Chapter 10
LEVI
The morning has that easy last-day energy, nobody in a hurry, the work already done. I'm the only one still carrying anything heavy.
Kade pulls the side-by-side around front at seven-thirty, and I climb in beside him. Sutton is already in the back before either of us says a word, sitting up on his knees with both hands on the roll bar, ready to supervise.
"I'm helping," he announces to the property.
"I see that," Kade says, and puts it in gear.
Bingo tears alongside us from the first cabin all the way to the third, ears flat, fully committed, convinced this time the side-by-side is going to stop for him. It doesn't. He peels off and runs three flat circles around the side-by-side instead, which seems to satisfy whatever need started this.
We pull up to each cabin porch, and I hop out and load the bags and tack into the back while Kade waits in the driver's seat. Sutton narrates the operation from the back with the authority of someone who has been doing this his whole life, which, at five years old, is technically true.
Del's bag and tack are already on the porch, Buck's lead rope coiled on top. She's standing in the doorway with her coffee.
"Right on time," she says.
"Always are," I tell her, and load the bag and tack.
Brooke's door opens before we pull up. She's got Charm's halter over her shoulder and a look on her face that says she already knows it's going to be a quiet drive home.
"Kira, okay?" I ask.
"She cried a little last night. She does that when something actually worked."
She heads for her corral to get Charm, and I load her bag and tack.
Wren's sitting on her porch, working the buckle on Daisy's halter. She looks up and holds it out without saying anything.
I take it, work it loose, and hand it back.
"It's the heat," I say. "Leather swells."
"I've been fighting that since Tuesday." She stands up.
Cara's porch is empty, no bag or tack, truck running in the lot. Arrow's tied to the trailer, standing square and patient. She raises a hand from across the property when she sees us pull up.
We find Kira at the corral fence with Fever haltered, Brooke beside her with Charm on a lead. Kira sees me coming and straightens up.
"She's a different horse than she was on day one," I say.
Kira nods. Her eyes are a little red at the corners, and I don't mention it.
"Same time next year?" she asks.
"Yeah, better get on the waitlist early."
She gives a small smile. She and Brooke head toward the lot together the way they arrived, side by side.
Back and forth we go, cabin to lot, lot to cabin, Sutton handing bags and tack down to clients at their trailers with enormous personal investment in each one landing correctly.
Bingo makes another run at the side-by-side on the third pass, gets no closer than the second pass, and switches back to the trailers.
Through the dining hall door, Darla has the brown bag lunches ready on the counter.
I watch her catch Shelby on her way through and hand one over before Shelby gets a word out.
Mandy moves through the room behind her with the coffee carafe, and by the time the last client clears the door, nobody is leaving hungry.
Sawyer and Logan are in the lot for the goodbyes, Sawyer working her way down the line, Logan beside her. Rhea moves through the group saying her own goodbyes, easy and warm. Cassie’s near the barn, and she belongs there the same way she belongs everywhere on this property.
Shelby loads Rocket, quick and certain, and finds me on her way out.
"Tell Cassie she was right about the rate," she says. "I'm not telling her myself because then she'll know I was wrong."
"I'll pass it along," I say, smiling.
She points at me and gets in her truck.
Lynette loads Ace, then works her way down the goodbye line: Sawyer, Logan, Rhea, Cassie.
When she gets to Cassie, she holds the handshake a beat longer and says something in a low voice.
I'm not close enough to hear it. I'm close enough to see Cassie's face when she does.
Close enough to watch her go still for half a second, and then nod, something settles in her expression that wasn't there at the start of the week.
Piper is last. Sage loads quietly and forward, no opinion about it. Piper closes the trailer door, starts toward her truck, then stops.
She turns back toward the barn.
She finds Cassie near the open door. I'm maybe twenty feet off, not trying to hear anything, and hearing it anyway.
"I heard you just got hired on," Piper says. "I want you to know you did a really good job this week."
"Thank you," Cassie says. She means it, and it shows.
Piper nods, gets in her truck, and drives out like she didn't say anything.
I watch Cassie watch the truck go down the ranch road until it disappears in the trees. She stands there a moment after, not moving.
She looked like someone who'd done the work and knew it, and the confirmation didn't surprise her one bit.
Sutton stands in the middle of the lot with his hands on his hips, staring at the space where eight trailers used to be. Logan stops beside him and puts a hand on the back of his neck. "Good work today, bud."
Sutton beams up at him. "I know," he says.
Logan smiles down at him.
Bingo sits in the dirt and watches the road for another minute.
Then he wanders off.
***
By noon, it's just crew, and Darla calls lunch.
Rhea comes out first with her plate and takes a seat at the other side of the fire pit.
Kade follows and sits across from her. Londyn comes through the dining hall door with a pitcher of lemonade, sets it on the flat stone beside the fire pit, and pulls up a chair.
Sawyer and Logan come out together, plates in hand, and find their usual spots at the edge of the ring.
Sutton is right behind them with half a sandwich already in his mouth, talking around it about a hole Bingo found near the barn that is apparently of significant structural concern to the property.
I come out last and take the chair across from Cassie.
The fire pit is cold this time of day, just the char and ash from last night.
The sun is out, the ranch is quiet, and after four days of clients and horses and early mornings, this is exactly what a reset afternoon is supposed to feel like.
Food on plates. No horses to watch. Nowhere any of us needs to be.
I eat without making it obvious I'm watching her.
She's easy out here. Laughing at something Rhea says. Answering a question from Londyn. She hands Sutton a napkin before the situation requires it.
She belongs to this group the way she's belonged to everything here. I've been watching her do that for weeks, and it still catches me.
I keep coming back to the fire pit the other night.
The way she walked over and sat down and didn't say a word about Garrett, didn't do the thing where people look at you with that careful expression, didn't say sorry or try to fix it.
She sat down and let me talk, and didn't say a word the whole time.
When she got up to leave, she put her hand on my shoulder as she passed.
One hand, one second, and then she was gone.
I've been turning that over for two days.
Logan gets up to help Sutton with something and catches my eye on his way past, and tilts his head toward the barn. Not a question.
I follow him a minute later.
He's at the fence near the side of the barn, leaning on the top rail with the rest of his sandwich still in his hand. He waits until I'm beside him.
"Something's on your mind," he says.
"Yeah."
"You want to talk about it or just stand here?"
"Just stand here."
Logan nods. We both look out over the pasture for a minute. Then Logan says, "I saw a truck come through the other day. The guy looked like you." He pauses. "Whatever it was, it'll keep costing you until you handle it."
I look out over the pasture. "It's not that simple."
"Never is." Logan finishes his sandwich and pushes off the rail.
He goes back to the fire pit. I stay at the fence for another minute before I follow.
***
I hear Cricket's hooves on the barn aisle around four and come out of the feed room to find Cassie leading her toward the back gate, halter and lead, no saddle.
"Where are you headed?" I ask.
"Just a walk." She doesn't slow down. "After the other night, I want to see how she moves before I put a saddle on her."
I fall in alongside them, and she doesn't tell me not to, which I count as a win.
We go out through the back gate and along the fence line. The afternoon light sits low and long over the pasture grass. Cricket walks out forward and loose, nothing left of whatever had her up during the colic. After a hundred yards, Cassie's shoulders drop a little.
"She looks good," I say.
"Yeah." She watches Cricket for a few strides. "She does."
We walk without talking. The fence line turns near the back corner. Cricket drops her head into a patch of grass. We both stop and let her eat.
"How long have you had her?" I ask.
"Four years. Dad got her for me when I was fifteen."
"She suits you."
"She picked me. I just showed up."
I look at her sideways. She's not looking at me, but she smiles. She catches it and doesn't pull it all the way back.
Cricket shifts her weight and pulls the lead out another foot. The light is dropping toward the mountains, and neither of us moves to head back.
"You doing okay?" I ask.
She takes a second. "Yeah. Are you?"
"Getting there."
She nods like that's the right answer. Coming from her, it might be.
We stay there, both of us watching Cricket. For the first time, the quiet between us doesn't feel like something she's using against me.
Then I say it before I think it through.
"I'm glad you sat down the other night."
She turns and looks at me. Her expression shifts. The careful blank expression she uses on me cracks open for a second into something real.
My hand comes up toward her jaw before I've decided to move.
Then my phone buzzes in my pocket.
She glances down at it. The moment’s gone.