Page 14

“You can, of course, get our specialty-grade Arabica for half the price,” Vernie Meyer—who, for reasons no one has adequately explained, is called Hellion—told me, in a tone that suggested I would be revealing myself to be a lesser human being.

I push through the door into the smell of espresso and something baking, already running through the hydrology deposition, the upstream diversion records, the three things I need to draft before five⁠—

And then I stop.

Mason Brooks is at the counter.

I met him last night at Blackwood Prime. Before that, he was just the man at The Rusty Spur who caught my attention without even trying. Last night was a handshake and a hello, a brief introduction before Kaz and Bree started arguing again—which they do with alarming regularity.

I suspect it’s because they’re holding off the inevitable. Kaz keeps her at arm’s length, treating her like his friend’s niece instead of the woman he watches when he thinks no one is paying attention.

Mason turns at the sound of the door—the way people do in small rooms—and we spend half a second deciding whether to acknowledge each other or pretend we didn’t just make eye contact.

We both decide to acknowledge it.

“Counselor,” he greets.

It’s not what I expected, and it lands with a small, unexpected warmth, like an endearment.

“Mr. Brooks.”

I step up to the counter and order my usual—an Americano, black, no ceremony—and turn to find him still there, cup in hand, in no apparent hurry to be anywhere.

“Maybe if we spent some time together, you wouldn’t call me mister.” He gestures toward the small tables by the window, casual enough to make it easy to say no.

I don’t have time to sit and chat over coffee. I have a deposition to prep, a motion to draft, and Clara Whitman’s case file spread across my desk, waiting for me.

“I have fifteen minutes before my next appointment.”

It’s a lie. I don’t have an appointment. I also don’t have fifteen minutes.

We take the table by the window, overlooking Main Street, where Pryor Feed Store hums through its midmorning business, and someone’s horse trailer blocks half the road.

Mason sets his cup down and turns his attention outside. “How long have you lived here?”

“Six months.” I wrap my hands around my cup. “You?”

“Less than a week.”

“What do you think of it?”

Most people answer reflexively—beautiful, so peaceful, the mountains—the tourist answer, but he takes his time, looking at the street as if actually considering.

“It knows what it is,” he says finally.

His insight surprises me.

Wildflower Canyon is what it is, and it’s not pretending to be something else. Not like Aspen, trying to turn itself into a playground for the elite, borrowing style and purpose from some chalet-filled town in Switzerland or France.

I sip my coffee and wrinkle my nose as if in thought. “Is that Dōgen?”

He quirks an eyebrow.

“Dōgen was a Zen master who⁠—”

“I know who Dōgen was,” he cuts in smoothly. “He argued that existence itself is a place where sentient beings and insentient things are deeply intertwined in a single expression of reality. The idea being that the world is aware of itself.”

I let my surprise show before I can stop it.