Earl's voice carries from somewhere behind us. "Stop making eyes at each other and come try this jam."
We go try the jam.
I find the notebook on Sunday morning.
Not snooping or looking for anything. I'm in the ranch house office returning a supply invoice to the filing system we set up together last month and the second notebook is open on the desk at a page I haven't seen before.
I stop.
Look at it.
It's not ranch plans. Not irrigation lines or arena specifications or bunkhouse timelines. It's a list. Handwritten in Beckett's precise, careful handwriting, the same handwriting that put ask before optimizing in a spreadsheet margin four months ago.
At the top of the page, underlined once, it says:The Proposal.
I should close the notebook.
I know I should close the notebook.
I read three lines.
The first line says:Location. Silver Mesa. Somewhere that means something to both of us.
The second line says:The ranch crew should be there. They're family.
The third line says:Maisie helps.
I close the notebook.
Stand very still for a moment with the supply invoice in my hand and the ranch sounds coming through the window. Morning feed, horses, Remy's voice somewhere in the distance.
Ordinary morning.
Completely extraordinary moment.
I file the invoice and walk out of the office, through the kitchen where Maisie is eating cereal without looking up, out onto the porch into the morning air.
Breathe.
I think about three lines in a notebook.
Location. Silver Mesa. Somewhere that means something to both of us.
Every inch of this ranch means something to me. He knows that, which means he's been thinking about which specific inch carries the most of what we are.
The ranch crew should be there. Of course they should. Remy, Silas, the people who watched this whole thing from day one and never stopped rooting for it.
Maisie helps.
That one lands somewhere it doesn't leave.
She has been helping since the first morning she dragged me through the ranch house door with turquoise boots and a decorating plan. Since French toast at a cabin table. Since she asked are you going to marry my dad like it was themost perfectly reasonable question in the world at eight in the evening.
She's been helping the whole time.
I hear boots behind me and turn.
Beckett is in the doorway with two coffees and his hat already on, looking at me with the expression that has become my favorite thing about mornings. Warm, open, completely grounded in where he wants to be.
