Page 82 of The One Who Saw Her: Boone

"I'm saying exhaust every other option before we file a single piece of paper."

"And we keep paying?" Eli asked.

"Yes. And you pay exactly what you've been paying for fifty years. Not a cent more. We need to establish that as the agreed price." Owen closed the box. "I’ll have my executive assistant write up a contract, but when I sign it I assume that's my ticket to future beer and barbecue rewards?"

Boone almost smiled. "Absolutely. You can even pick the sauce."

"Careful, Boone. I might ask for extra ribs."

"You pull this off and you can have the whole damn cow."

Owen grinned. "I like my legal victories like I like my ribs—juicy and well-earned."

Boone grinned despite himself. “You got it, Bradley. But remember, if this falls apart, I’m making you shovel manure for a week straight.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Owen replied, eyes twinkling. “But somehow, I think I can handle it.”

Having his brothers on either side of him, Boone felt something that had been wound tight since the inspector's visit loosened just enough to breathe.

He thought about the banker's box and Vivi in the attic finding the thing that could save everything, trying to reach him before he'd already gone. He thought about the way he'd sent her to bed with tears in her eyes and a soft click of a door that had felt like more than it was.

He owed her something. He just hadn't figured out yet what a man like him had to give.

CHAPTER 32

Vivi perched cross-legged on the grass, glaring at a goat like it personally owed her enlightenment. This was her daily glow-up exercise—part meditation, part silent therapy, and apparently part standoff with barnyard livestock.

Her chest still throbbed from Boone's words—the ones that had landed so hard they’d left a dent. She was hurt, sure. But mostly she was mad at herself because she'd barreled in without thinking, tangled herself in his world like an overzealous whirlwind and made his life harder than it already was. She hadn't weighed the consequences before jumping in with both feet. She never did.

And now, sitting in a field with a goat staring her down like it knew all her sins, she realized she was the one who needed to forgive herself first.

She exhaled, imagined Boone's face—tight-shouldered, frustrated, impossibly gorgeous—and tried to let go of enough of it to get through five minutes of meditation without combusting.

She closed her eyes and tried to pretend the goat wasn't silently judging her. Her thoughts drifted to him anyway, the way they always did now, uninvited and entirely too comfortable with the route. The memory of his jaw tight with frustration made her chest ache—and her pulse do something completely unhelpful in her lower belly. She imagined sliding into his arms, pressing a kiss to that jaw, the one that could scowl and melt her all at once.

Her hands rested on her knees, but she couldn't stop fidgeting, curling her fingers like she could will him closer. He'd been right to hold the line. She loved that about him—the steadiness, the refusal to let things slide just because it was easier.

The goat snorted.

Vivi smirked despite herself. Maybe meditation wasn't about inner peace so much as imagining setting fire to your problems—or the man responsible for most of them—in the most deliciously satisfying ways possible.

She opened her eyes, took a slow breath, and decided that tomorrow she was going to storm into his life, boots first, with her full glow-up power and a plan to set both of them on fire. Plan decided, she snapped her lids shut, closing out the world, and muttered something that vaguely sounded like chanting while the goat bleated.

Suddenly, boots grinding gravel sounded and startled her right out of her trance.

"Jesus," she squeaked, scrambling and whipping around to find Boone standing behind her. She pressed a hand to her chest. "You can't sneak up on a woman doing her spiritual thing."

Boone raised a brow, hands on his hips, and looked her over the way he always did—like he was trying to decide whether she was a problem or a phenomenon.

"What the hell are you doing? And why does it look like you're trying to communicate with a goat?" he asked. “Neverminded, it probably has something to do with Glow time.”

"In fact, it is," she said. "Glow wanted me to do five minutes of meditation. If livestock interrupts, embrace the wisdom of barnyard Zen."

A rare grin spread across his face—the slow one that hit her somewhere below the ribs every single time—and she felt her resolve do something structurally unsound.

"Barnyard Zen," he repeated. "You're telling me you literally talk to goats for self-improvement?"

"Precisely. They're excellent listeners. Very nonjudgmental and highly skilled in patience."