Page 21 of September’s Cowboy Travis

Me: Depends. You bringing another folder?

Kaycee: Several.

I laughed under my breath.

Me: Then I guess I don't have a choice.

Kaycee: You never do.

I started the truck. Apparently, I was getting company, and apparently, I was happier about it than a grown man had a right to be over a woman showing up with financial records.

Kaycee pulled into the yard a little after four, when most of the day's work was finished and the sun had dropped enough to take the worst edge off the heat.

She'd traded the button-downs from the rodeo office for jeans and a plain blue T-shirt. Nothing fancy. Nothing that should've made it hard to remember she was here to work, but it did anyway.

She climbed out with a canvas bag over one shoulder. “Before you say anything, I consolidated.”

I took the bag from her. “I'm proud of you.”

“You should be. It took restraint.”

We headed toward the house, gravel crunching under our boots. The yard was quieter than it had been during her first visit, with the ranch hands gone for the day and the cattle settled farther out in the pasture.

“So what exactly are we looking for?” I asked.

“There was a reference in the county index to an older record connected to the acreage you lease. I'm hoping something in your original paperwork tells me what it is.”

“That sounds vague.”

“It is vague. That's why I'm here.”

I opened the back door and glanced over my shoulder. “And here I thought you just missed me.”

Her mouth curved. “I can multitask.”

My attention stayed on that smile a second too long. Knowing what it felt like against my mouth didn’t help. I held the door wider and let her pass.

The kitchen looked about the same as it did most Sundays, coffee mug still in the sink, skillet drying next to the stove. Kaycee took in the room without saying anything, but I'd already learned what that particular look meant.

“You're doing it again.”

She set her folder on the table. “Doing what?”

“Looking around like you're surprised I know how to live indoors.”

Her laugh came easy. “I was going to say it's clean.”

“Same thing.”

“I didn't say I expected dirty.” She pulled out a chair and opened the folder. “Maybe slightly less organized.”

“You've seen my filing cabinet.”

“True. That should've prepared me.”

I went into the small office off the kitchen and came back with the oldest Kincaid lease file I had, along with a cardboard box of paperwork that had been passed down with the ranch records.

Kaycee looked at the faded brewery logo on the side and smiled.