Page 179 of The Fire Line

“Mostly.”

“Flight still early?”

“Painfully.”

Harris nodded and looked out toward the pasture.

Jay watched the ember brighten between his fingers. He could have let the conversation remain practical. That would have been easier for both of them.

“Leaving is usually easier than this.”

Harris looked at him then.

Jay held his gaze, aware that he had finally said something without hiding it inside work or logistics.

“Yeah,” Harris said. The word was quiet, but it carried enough that Jay did not ask him to explain it.

For a moment neither moved. Harris finished the cigarette, crushed it out against the post, and slipped the butt into his pocket before looking back toward the guest cabin.

“You coming by later?”

Jay’s breath caught despite himself. “That an invitation?”

“Suppose.”

Under almost any other circumstances, Jay would have made him say it properly. Tonight, he understood what Harris was offering and what he was not.

“Suppose I could.”

Something eased in Harris’s expression. He said he had paperwork to finish first, and Jay informed him that this was an appalling seduction strategy, which earned the faintest movement at the corner of Harris’s mouth.

Harris headed back toward the guest cabin while Jay returned to the lodge. He helped Priya finish the last of the packing, listened to Eli complain about somebody putting batteries in the wrong case, and tried not to keep track of how long it had been since Harris left.

Nearly an hour later, the ranch had gone mostly quiet. Jay stepped outside and looked across the yard.

The light in Harris’s cabin was still on.

He had spent the afternoon reminding himself that wanting something did not make it sustainable. None of that made him want this night less.

Jay crossed the yard.

30

Suppose If I Wanted To

Harris was sitting at the guest-cabin table when Jay entered, one beer open beside him and several insurance forms arranged beneath the lamp.

He looked up immediately.

For a moment neither man spoke. The invitation had been vague enough that Jay could have pretended to misunderstand it, and the paperwork gave Harris somewhere safer to look if he regretted asking.

“You appear to be having an excellent evening.”

“Living the dream.”

“I assume the dream involves depreciated replacement value.”

“Mostly itemized losses.”