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“Close that?” He nods toward the barn doors, and I hurry over and close it back up, trying not to look at the rest of the damage too closely.

He comes around to the far side of the yard where the cows are grazing. “Hey. You good? Can you hold them on this end?”

I want to crawl into a hole, but I give him a wave and he goes back to the front, guiding the leader toward the open gate. He’s resolute and focused, moving the cows easily, as if he’s been doing this his whole life. The panic inside me starts to subside as I keep the cows from fanning out, doing my part to move them toward where Noble is.

Probably not the time to admire how he looks up there on that horse, but there’s something about a man who knows what he’s doing that deserves to be admired.

We work together for the next half hour, and just as we finish, my brothers get back. Quent heads straight out into the field to meet Pop and fix the fence while West and Boone head our way. Once the cows are safe and secure, they grab the four-wheelers and start the process of moving them out to the south pasture, leaving me standing there with Noble, still stunned.

Neither of us moves for several seconds. Maybe a week. It’s a story we’ll probably laugh about one day. But not today. Today is not for laughing.

He finally turns to me. “You okay?”

Not really.

“Did you see what they did in there?” I say, not doing anything to hide my disappointment.

“No, not really.” He gets off the horse and ties him to the fence, then meets me in the yard. “Show me.”

We walk into the barn to assess the damage.

It’s overwhelming.

Before I can say a word, Noble is picking things up and sorting them into piles. He holds up one of the wedding favors. “Why am I seeing a bunch of pairs of socks?”

“They’re wedding favors,” I say. “We’re attaching tags that say ‘No cold feet here’ to each pair.” I take the socks. “Well, that was the plan. It’s looking like these might be ruined.”

“We can get more though, right?” he says.

“No. They were expensive,” I say, feeling helpless. “It was all so expensive.”

I reach down and pick up a half-eaten bundle of flowers.

“I’m not sure they’re going to want to buy them twice, and I can’t—” I stop as my eyes fall to a box that held the wedding programs that were delivered two days ago.

Tipped over, stepped on.

“It’s all going to have to be replaced.”

“Okay,” Noble says, hands on hips assessing the situation. “Let’s do this. Make two piles,” he says. “One is ‘salvageable’ and the other is ‘trash.’”

He goes back to sorting, but I just stand there, staring.

He stops, comes over to me, and puts a hand on my arm. Gentle. Reassuring. “We can’t change it. All we can do is move forward. I’ll stay until it’s done.”

I look up at him straight into his eyes, letting his resolve fuel me. Right now, it’s the only thing moving me forward.

We work in silence, but he periodically holds things up so I can choose which pile it goes in. By the time we’re finished, we’ve got two piles.

One is far bigger than the other.

“Should I call Finn?” I say, staring blankly at the mess.

“Nah,” he says. “I’ve got this.” He pulls out his phone.

I frown. “What are you doing?”

“Ordering socks,” he says. “I mean, totally weird wedding favor, but hey, if that’s what your brother wants . . .” He raises his eyebrows then goes back to looking at his phone. “Where’d you get the other stuff?” He looks up and finds me staring. “Hattie?”