And that feels dangerous coming out of my mouth before eight in the morning.
Dr. Emmy Torres's truck rolls through the ranch gate at half past nine, which I completely forgot about until this moment.
Emmy does a routine check on the horses every six weeks, vaccines and teeth and general wellness, and she does it with thebrisk efficient energy of someone who genuinely loves animals and has limited patience for everything else.
She climbs out of her truck and looks immediately at Beckett, who is still working the fence line, and then at me with both eyebrows raised.
"That's him?" she says, without lowering her voice.
"Emmy."
"What? I'm just asking." She pulls her kit from the truck bed. "June said he was good looking. June undersells things."
"June needs to mind her business."
"June is the only one of us who minds anyone's business properly." Emmy falls into step beside me toward the horse barn. "Has he gotten better or is he still flooding fields?"
"He's getting better."
She glances back over her shoulder. "Mm."
"Don't."
"Didn't say a word."
"You said mm. That's a whole sentence coming from you."
Emmy grins and pushes the barn door open. She works through the horses with the calm efficiency I've always admired. Checking each one with quiet steady hands and talking to them in a low voice that isn't quite words and isn't quite not words either. Biscuit leans into her like she's an old friend, which she is.
Beckett appears in the barn doorway twenty minutes in, hat in hand, and watches Emmy work with genuine interest. He doesn't interrupt. Doesn't ask unnecessary questions. Just observes until Emmy finishes with Biscuit and turns around and finds him standing there.
"Beckett Wilder," he says. "I own the ranch."
"Emmy Torres. I keep your horses healthy." She looks him up and down with the frank assessment she applies to everything. "You've got good animals here. Well managed."
"That's Laney's work," he says. "Not mine."
Emmy looks at me.
I look at Biscuit.
"Uh huh," Emmy says, in a tone that carries significantly more information than those two syllables should reasonably contain.
I make a mental note to find better friends.
Maisie finds me after lunch.
This is not unusual. Maisie finds me after lunch most days now, appearing at my elbow with the reliable frequency of a scheduled appointment that nobody formally made.
She's got Rowdy with her, which is also not unusual, and a look on her face that I've learned means she has a plan and is about to tell me about it in a way that makes it very hard to say no.
I brace myself.
"The ranch house looks sad," she says.
I look up from the supply order I'm reviewing. "Sad how?"
"Empty sad." She pulls herself up onto the fence rail beside me with the easy athleticism of a kid who has been climbing things her whole life. "Dad unpacked all the boxes but he didn't put anything anywhere. It's just stuff sitting around in rooms. There's no..." She waves a hand searching for the word.
