“Oh, no,” I said. “Don’t get ideas. I don’t have treats. This is a no-treats environment.”
He nudged me again, harder this time, clearly unimpressed with my management style.
“Wow. Okay. Aggressive negotiations. I respect it.” I scratched his neck instead, and he leaned onto it with a satisfied huff.
That was when I noticed movement on the partition bordering Boone’s stall. A black-and-white cat sat there, balanced and judging me with narrowed eyes as all cats do.
“Well, hello, Mr. Cat,” I said. “You look like you run this place.”
The cat blinked slowly.
“I like cats,” I added, becauseapparentlyI was narrating my life now. I reached out and gave him a cautious scritch under the chin. He accepted it as if it were his due.
“Yeah,” I said, scratching him again. “King of the stable, eh? You’re definitely in charge.”
The cat flicked his tail once, then hopped down and disappeared into Boone’s space. I gave the big horse one last pat, and stepped back, letting him have his peace.
Heading for the house, I was happy something in me had shifted. The quiet didn’t press in quite so hard anymore. I’d talked to a horse and a cat, and that counted as social interaction now. Animal time, it turned out, went a long way toward making a place feel less isolating.
Back in the bedroom, I did what I always did when my head was too full—I built order. Laptop open on the desk, I pulled up the spreadsheets I’d started the first night here and added new tabs, new columns. Acreage. Structures. Condition. Potential. I pinned the ranch map sent by the lawyer managing my grandfather’s estate to the wall above my desk, smoothing it out and marking cabins, fences, and access tracks with careful, precise dots. It helped. Numbers behaved. Maps stayed where you put them.
My phone buzzed while I was mid-formula, the investment firm’s number flashing on the screen. I answered it with my eyes still on the spreadsheet.
“Lucas Barrett,” I said.
“Mr. Barrett, hello. This is Zachary Haines at Lowstat-Meyer,” came the familiar voice. “Thanks for taking the call. I wanted to touch base and let you know we’ve had some movement on the Snow Creek numbers.”
I turned in my chair, looking up at the map pinned to the wall. “Movement how?”
“It’s good news that we have a very interested partner, but there is also some bad news.”
Shit. “Bad news, how?”
“A shift,” Zachary said quickly. “We’ve got a client who’s interested in the land as a conservation holding. Possibly also as an on-books investment—long-term, tax-efficient, very light-touch.”
“So… no development,” I said. Would that make it an easier sell to Jesse—he’d probably love that no one would be building on the land, and he’d be rich after selling it.
“Minimal,” he agreed. “Think preservation, easements, limited access. It does lower the price per acre, I won’t pretend otherwise—but it simplifies the sale. Clean money. Ethical. And defensible if anyone ever asks questions later.”
I pushed back from the desk and stood, staring at the sweep of white trees and buildings on the map. “They’d basically own it and leave it alone.”
“That’s the idea,” Zachary said. “For what it’s worth, it’s the first offer we’ve had that aligns with the land as it exists now, not what someone wants to turn it into.”
I was quiet for a beat, letting that settle. “Can you send me the revised figures?”
“I already have,” he said.
I ended the call still looking at the map, at the ranch I was only just beginning to understand and realized this wasthe first option that didn’t feel like a betrayal of what I’d inherited. It made me feel… good. I didn’t question why Jesse’s voice was in my head while I stared. I told myself it was a coincidence.
And that feeling somehow lasted for a few days, despite Ruth giving me more gray eggs, no one talking to me, and one angry-as-fuck cowboy going out of his way to avoid me.
Maybe Jesse and I could be friends and work this out?
“What the fuck!” Jesse bellowed from the kitchen and startled the hell out of me as I reached for my coat. Today was all about checking out the staff cabins. Not going into them, of course, but taking some discreet photos and making notes. “LUCAS!”
Oh shit, it was too late to head out. I was in jeans and my shirt, nothing even on my feet.
He came barreling out of the kitchen, thrusting an envelope at me.
