Page 11 of Kid Gloves

I did say that. "The situation is interim."

"Uh-huh." Crunch. He points the apple at the access line. "Campus-wide. She can walk into every building on this ranch. Top's own security assessment says⁠—"

"I wrote the security assessment."

"So you know what I'm saying, is my point." He grins around the apple, and it's the grin that got both of us grounded the summer of the pond incident, and I know what's coming before he says it. "Betting pool opens tonight. Wanda's holding the ledger. I've got Memorial Day in the first-kiss bracket, Beau took the Fourth of July, Grady says Labor Day but Grady's a coward, and Cash—" he pauses for effect, because even Jake was impressed—"Cash put down twenty on 'sooner than all of you' and walked off."

"This ranch has a security clearance."

"And a bookie. It's called culture, Wade."

"Who else is in?"

"Everybody's in. Loretta bought three squares. Deke's got the Fourth with Beau. Kowalski's mother is in, and before you ask, Wanda ruled it legal because she's technically praying, not gambling." He drops the apple core in my wastebasket from a distance, misses, and leaves it. "Oh, and someone anonymous took 'never, they're both too stubborn.' Smart money thinks it's you. I told them you'd never bet against yourself."

I sign the amendment. "Get out of my office."

"Love you too. Incident board's a hit, by the way — Kowalski's mom follows it on the church Facebook."

She reads all four pages standing in front of my desk at 0800. Every line. People don't read contracts in front of you. They skim, sign, complain later. Delaney Boone reads like the paper might try something, and given her week, fair, and I watch her face move through it: suspicion, surprise, a hard stop at the compensation line, something complicated at Lead Imprinting Specialist that she doesn't let finish.

"This is a real title."

"The org chart needed the role."

"You gave me the obstacle course."

"By schedule. Tuesdays and⁠—"

"I know how schedules work, I'm reading the schedule." She sets the pages down, squares them, and looks at me with those storm-glass eyes narrowed to a suspicion I haven't earned yet. "What's the catch? There's always a fine-print thing. A clause where the barn's half yours, or the pups certify under Iron Creek's name only, or I'm on the hook if⁠—"

"Page three. Contractor retains full and sole authority over the litter and all early-development methodology." I keep my voice level, because the alternative is not level. "There's no catch. You're the best evaluator I've seen in nine years of running this program. The paperwork should say so."

Silence. Long enough that Gary crows somewhere across the yard, 0812, wrong as ever.

"Okay," she says. Signs. Doesn't look up right away, and when she does there's something in her face that's been freshly stitched, some seam pulled tight over whatever the compensation line hit. "Two conditions. One: the title loses 'interim' if I earn it. I don't hold placeholders."

"Agreed."

"Two: you tell me things straight. No managing me, no softening the corners because my barn burned. If the schedule's in trouble, if the government blinks, if my raise rates dip — straight. I've had a lifetime of people deciding what I can carry." Her chin's up, and it costs her something. I can see the invoice. "I can carry anything I can see coming."

There's a full second where I think about a burn pattern, low and fast and hungry along a north wall, and an itch I can't prove and a report that isn't back. Observation, no conclusion. When it's a fact, she gets it straight. That's the deal I make with myself, standing there, and I'll come to review the terms of it the hard way.

"Straight," I agree.

"Okay then." She caps the pen, and the storm-glass eyes go lighter by a full shade. "For the record, if this goes sideways, I've already told the goats you seemed nice, and they'll be conflicted about avenging me."

"Noted."

"That's my line now. I get the jacket and the word."

She's out the door before I can respond, which is becoming a pattern, and Tank — who has taken up a duty station in my office doorway that lets him monitor both buildings, a compromise I did not negotiate — thumps his tail twice on the floorboards like a judge closing a file.

Friday is the first surface day under the new regime, and I attend in a supervisory capacity, which is what I'm calling standing at the rail.

She's turned the small yard into an obstacle catalog: tarps, grating, a wobble board, a sheet of plywood over cinder blocks, a kiddie pool with two inches of water and one floating dog toy shaped, for reasons lost to commerce, like a hamburger. Nine puppies and four of my handlers, and the handlers are the ones getting trained.

"Rule one: nobody rescues anybody." She walks the line like a drill instructor built out of sunlight. "A pup balks, you get boring. You are the least interesting thing in that yard. Courage has to be their idea, or it doesn't keep."