Page 54

It came out of the dust and into focus. A sedan, charcoal, clean in the way that things were clean before they’d met a gravel road. Denver plates. A rental sticker on the bumper I could read by the time it cleared the last cottonwood.

My chest did something I chose not to examine.

I brushed dirt from my knees, set the rock down, and walked to the edge of the field where the flags marked my rectangle. The car rolled to a stop near the bunkhouse, gravel popping under tires that had never met gravel before and were taking it personally.

The engine cut. A door opened.

A woman got out.

She was late twenties maybe, tall but even taller in her boots — good ones, brown leather, the kind that cost real money and had never been within arm’s reach of a manure fork. A linen shirt, cream, pressed, the kind of shirt that existed in a world where ironing was a leisure activity. Black hair cut sharp to the collarbone, already pushing behind one ear. Dark eyes. A smartwatch on her left wrist that she checked before she’d finished standing up.

She held a clipboard.

Not carried it. Held it, the way a surgeon held a scalpel, or a sheriff held a warrant — with possession that implied intent.

I put on the grin. The full one. Both dimples, the works.

“Morning!” I called, walking toward her. “I’m—”

She closed the car door and walked past me.

Not around me. Through the space I occupied, adjusting her line by six inches the way a river adjusted around a stone, and continued into the field without breaking stride. Her boots met the grass and she was moving, eyes on the ground, clipboard against her hip.

“—Cash Calloway,” I finished, to nobody.

I watched her go. Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty. She hadn’t looked at me, hadn’t slowed, hadn’t acknowledged that I was standing there with my hand out and my name still hanging in the air where she’d left it.

I put my hand in my pocket and followed. “Priya Nair? You’re two days early.” I grinned. “Guess you’re keen.”

She didn’t even look at me.

“First time in Montana?” I asked, catching up beside her.

“Not unless the Colorado side counts,” she said, still scanning the ground, “but first time at this particular address.” Her accent was city, but not from these parts. The vowels had a shape that said East Coast and then college, then another layer I couldn’t place.

“That’s great!” I said, aware I sounded way too happy. As though I expected this woman to single-handedly save my entire event from failure.

“So this is the site,” I said, catching up, trying to regain an air of control. “Carrow Creek Ranch. Three thousand acres, creek access, mountain views, and that—” I gestured toward the stock tank, still sitting in the middle of my rectangle like a planet in orbit, “—is a water feature. Intentional. Very feng shui.”

She didn’t look at the tank. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t look at the mountains, which were doing their best behind us, snow-capped and enormous and apparently not worth a glance.

She raised one finger.

Not a wave. Not a greeting. One finger, held at shoulder height, the universal signal for I am counting and you are interrupting the count.

She was pacing.

Her boots covered the ground in measured strides, and I realized she was measuring the field with her feet. Each step deliberate, each turn precise, the clipboard coming up every few paces so she could write without stopping.

I shut my mouth.

That was new.

I’d been talked over. I’d been ignored. I’d been told to shut up by Wyatt, Boone, three rodeo judges, and a woman in Billings who’d had strong opinions about my hat. I had never been simply walked through, as if I were a feature of the landscape that hadn’t been installed yet.

She reached the far corner of my rectangle, turned, and paced back along the east side. Her hair caught the light and she pushed it behind her ear again, the same ear, the same motion, already a habit.

I followed at a distance that wouldn’t get me counted.