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He looks at the bull. He looks at me. His shoulders drop. "Again?"

"Again." I hand him the clipboard from my truck, the one with the county road schedule and the list of which ranchers need a check on their property this week. "You've got the town for two weeks."

His throat bobs. "What if something happens?"

"Then you'll handle it."

"What if something big happens?"

"Lyle." I wait until he looks at me. "Nothing big happens in Iron Creek. That's why we live here."

He nods like he's trying to believe it. He'll be fine. He'll call me anyway.

Sergeant hops into the passenger seat of my truck before I open the door all the way. I toss my duffel in the back next to his bed and a bag of kibble, and we pull onto the county road with Dumpling bawling behind us at the loss of his bucket.

Iron Creek disappears in the rearview in about ninety seconds. That's the whole town. A post office, a feed store, a diner that serves chili three nights a week because I told Marla her recipe needed more cumin and she took it personally. A school with one hallway. Three hundred and twelve people who know my name, my truck, my dog, and which Sunday I'll show up at church.

It's a good life. I built it on purpose.

Shayla wanted a bigger one. She wanted museums and restaurants with cloth napkins and friends who didn't talk about the weather like it had a personality. I didn't blame her. I drove her to the airport with her suitcases in the truck bed and neither of us said a word the whole way, because we'd already said everything that mattered. She still texts on my birthday. I text on hers.

Seven years. Most nights I don't even notice the quiet anymore.

Holloway Pass climbs through the aspens, gold on both sides of the road, leaves spinning down onto the asphalt. Sergeant sticks his head out the window and lets his tongue flap. The switchbacks narrow near the top, and the valley opens up below all at once. Bear Creek Valley. Ranch land and river and a little town tucked into the bend, church steeple sticking up white against the pines.

Griffin Holloway called three weeks ago. Tourism's up. Some magazine articles sent half of Denver looking for authentic mountain charm, and the harvest festival is expecting triple the usual crowd. He needed a second badge. I owed him for last winter, when a lost hiker wandered out of my jurisdiction into his and Griffin drove through a whiteout to help me find her.

Two weeks. Parking, crowd control, a few drunk tourists. Easy.

* * *

The festival grounds sit in a wide field behind Main Street, and they look like a fleet of trucks exploded. Pallets of hay bales. Stacks of white folding tables. Men in flannel hammering booth frames together while a teenager drags extension cords through the grass. Somewhere a generator coughs and dies and a woman's voice rises over all of it.

"No. No, the contract says Thursday. Thursday, Brent."

Griffin meets me at the edge of the lot with two coffees. Salt and pepper hair, jaw like a closed door, Denver in the way he scans the crowd before he looks at me. We shake hands. He crouches to scratch Sergeant behind the ears, and my dog, the traitor, leans into it.

"How's Iron Creek?"

"A bull ate the Sears catalog this morning."

"We had a bear in the church dumpster last week."

"You win."

He almost smiles. Griffin rarely goes all the way. He hands me a coffee and nods toward the center of the field. "Coordinator's name is Ramona Vega. County hired her through a tourism grant. She's been building this thing from scratch for six weeks, and she's good. You're her security liaison."

"Liaison."

"She'll tell you what she needs."

"Does she know that?"

"She will."

He walks me across the grass. The woman on the phone is kneeling on a tarp over a banner longer than my truck, a paintbrush in one hand and her cell pinned between her ear and shoulder. BEAR CREEK VALLEY HARVEST FESTIVAL runs across the canvas in fat red letters, the last word half done. Dark curls spill everywhere, loose and wild, catching the light. She's wearing a flannel shirt so new it still has the fold creases from the general store shelf, and jeans that fit a pair of hips I'm going to be thinking about later.

Much later. Probably tonight.