"I'm not going anywhere, Laney."
He says it plain, no performance, no flourish.
"Not in six months. Not in five years. This is home."
A pause.
"You're part of what makes it home. You know that."
The ranch breathes around us.
Rowdy snores across his feet.
I look at my coffee mug for a moment and feel something large and tight in my chest loosen by degrees.
"Okay," I say quietly.
"Okay?"
"Okay." I look up at him. "I just needed to hear it."
He reaches over and covers my hand with his, warm, certain, unhurried.
"You can ask me that every morning if you need to," he says. "I'll keep answering."
I look at him sitting on his porch in the early light with his coffee, his ranch, his easy certainty about all of it, and think that this is either the bravest thing I've ever done or the most terrifying.
Probably both.
"Don't push it," I say.
He smiles into his coffee.
I smile into mine.
The call from Weston Blackthorn comes in at ten o'clock on a Tuesday morning.
I know it's going to be a problem before he even gets to the point because Weston never calls about straightforward things. He visits for straightforward things, showing up uninvited with his clean truck and his easy smile.
When he calls, it means something is happening that he wants to manage from a distance first.
I step outside the barn and answer it.
"Laney." His voice has that particular warmth he deploys when he wants something. "Hope I'm not catching you at a bad time."
"You always catch me at a bad time Weston. What do you need?"
He gets to it faster than usual which means it's bigger than usual. The cattle buyer Silver Mesa has been working with for three years, a man named Doug Hartley out of San Antonio, has apparently had a conversation with Weston about expanding his purchasing operation.
Weston positioned himself in that conversation as a central player in the regional cattle market. He implied, without technically lying, that Silver Mesa's operation might be looking at some changes given the new ownership situation.
Hartley called Weston back this morning with concerns.
"I'm just letting you know as a courtesy," Weston says smoothly. "Hartley's a cautious buyer. New ownership makes him nervous. He's wondering if Silver Mesa is still a reliable operation going forward."
I stand very still in the ranch yard and keep my voice completely level. "You told Doug Hartley our operation was uncertain."
"I told him there were changes. That's just true."
