Page 25 of The One Who Saw Her: Boone

"I called Preston Manford on the way home," Boone said, referring to a local lawyer who specialized in land rights. "He'll get back to me tomorrow. I hope he can find some kind of precedent, but I'm not holding my breath."

"And if not?" Colter asked.

Boone stopped pacing and looked at the fire.

"Then we find another way because I am not losing this ranch. That's not even a possibility I'm entertaining."

"Virgil's always been a little prick," Eli said. "Ever since Brooke left him, he can't let it go."

"He blames you," Colter added.

"He should blame himself," Rea said. "A man like that doesn't deserve a woman at all."

Boone remembered that night at the bar clearly. The way Virgil had cornered his wife—voice raised, leaning in way too close, all that ugly entitlement on full display. Boone had shoved through the crowd without thinking, letting instinct take over the way it always did when someone smaller was being backed into a corner.

He hadn't raised his voice that night—hadn't needed to. He'd just positioned himself between Virgil and his wife and looked at the man with a threatening gaze that told Virgil how the rest of the night would go if he didn't step back.

He could still see the fear in Virgil's eyes—the relief wash over his wife's face like she'd been holding her breath for years. Even now, thinking about it, Boone's chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with the fact that nobody should ever have to look that relieved just because someone decided to stand up for them.

It wasn't about heroics to Boone. It was about drawing a line.

"She left him a week later," Colter said with an ear-to-ear grin, folding his arms behind his head and leaning back into the couch.

"Oh, she didn't just leave him," Rea said. "According to Marsha at the salon, she took him to the cleaners. And no woman in the county will touch him now."

"As it should be," Eli said, a quiet edge cutting through his voice.

Eli had about as much patience for violence against women as any of the Callahan brothers—which was none. But after what he'd seen deployed overseas, he had even less. His ability to snap into action was instantaneous, almost reflexive, honed from years of knowing how fast a situation could turn irreversible. He didn't hesitate or weigh consequences, he just moved.

"Well, Virgil’s got his chance for payback now and he's taking it. Telling everyone we're finished. That we can't keep the ranch running with the water doubling. He wants to take everything," Colter said.

Boone looked at the mantle above the fireplace, his eyes scanning the timeline of photographs that chronicled the history of the ranch and the family who loved and worked it. But it was the last one that hit him square in the chest. It was his parents’ wedding picture, both smiling like forever wasn’t a question, like they would be together for eternity—and they were. They built this life together and then closed the last chapter the same way they lived their lives—together. It was as poetic as it was devastating.

"He can want all he likes," he said, his voice absolute as bedrock. "This ranch stood before him. It'll stand after him." He turned back to the room and found his brothers watching him. "He doesn't get to decide what a Callahan loses."

CHAPTER 11

“This is bullshit,” Vivi said, hands on her hips as she stared out at the endless stretch of Montana morning.

The sun was barely up, but the ranch was already alive—horses snorting in the corral, a rooster screaming bloody murder somewhere near the barn. The smell of hay and manure clung to the air, and Vivi realized just how deeply, spectacularly out of her depth she was. City girls didn't do barns—they brunched. And yet there she was, fueled by caffeine and a rapidly unraveling plan, wondering if it was too early in the day to start crying.

"Technically speaking, it's horse shit," Boone said tonelessly.

"You want me to carry hot, steaming horse shit?"

"Not carry it, rake it in that wheelbarrow over yonder." He pointed to the supersized wheelbarrow that came up to her hip. It wasn't the kind she used in her garden, nor the kind one could buy at a hardware store. It was a contraption from hell. She doubted she could push it empty, let alone filled with shit.

"Is this some kind of hazing?"

"It's called working the ranch. When one has horses, one makes sure those horses are taken care of. That entails feeding, watering, exercising, and cleaning up after them. Next come the cows and the chickens."

"I can exercise the horses."

"You ever run a herd of quarter horses?” His frown was sharp, like he was daring her to argue.

"In third grade, I went to a petting zoo with Lena Gust and there was a horse there. Pancake. We got to pet him. Does that count?"

"What do you think?"