He Looks at my hat, which sits differently than it did on day one, settled on my head with the easy angle that comes from wearing something daily rather than trying it on.
Looks at my hands, which have calluses now in places that didn't have them in San Francisco.
He looks at all of it.
Then he looks at Silas.
Silas looks at me with the same quiet assessment, takes a drink of his coffee, nods once.
"What?" I say.
"Nothing," Remy says.
"You're both looking at me like something happened."
"We're just observing," Remy says. "Scientifically."
"Observing what scientifically?"
Remy gestures at me with his sandwich. "The transformation."
I look at Laney. She's looking at her lunch with the expression of someone who knew this conversation was coming and has decided to let it happen without interference.
"What transformation?" I say.
"Money Bags." Remy sets his sandwich down with the gravity of a man about to say something he considers important. "When you got here you were wearing pressed khakis and carrying a matching luggage set and you tried to tell Earl Bishop about ranch management from a book." He pauses. "Look at you now."
I look at myself. Work jeans with a tear at the knee from the storm cleanup. Boots with four months of Texas on them. Hands that know how to set a fence post, move cattle, hold a horse steady through a colic emergency.
"You cowboyed up," Remy says.
Like a verdict.
I look at him. "What?"
"Cowboyed up." He says it again, completely serious. "You came in here with your spreadsheets and YouTube tutorials, your stacks of books, and your seven pieces of matching luggage. Somewhere between the irrigation disaster, the flash flood, and the charity rodeo you just," He snaps his fingers, "cowboyed up."
Silas nods. Confirming.
"That's not a real phrase," I say.
""It absolutely is," Remy says.
"Ask anyone in Silver Ridge."
"It's a real phrase," Silas says. Two words. Definitive.
"You're a cowboy now," Remy continues. "We've voted."
"When did you vote?"
"This morning. At breakfast. Unanimous." He looks at Silas. "Unanimous?"
"Unanimous," Silas confirms.
I look at Laney.
She looks up from her lunch with the expression she gets when something has genuinely delighted her and she's trying very hard to be professional about it. "Don't look at me," she says. "I abstained."
