13. Wade
WADE
Three heifers stood too still in the south pasture, heads low, ears drooping against the cold. I leaned on the fence and watched them while Mitch finished checking the water tanks on the far side. The youngest one shuddered when she breathed, ribs working too hard.
I hadn't worried about this herd in years. The hands and my family kept it going, and I trusted them to.
Something was wrong.
"Boss." Mitch's voice carried across the pasture. He walked toward me, boots crunching on frozen ground, and pointed to the cluster of animals. "Those three look off to you?"
They did. The smallest heifer was breathing wrong, shallow and quick, like she couldn't pull enough air. The other two hadn't moved since I'd walked up. Their ears hung limp, and they didn't even lift their heads when Mitch got close.
"How long have they been like that?" I asked.
"Don't know." He shook his head. "Just noticed them now."
I scanned the rest of the herd. Everyone else looked fine, grazing or resting near the tree line, but these three weren't right.
Someone should've caught it yesterday, maybe the day before, depending on how fast it came on.
We had ranch hands who walked these pastures every morning before breakfast. We had protocols.
My father had built this operation on the principle that you caught trouble before it spread, before it cost you, and until recently, we had.
Until Callie left.
The thought hit me before I could stop it, sharp enough to hurt. She would've known. She would've spotted it the first morning, maybe even the night before.
My throat tightened. I pulled out my phone, and my thumb went to Callie's name before I could stop it. She wasn't here to call. I called Doc Petersen instead. He picked up on the third ring.
"Wade."
"I've got three heifers in the south pasture that don't look right," I said. My voice came out rougher than I meant. "One's breathing fast and shallow. The others are too still. Something's off."
"Respiratory infection, probably," he said. I heard him shuffling papers on the other end. "Could be bacterial. I'm booked solid till Thursday, but I can move some things around if it's urgent."
"It's urgent."
"All right. I'll be there in a few hours."
I hung up and shoved the phone back in my pocket.
My hand brushed against the ring. I'd been carrying it since I found it on the pillow two days ago, small and cold against my palm every time I reached for my keys or my wallet.
I didn't know what I was supposed to do with it.
Leaving it behind felt wrong, like I was giving up.
Taking it with me felt worse, like I was holding on to something that was already gone.
Callie had worn that ring for ten years. Ten years of waking up next to me. She'd left it for me to find, and I still didn't understand what she'd meant by it. A message I still couldn't read.
I pulled it out and turned it over in my fingers. The band was thin, simple, exactly what she'd wanted. We'd picked it out together the week before the wedding.
I closed my fist around it. The metal warmed in my hand. I slid it back into my pocket before Mitch could see.
He was watching me anyway. I straightened.
"Keep an eye on them," I said. "Doc Petersen's coming out. Let me know if they get worse."
"Will do, boss."
I walked back across the yard, boots heavy on the gravel.
The air smelled like dirt and hay and something bitter I couldn't place.
The ranch stretched out around me, land my family had held for generations, land I was supposed to pass on to my own kids someday.
Except I didn't have kids. I had a wife who'd left her ring on my pillow and walked out, and I still didn't know why.
I was halfway to the barn when the sound of boots on gravel pulled me around.
My mother stood near the fence, hands folded in front of her, shoulders straight.
She'd always carried herself like that, like she owned everything she looked at.
And maybe she did. She'd been running this family longer than I'd been alive, making decisions, brokering deals.
"Wade," she said.
"Mom."
She walked closer, slow and deliberate. Her face was calm, unreadable. "I wanted to talk to you about the Bradshaw deal."
I waited. My jaw tightened.
"I brokered it," she said.
The words landed flat, like she was telling me the weather. I stared at her.
"You brokered it."
"Yes." Her voice didn't waver. She looked me straight in the eye, no shame, no hesitation. "Shelby's father came to me about his mineral rights paperwork. I told him you'd handle it. I made sure the contract went through you, made sure you'd be working together."
My chest went tight. "Why?"
"Because you and Shelby belong together, Wade. You always have." She tilted her head slightly, like she was explaining something obvious to a child who should've figured it out by now. "You were meant to marry her before you got distracted by that girl and her ridiculous rescue hobby."
That girl. My wife. Callie.
I wanted to tell my mother that Callie had a name, and it wasn't that girl.
But I didn't.
The words stuck in my throat. My hands curled into fists at my sides.
It was only my mother meddling, I told myself. The deal would stay. Shelby would still be part of it, still be around, still be the woman my mother wanted me with.
My mother watched me, waiting. Her expression didn't change.
"Understood," I said.
The word tasted like dirt. She nodded once, satisfied, and turned back toward the house.
I stood there, watching her go. She didn't look back.
She didn't ask if I was all right, didn't ask how Callie was, didn't ask anything.
She'd said what she came to say, delivered her confession like it was nothing, and now it was done. She walked away like she always did.
I stayed out there, staring at the empty space where she'd been. My pulse hammered in my throat. The fence post dug into my palm where I was gripping it too hard. I made myself let go.
The sun dropped lower. The sky went orange and pink, streaked with clouds. I watched the light change and didn't move. There was work to do — there was always work to do — but I couldn't make myself go back inside. Not yet.
Doc Petersen's truck pulled into the yard just after five. He climbed out, medical kit in one hand, and walked over to where I was standing by the fence.
"Show me," he said.
I led him to the south pasture. The three heifers were still standing in the same spot, barely moving. Doc Petersen knelt next to the youngest one and ran his hands along her neck, her chest, her ribs. She shuddered again, a wet rattle in her lungs.
"Respiratory infection," he said. He pulled a syringe out of his kit and filled it from a vial. "Probably bacterial. I'll give them antibiotics, but you'll need to keep them separated from the herd for a few days. Watch for any others showing symptoms."
"Will they be all right?"
"Should be, if it doesn't spread." He stuck the needle into the heifer's shoulder and pushed the plunger down. "You caught it early enough."
I hadn't caught anything. I'd walked out here by chance, and Mitch had pointed them out. If Callie had been here, she would've noticed yesterday, maybe sooner. She would've had them separated and treated before I even knew there was a problem.
Doc Petersen moved to the next heifer and repeated the process. I stood there, watching him work.
"I'll be back tomorrow to check on them," he said when he was done. He wiped his hands on his jeans and stood. "Call me if anything changes."
"Thanks, Doc."
He nodded and headed back to his truck. I watched him drive off, dust rising behind the tires in the fading light.
The sky had deepened to purple and gold, the kind of sunset Callie used to stop and look at when she thought no one was watching.
She'd stand on the porch with her coffee and just stare at it, like it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.
I pulled the ring out of my pocket again. It sat small and light in my palm, catching the last of the daylight.
I'd sent Shelby away the night before. She'd been on my bed — our bed, Callie's and mine — and I'd told Shelby to get out. I'd spent the rest of the night alone in the dark, holding this ring, terrified that I'd already lost the only person who mattered. I hadn't told anyone. I wasn't going to.
What would I even say? That my mother had orchestrated the whole thing? That she'd set me up with Shelby, arranged for us to work together, pushed us together at every turn? That Callie had left, and I didn't know how to get her back?
My mother had set this whole thing in motion. She'd arranged for Shelby to be in my life, to be around, to be the woman I was supposed to want.
But standing here now, with Callie's ring in my hand and three sick animals that nobody else had noticed, I wasn't sure I knew my mother at all. She'd looked me in the eye and told me she'd brokered the deal to put me with another woman, and she'd said it plainly, like a business decision.
She had no idea I doubted her.
And how much else had Callie done that I'd never seen?
The heifers shifted in the dim light. One of them coughed, a wet, rattling sound that echoed across the pasture. I watched them for another minute, then closed my fist around the ring and turned back toward the house.
The lights were on inside. My family was in there, probably sitting down to dinner, probably wondering where I was.
I didn't want to go in. I didn't want to sit at that table and pretend everything was fine, pretend I hadn't just learned that my own mother had brokered the deal because she thought Shelby and I belonged together.
But I went anyway.
I slid the ring back into my pocket and walked toward the house, boots heavy on the gravel, the cold biting at my face. Somewhere behind me, one of the heifers coughed again. I didn't look back.