"I didn't break it, I merely—"
The look I give him finishes that sentence for him.
I actually watch the survival instinct kick in behind his eyes when he decides whatever argument he was about to make is probably not worth dying in a muddy field over.
He goes and gets the boots.
Remy leans close as Beckett walks away and says quietly, "Ten bucks says he watches another tutorial tonight to figure out what went wrong."
From across the field, Rowdy barks and executes another joyful muddy spin.
I watch Beckett disappear toward the equipment shed in borrowed boots that are definitely too big for him. He walks with the stiff irritation of a man who looks personally offended by every step they force him to take.
He's covered in mud, sunburned across the bridge of his nose, and somehow still trying to hold onto whatever dignity he has left.
This man should be impossible not to dislike.
The problem is, I'm starting to think he might also be impossible not to root for.
"Don't," I tell Remy.
But I'm already smiling and we both know it.
Chapter three
Controlled Chaos
Beckett
I've managed billion dollar acquisitions.
I have sat across negotiating tables from men who considered intimidation a professional skill and walked away with exactly what I came for.
None of those experiences prepared me for ranch mud with abandonment issues.
I've navigated boardrooms, hostile takeovers, and one particularly memorable shareholder meeting where three people cried and one threw a water bottle. I handled all of it with composure.
I did not handle the irrigation situation with composure.
That is the honest assessment I arrive at somewhere around two in the morning.
I'm lying in the dark of the ranch house bedroom, staring at the ceiling.
The Texas night is making sounds outside that San Francisco never once made in fifteen years. Something is calling out there. Multiple somethings.
I'm choosing not to investigate what they are.
The east field is still wet.
Laney and Silas got the main pump shut off before dark.
Remy spent an hour moving equipment to higher ground. He did it with the cheerful energy of a man who has never once in his life found a disaster inconvenient.
I helped where I could, which was less than I wanted and more than Laney expected, based on the single raised eyebrow she gave me when I waded in without being asked a second time.
I'm choosing to count that eyebrow as a win.
The coupling itself was already compromised. I know that because Silas told me quietly while Laney was on the other sideof the field, in the measured tone of a man who understood I needed to hear it but wasn't going to make a production of saying it. The threads were stripped. It would have gone eventually regardless.
