Actually like him.
And that is a problem of a completely different size.
The clock hits eleven and Weston Blackthorn shows up.
He doesn't call ahead because Weston never calls ahead. Calling ahead would imply that other people's schedules matter. Which is a concept Weston has engaged with approximately never in the forty years he's been on this earth. He just appears, the way wealthy men with too much confidence tend to appear, like the world has been expecting him all along and is simply slow to acknowledge it.
His truck is newer than mine, cleaner than mine, with the kind of shine that says it has never once been driven through mud on purpose.
He parks it in front of the main barn with the casual authority of a man who has parked wherever he wanted his entire life and climbs out in pressed jeans and a shirt that fits extremely well and a hat that has never seen a hard day's work.
I know all of this because I've known Weston Blackthorn for six years.
He runs Blackthorn Ranch, twelve hundred acres on the other side of Silver Ridge. Inherited from his father, expanded through aggressive land acquisition, managed by a team of people who are very good at their jobs so Weston doesn't have to be.
He's smart enough to know what he doesn't know and wealthy enough not to care. He's also, objectively speaking, a very good looking man who is completely aware of that fact, which cancels out approximately half the benefit.
He spots me crossing the yard and his face arranges itself into that easy confident smile.
"Laney Jenkins," he says, like my name is something he enjoys saying.
"Weston." I keep walking. "What do you need?"
He falls into step beside me without being invited. "Heard Silver Mesa changed hands. Thought I'd come introduce myself to the new neighbor." He glances around the property with the assessing eye of a man pricing things. "Place looks good."
"It is good."
"New owner settling in alright?"
"Fine."
He looks at me sideways. "That's a short answer."
"It's a complete answer."
He grins. Weston finds my efficiency charming, which I find irritating, which he also finds charming. It's an exhausting cycle. "I also came to see you," he says. "Thought maybe you'd want to grab dinner in town this week. Catch up."
"We don't have anything to catch up on, Weston."
"Sure we do. It's been a while."
"It's been two months."
"Like I said." He tips his hat slightly. "A while."
I stop at the fence line and turn to face him with the direct expression I use when I need a conversation to end. He meets it with that same easy smile, unbothered, comfortable in his own skin in the way that men who've never had to fight for anything tend to be.
That's when I hear Beckett behind me.
He comes around the side of the barn with his work gloves on, a fence tool in one hand, moving with the unhurried purposeful stride he's developed over the past few weeks. He's filled out in the shoulders slightly from the ranch work. His skin is starting to carry some color from the Texas sun, and his hat sits differently than it did on day one.
He looks like he belongs here.
That thought moves through me fast before I can catch it.
Beckett sees Weston and his stride doesn't break but something shifts. Something subtle, around the jaw, behind the eyes. I clock that immediately because I've been paying extremely close attention to Beckett Wilder's face for three weeks, and I know its geography better than I should.
"Didn't know we had company," he says. Calm, easy, directed at me.
