I'm just going to do it right.
Chapter twelve
Complications
Laney
Beckett's porch has become a morning habit.
I'm not sure exactly when it happened. Somewhere between the barn checks, the sunrise, and the particular pull of knowing he's already out there with his coffee, his notebook, and his easy early morning presence, I started ending up there. Not every morning. Just most of them.
This morning I find him in his usual chair, boots already on, hat sitting on the rail beside him, coffee in both hands, looking out at the ranch the way he does when he's thinking about something he hasn't put into words yet.
Rowdy is asleep across his feet, which means Rowdy has also developed a morning habit and nobody consulted me about it.
I take the chair beside him.
He hands me a coffee without being asked because he started making two cups sometime last week.
Neither of us has mentioned it.
We sit in the early quiet for a few minutes.
The ranch wakes up around us, birds first, then horses, then the particular creak of the barn roof in the morning air. It's comfortable in a way that still occasionally catches me off guard. The comfortable part used to scare me more than it does now.
I decide this morning is the morning.
Not because I've run out of reasons to wait. I could find reasons to wait indefinitely if I let myself. I'm good at that. What I've run out of is the energy it takes to carry a question this size around by myself without eventually setting it down somewhere.
"Can I ask you something?" I say.
He looks over at me with the calm attention he brings to things that matter. "Yeah."
I wrap both hands around my mug. Look at the ranch. "What happens to Silver Mesa if you decide this isn't what you wanted?"
He's quiet for a moment. Not defensive. Just thinking. "What do you mean specifically?"
"I mean if Texas stops feeling like the right call.
If San Francisco pulls you back.
If the life you left turns out to be the life you actually want." I keep my voice even. "You own this ranch. You can sell it on a Tuesday and be gone by Friday.
And everything I've spent four years building here goes with it."
The morning sits quiet around us.
"Is that what you think I'm going to do?" he asks.
"I think it's what I'm afraid of," I say. "There's a difference."
He looks at me for a long moment. Then he looks out at the ranch, the hill line, the horses moving in the far pasture, the barn catching the first sun on its roof. He takes his time with it, and I let him because a rushed answer isn't what I need.
"I asked Earl Bishop about secondary irrigation lines last week," he says finally. "I've been writing a five-year improvement planfor this property. I have a notebook full of things I want to build here."
He looks back at me. "I asked Maisie if she was happy here and she said yes and I told her forever and meant it before she finished asking."
I hold his gaze.
