Silas finds me at the round pen an hour later doing an end of day check on the horses. He comes to stand beside me at the rail, looks out at the pasture, says nothing for a comfortable stretch.
Then: "He asked me today about the ranch. Long term. What it needs over the next few years."
I look at him. "Beckett did."
"Asked good questions." Silas keeps his eyes on the pasture. "Not investor questions. Not spreadsheet questions." A pause. "Home questions."
I turn that over quietly.
The evening is starting its slow gold burn across the hill line.
The ranch settles into its end of day rhythm, the horses moving toward the water trough in the unhurried way they do when the heat has broken. Somewhere behind me Maisie's voice carries from the direction of the ranch house, then Beckett's lower response, then Maisie's laugh bright and clear across the yard.
I close my eyes for just a second.
Home questions.
I open them again and look at the ranch in the evening light, every inch of it familiar, every corner of it carrying years of my work and my care, every part of it feeling more like mine than anything I've ever had.
The terrified part of me says: this is exactly what you stand to lose.
The happier part of me says: this is exactly what you stand to gain.
I stay at the fence rail until the last of the light goes thinking about the difference between the two.
Cole left on a Tuesday without looking back. Marcus left kindly, which was its own kind of damage. My mother rebuilt herself so many times she made it look easy and I know better than anyone that it wasn't.
I have spent years making sure I never needed rebuilding. It didn't always work, but that was my goal.
Beckett Wilder is standing in his ranch house right now, making dinner with his daughter, asking home questions about a place he bought weeks ago, humming in his kitchen in the early morning like a man who has finally stopped running from something.
Maybe we both have.
I don't have an answer yet.
But for the first time in a long time, I think I might be brave enough to look for one.
Even if it costs me everything.
Especially then.
Chapter eleven
Falling Hard
Beckett
Iburned the eggs this morning.
Not badly. Just enough to make them slightly more committed than scrambled eggs probably need to be.
Maisie ate them anyway with the diplomatic generosity of a child who has decided to support her father's culinary development and told me they were good with the specific careful tone she uses when she's being encouraging rather than honest.
I appreciate the effort.
I make a note to practice eggs again tomorrow.
The thing is I don't mind. That's what keeps catching me off guard. Three months ago burning breakfast in a San Francisco kitchen, would have registered as one more thing going wrong in a life that had quietly stopped feeling like mine.
