“That’s a yes?”
“That’s a ‘I might enjoy it.’” She stands. Pulls a few bills from her pocket and puts them on the counter.
“I should get back,” she says. “Briar will be wondering where I am.”
“Saturday,” I say.
“Saturday.”
She walks out, and the door swings shut. Patty appears at my elbow, refilling a cup I don’t need.
“She seems nice,” Patty says, with the carefully neutral tone of a woman who’s already composing the text message to every friend she has.
“She seems like a lot of things.”
“Mmhmm.” Patty moves on. Themmhmmcarries enough weight for a sermon. I smile as I push my mug away. I don’t leave yet, though. I sit for a minute. The diner is quiet. The jukebox plays something with a fiddle. Patty wipes down the counter, not looking at me, not needing to.
I think about the way she talked about her hills. The pool. The waterfall. The land that isn’t hers anymore. I think about how she said“all of it”and the weight the words carried.
And I think about how easy it was. Not the attraction; that’s been easy since the Railhead… easy and impossible and entirely outside my control. I mean the talking. The way conversation moved between us without effort, the way she asked questions that showed she understood the answers before I gave them. She knows land. She knows water and cattle and the way a place gets into your bones. She knows it the way I know it; not as information, but as identity.
I’ve never met a woman who speaks my language like that.
My wolf is settled. Quiet. Waiting with the patience of something that knows what it wants.
I should be worried about that.
Iamworried about that.
But I’m already thinking about Saturday.
Chapter 10
Conner
I’m out of excuses.
Garrett asked me to find out who the outsiders are. That was Sunday. Five days ago. In that time, I’ve learned their first names, that Willow’s from Arkansas, that she knows cattle, and that she laughs like someone who’s forgotten she’s allowed to. That’s not an intelligence report. That’s a crush.
Time to do the job.
I start at the general store. The clerk—same woman who’s been behind the counter since I was buying candy bars at eight years old—is pricing canned goods when I walk in.
“Morning, Conner.”
“Morning, Deb. Got a question for you. The woman who’s been in here the last few days—auburn hair, out-of-state plates. You remember her?”
“Sure. Come in twice. Saturday and Sunday morning. Bought water, trail food, a county map. Paid cash both times.” Deb sets down a can of peaches. “Polite. Didn’t linger.”
“She say what she was doing in the area?”
“Saturday, she said she was passing through on her way to Austin. Asked if I knew of anyone looking for ranch hands. Said a friend of hers had come through a while back looking for work. Sunday, she just grabbed supplies. Didn’t say much.”
Passing through, then supplies. The first visit was casual, covering ground, asking about work. The second was picking up provisions. Consistent with someone settling in rather than passing through.
“Anything else? Anything that stood out?”
Deb thinks. “She seemed to know what she was buying. The trail food she picked: jerky, electrolyte packets, high-calorie bars. That’s what the ranch hands buy when they’re working a long day in the hills. Not tourist food.”