a place called Ironwood and the bosses prowl around like they were handcrafted by a committee of stern ancestors.
I take another photo instead.
The side of the barn. The path curving away from it. The dark beginning to settle into the ruts in the dirt.
Click.