"And a briefcase. Which Rowdy had inside the barn for forty minutes before he gave it back."
That does make Silas smile, which is a small victory because Silas doesn't give those away for free. He takes a slow drink of his coffee. "What'd he do when he got it back?"
"Stood very still and breathed through his nose," I say. "Like a man who has practiced not reacting to things."
Remy snorts. "That's not a cowboy skill."
"No," I agree. "It's not."
We sit with that for a moment. The diner hums around us, familiar and warm.
Jolene's voice carrying from the counter, the smell of coffee and something sweet still in the oven. I wrap both hands around my mug and try to settle the restless, low-grade irritation that's been sitting in my chest since the moment that green moving truck turned off the county road.
Four years. I've given four years to Silver Mesa. The previous owner understood what the ranch needed and trusted me to deliver it.
Whatever Beckett Wilder thinks he's going to do with a phone full of optimization notes and a library of ranching books, it isn't that.
"He won't last the month," I say.
Remy raises his coffee cup. "I'll give him two weeks."
Silas says nothing, which from him means he's decided something he isn't ready to share yet.
I get to the ranch early the next morning, same as always, before the sun has fully committed to the day. The air still carries that brief window of cool that Texas allows before it changes its mind entirely.
What I do not expect is to find Beckett Wilder already up.
He's standing at the kitchen island in the main ranch house, laptop open, two empty coffee cups pushed to one side, and what appears to be an actual printed spreadsheet laid out flat in front of him.
He's got reading glasses on that he probably doesn't realize make him look less intimidating, and he's frowning at whatever is on his screen with the focused energy of a man who considers this a completely normal way to begin a morning.
The annoying part is that none of it makes him look like an office nerd. Somehow it just gives him this ruggedly handsome thing that doesn't fit with spreadsheets or color coded schedules at all.
I stop in the doorway.
"You're up early," I say.
He looks up. Takes the glasses off like he's been caught doing something embarrassing. "I'm always up early."
"Ranch early or city early?"
He considers that like it's a genuine question worth thinking about. "What's the difference?"
"City early is six. Ranch early is before the animals decide your schedule for you."
He glances at the window, where the sky is just starting to go pink at the edges. "It's five-fifteen."
"Then you get partial credit."
I pour myself coffee from the pot he's already made, which I will not thank him for out loud, and look at the spreadsheet on the counter. It's color coded.
There are columns. Multiple columns with headers likeFeed Schedule OptimizationandPasture Rotation Efficiencyand one that simply saysWorkflowwith three question marks after it.
I pick it up.
"I've been looking at the weekly schedule," he says, with the careful tone of a man who knows he's on thin ice but has decided to skate anyway.
"There are some areas where the timing could be tightened up. If we shift morning feed by forty minutes and stagger the pasture checks, we could theoretically recover almost an hour of productive time across the crew each day."
