Silas nods once.
"What else." I look at Remy.
He thinks about it honestly. "A proper wash station for the equipment. We're cleaning everything with a hose and a prayer right now. Something with actual drainage and a pressure setup would save about four hours a week across the operation."
I write that down. It's not in the notebook. It is now.
"Silas," I say.
He's quiet for a moment. "The access road to the south pasture. It gets impassable in heavy rain. We lose time every wet season moving equipment the long way around."
"How long has that been a problem?"
"Three years."
I write it down. Look at both of them. "Why didn't the previous owner fix it?"
Remy and Silas exchange another look.
"Honestly, we didn't think it was worth asking," Remy says. "He was a good owner. Not a present one."
I close the notebook.
Look at both of them.
"I'm a present owner," I say. "Anything this ranch needs, anything you need, you bring it to me directly. Not through Laney, not through a maintenance report. Directly." I pause. "That's not a request."
Remy looks at Silas.
Silas looks at me.
"Okay, boss," Remy says.
It's the first time he's called me that.
Not Money Bags or the new owner or the billionaire.
Boss.
I pick up my notebook and head back toward the ranch house and think that forty seven pages might need to become sixty before this is done.
Laney finds out about the equipment shed meeting from Remy.
This is not surprising. Remy's ability to keep information to himself has a shelf life of approximately four hours under normal conditions, and considerably less when the information involves something he finds meaningful.
By the time I'm back at the ranch house with my expanded notebook he has already told her, which I know because she appears at the office door at nine with an expression that is doing several things simultaneously.
I look up from the desk.
She looks at me.
"You met with Remy and Silas this morning," she says.
"I did."
"About what the ranch needs."
"Among other things."
