"Mm."
"The northwest corner held."
She's quiet for a second. Then a low sound that is somewhere between a laugh and something warmer than that.
"Yeah," she says. "It did. Is that what you have been thinking about?"
I press my hand flat against her chest. "I'm just happy."
She covers it with hers.
Outside Silver Mesa is wet and muddy. The south field is dark with standing water, the barn roof missing three panels, the access road still impassable.
Still standing though.
All of it still standing.
I close my eyes and think that still standing is a good word for more than just the ranch tonight.
Still standing and exactly where it's supposed to be.
Both of us.
Chapter twenty
The Aftermath
Laney
The ranch looks like it fought something.
Which it did.
Tuesday morning arrives with the quiet heaviness of days that come after hard things.
Quieter than usual. The air washed clean by two days of rain. The sky doing something genuinely beautiful now that it's finished being dramatic.
The kind of morning that would be extraordinary if you weren't standing in the middle of the evidence of what just happened.
The lower field is draining slowly and steadily, the way good soil drains when it's been properly managed over time. The creek is back to itself, running clear again at the south boundary, the sandbag line still in place along the fence, muddy but holding.
The access road to the south pasture is a mess that is going to require actual attention rather than just time.
The barn roof has a tarp on it.
Remy put it up yesterday in the afternoon rain with Silas steadying the ladder and Beckett on the roof despite my telling him twice that I had people for this and he didn't need to be up there. He went up anyway. Came down with mud on his boots and a torn sleeve.
Wore the satisfied expression of a man who has decided that having people for things doesn't mean removing yourself from things.
I've stopped arguing with that stubborn streak.
It's one of my favorites.
The crew assembles at the barn at six without being called, which is how Silver Mesa works after a crisis.
Nobody schedules the cleanup. Everyone just shows up and starts working. Remy has a list he made last night on a piece of feed store receipt paper that he presents to the group withthe organizational energy of a man who definitely stayed up thinking about this and will absolutely deny it if asked.
The list is good, so I take it, add two items, and hand it back.
