Chapter 2
LEVI
I need to tell Kade before someone else does. That's the reasonable thing to do. That's just information, the kind Kade should have, and that's the only reason I'm crossing the property toward the barn at the pace I'm crossing it at instead of a slower one.
That's what I'm telling myself.
The last trailer clears the gate just after one.
I've been holding onto this information all morning, through the side-by-side runs, the tack hauling, and the horses at the trailers.
Waiting for a minute that didn't come. Now the property has gone quiet, and Kade is back in the barn, and I've got no more excuses.
I find Kade inside. I grab a lead rope off the hook and start coiling it, which doesn't need doing.
"So, Cassie Holt took the job," I say.
Kade doesn't stop working.
"Brynn's position." I move toward the near stall. "Sawyer offered it this morning, and she took it, so she's staying. On as staff."
I'm still talking. I know I'm still talking.
"She moved her things over already. She had a duffel that was going to wreck her shoulder on the walk across the property, so I took it. I was going that direction anyway." I set the coiled rope on the hook. "Just happened to be going that way."
Kade turns his head and looks at me. One full second. His expression doesn't change. Not surprised, not amused, not anything I can read one way or the other.
Then he goes back to his bucket.
I'm working out what comes next when I glance down the aisle, and there she is. The bay mare, fourth stall from the end. White star, quiet eyes, nose in the hay like she's been here a week.
Cricket.
Already in her stall. Already settled. Already completely at home.
I look at Kade with my mouth open.
Kade sets the empty bucket down and picks up the full one.
He already knew. He's known since Cassie walked that mare through the barn door. The whole speech, the duffel, the I-was-going-that-direction-anyway, and Kade has known the entire time.
"You could've said something," I say.
Kade moves to the next stall, and when he gets there, he looks back at me, grinning.
I stand in the middle of the aisle and accept that this conversation is finished.
The barn moves around us, a horse shifting in a stall, the scrape of a bucket, the smell of hay and dust. I find something to do that keeps my hands busy.
It doesn't entirely work. The duffel had been heavy, that was the whole of it, and I'd taken it because that's the kind of person I am, and that's a fine reason.
It had nothing at all to do with the fact that she hadn't said a word the whole walk over.
Not until I set it down inside her cabin door.
Then she thanked me. One word, like the transaction was complete. Then I walked away.
I've been thinking about it since I put it down inside her cabin door.
I tell myself I'm done thinking about it and get back to work.
***
I cross paths with her the first time near the water trough at the back pasture, around two. She's got a halter and lead rope over her shoulder, moving like she knows exactly where she's going. I'm coming back from the fence line with a repair kit, and the timing is what it is.
"Hey," I say, easily, like I haven't been aware of her general position on the property for the last couple of hours. "How's the cabin?"
She looks at me like she's already done the math, and I came out to nothing she needs to act on.
"Fine," she says, and keeps walking.
She's younger than me by a stretch. Wouldn't know it from the way she looks at you.
I watch her go.
She wasn't rude. I've been not-quite-smiled at.
I've been dismissed with impressive efficiency.
I've been given the polite laugh that doesn't reach the eyes.
I've been tolerated in all the ways a person can be tolerated by someone who wishes they were somewhere else.
I know every version of a person who isn't interested.
She isn't any of those. She answered me.
She looked at me. She just didn't give me anything on top of it.
Like her attention was a fixed amount, and I'd gotten my share, and the rest of it was already somewhere else.
That's okay, that was maybe twenty percent of my charm.
***
I catch her the second time in the tack room doorway.
I come around the corner heading in right as she's coming out, and we run into each other in the doorway.
Not hard, just enough that my hands go to her arms without thinking about it.
She takes one step back and looks up at me.
A second, maybe less. Then she steps around me and keeps going like it didn't happen.
I stay in the doorway and watch her go. "You're welcome," I say to her back.
She doesn't break stride.
I turn and look at the wall of organized bridles.
The bridles don't help me.
I've been making people laugh since I was old enough to figure out how.
I've never once been unsure how to follow up a conversation because conversations always give me something to go on.
I don't need much. A look. A sound. The moment when someone tries not to smile and fails.
Even the people who don't like me on sight give me something, some version of resistance I can find the edge of and work around.
She gives me nothing. Nothing turns out to be a completely different problem than everything else I've ever tried.
I pull the bridle I actually came for off its hook and get to work replacing the buckle on the left cheek piece that's been broken for a week. Stand at the bench with the new hardware and work it through, because it needs doing.
My hands know what to do.
My head runs back through the doorway.
She didn't flinch. Didn't speed up. Didn't do the thing where you make yourself very small to get past someone without touching them.
Which is what most people do when they're trying not to acknowledge a close pass.
She'd just moved around me like I was a feature of the space she'd already accounted for.
The fact that she could be that close and come out the other side like it didn't happen is a problem I don't have a word for yet.
I put the bridle back on the hook and walk out into the noon light and tell myself I'm overthinking a doorway.
I'm definitely overthinking a doorway.
***
Two days. Two full days of her on the property, me trying everything I had, her giving me exactly what she gave me at the water trough and in the tack room doorway. Nothing. Not unfriendly. Not interested. Just nothing. I'm starting to wonder if she practices it.
The parking area fills in one rig at a time.
Sawyer and Logan move through the arrivals, check-in, and cabin assignments handled easily and warmly, the kind of welcome that makes people feel like they came to the right place.
By the time a client has their key in hand, they've already exhaled.
That's not an accident. That's Sawyer and Logan.
Kade and I run the side-by-side back and forth between the lot and the cabins, loading tack and hauling bags as each trailer pulls in. Cassie's somewhere near the dining hall with Rhea, and I know exactly where she is, the way I've known it all morning, without meaning to and without stopping.
Cole Briggs gets out of his big dually, catches his boot on the running board, and goes down on one knee in the gravel before he's fully out of the truck.
He laughs, loud and completely unbothered, like this is just how he arrives at places, and I laugh before I can stop myself.
Tatum comes around the front of the truck and looks at him with the patient expression of a woman who has been loving this man for a long time and has made her peace with it.
Marcus Bell is still on the ramp, talking to his horse. Not coaxing, not nervous, just talking. Like he's going through a checklist, and the horse is a coworker who needs to be briefed. The horse's ears are moving, tracking every word.
Dana Wells steps out of her truck quietly, already taking in the property before she's fully out the door. Her horse is a black mare who comes down the ramp correct and forward, and Dana runs a hand down her neck without looking at her, already looking somewhere else.
I glance toward the cabin row again. Cassie's gone inside somewhere with Rhea, and I lose the thread of her for a minute, and losing it is worse than watching.
Weston Shaw is the last of the four. He backs his trailer in with the ease of someone who doesn't think about it anymore.
His horse comes off the ramp differently from every other horse in the lot.
A grulla gelding, moving down to the ground carefully, looking at every corner of the property before his feet fully settle.
Not spooky. Not reactive. Just taking his time deciding.
Weston stands beside him and lets him look, doesn't rush a second of it.
There's something in that patience, the way Weston just waits, that I watch for a moment before I load the next round.
That horse is going to be interesting to watch in the arena.
Reed Tanner pulls through after Weston and has his horse down the ramp before Kade has the next load staged. Dark bay gelding, deliberate on his feet. Reed runs a hand down the horse's neck and takes in the property. He looks around like someone who wants to know exactly what he's working with.
I pull up alongside him with the side-by-side. "Good drive up?"
Reed looks at me. "Long," he says. "But yeah."
He goes back to his horse. I load the next bags.
I run another load out to the cabin side and come back, and the ranch has shifted into that arrival energy, all of it good, the kind of full-property movement I've been part of enough times to know what a good group feels like before the first session runs.
I'm not looking across the property.