Remy is occupied with a tractor part that has his complete and undivided attention. Laney finds me checking the supply inventory and leans against the shed wall beside me.
I close the gap between us and kiss her once, slow. She lets me, her hand flat against my chest, her eyes closing briefly before she pulls back.
Then she looks at me with that expression that is equal parts warmth and careful management of warmth.
"Remy's gonna come around that corner," she says.
"Remy's been talking to that tractor for twenty minutes. He's not going anywhere."
She almost smiles. Almost. "Still."
She goes back to work.
I stand in the equipment shed for a moment collecting myself and think that five minutes has never felt like quite so much.
I'm doing the evening check on the horses, something that has become mine without anyone formally assigning it, and Laney appears at Biscuit's stall door with her hat in her hand and her hair loose.
It's the particular end-of-day version of herself that I have decided is my favorite version, though all the versions are doing considerable damage.
We talk for a while. Actually talk. About the ranch, about Maisie's latest scheme which involves somehow acquiring a baby goat, about a memory she has of learning to ride on a horse named Penny when she was six years old and being completely fearless about it in the way that six year old's are fearless before the world teaches them better.
I tell her about the first deal I ever closed. Twenty-three years old, a small tech startup, more luck than skill, the particular intoxicating feeling of building something from nothing.
She listens the way she always listens. Fully, without filling the spaces.
At some point we've stopped talking.
She's just leaning against Biscuit's stall door looking at me in the warm barn light, and I'm looking back.
Biscuit watches both of us with his large, patient eyes like a very furry chaperone.
I reach over and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
She lets me.
"This is complicated," she says quietly. Same words as before. Different weight behind them now.
"I know," I say.
"I'm not saying that as a warning anymore." She holds my gaze steady. "I'm just saying it."
"I know that too."
She nods once, slow, something settling in her expression. Then she pushes off the stall door and heads for the barn exit with the unhurried stride of a woman who has made a decision she's not ready to talk about yet but has made nonetheless.
At the door she stops. Doesn't turn around.
"Eggs were better this morning," she says.
"Maisie told you they were good."
"Maisie's loyal. I tasted one." A pause. "They were better."
She walks out into the evening.
Biscuit bumps my shoulder with his nose.
"Don't," I tell him.
