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Bree wants to vent.

“I wish he’d just…you know, stop seeing me as Uncle Andy’s niece and see me as…me. I’m like twenty-eight, and he treats me like a child.”

Well, she kind of is. I’m nearly forty, and Kaz is probably a few years younger than me, so I can understand his conflict—his dead friend’s niece, young enough to complicate everything.

But I wisely keep my mouth shut.

“Let’s get something to eat,” she suggests on a long-suffering sigh. “The barbecue tent is soon going to be too crowded to get through.”

CHAPTER 8

mason

The barbecue tent starts serving at noon—brisket and ribs that have been smoking since before dawn, set on tables beside the corrals with the pragmatic abundance required to feed a crowd.

The whole event migrates from the auction ring to the tables, then to the open area between the barns, where a band is tuning up.

I don’t know what I expected. Something more transactional, maybe. More purely economic. This is something else. This is a community performing its own continuity.

I get a plate of brisket and look for somewhere to stand to eat, finding—without being entirely surprised by it—that Taya Morningstar is twenty feet away.

She’s in dark jeans and boots and a jacket the color of pine needles, talking to Joy with the ease of two people who have found their shorthand.

I want the same with her, I think out of nowhere.

I don’t want the careful politeness of a new acquaintance—I want comfort with her; I want to give that to her.

She hasn’t seen me yet.

I watch her for exactly as long as I can justify, which is not long.

Then I start moving…toward her because she is irresistible.

She sees me when I’m still a few steps away. Her expression shifts the way it did at Wild Coffee and then at Buck’s—a brief recalibration, a decision made quickly.

“Mr. Brooks.”

“Counselor.” I nod at her friend. “Joy.”

Joy looks between us with bright curiosity, like she has discovered something interesting and decided to be useful about it. There’s a mischievous glint in her eyes when she says to no one in particular, “I need to find Aria,” and then disappears with suspicious efficiency.

Taya watches her go. “She’s not subtle.”

“No,” I agree. “She’s not.”

The problem is, neither am I when it comes to the only female lawyer in town.

Joy saw my interest in Taya. For the purposes of the work I’m doing here, that’s useful—she’ll assume I’m circling, which means she’ll talk.

But it’s not just the job keeping my attention on Taya.

It’s vitally…her.

We stand side by side, watching the barbecue smoke drift north, the band kicking into Cotton-Eyed Joe. Several people walk up to the dance area.

“You follow cattle auctions?” she asks.

“No. This is my first.”