Page 31 of Pocket Wife

He goes to it.

Torren mutters, “That thing took three of us last flood season.”

Rethan places both hands on the rusted wheel and turns.

Metal screams. Mud shakes loose. The wheel resists, then moves by a fraction.

I stare despite myself.

He turns it again.

Water groans somewhere under the field.

“Useful,” Torren says, sounding offended by the fact.

“Don’t admire him,” I snap. “Get me cable.”

For the next forty minutes, the valley becomes motion. Samuel and two farmers drag the old pump from the barn on a sled. Torren rebuilds a bypass out of spare parts, curses, and something I suspect once belonged to a cider press. Jessa wraps a cut on Mrs. Odell’s palm. Rethan holds the gate wheel in position while water pressure fights to slam it shut, his coat streaked with mud to the waist.

He doesn’t complain.

That irritates me less than it should.

I climb the tower frame with a replacement line slung over my shoulder. Halfway up, a bolt slips under my boot. My hand shoots out, misses the rail, and catches only air.

Rethan is beneath me before I fall more than a foot.

His hand closes around my wrist. Firm. Certain. Careful enough not to bruise.

For one suspended second, I look down at him.

His gaze holds no panic. Only focus. And a steadiness that unsettles me more than panic would.

“I have you,” he says.

“I noticed.”

“Then climb.”

The absurdity of the instruction nearly makes me laugh. I find the rail, haul myself back into place, and keep moving because the field below us needs water more than I need to understand why my pulse has changed.

At last, the pump coughs.

Once.

Twice.

Then the ditch roars.

A shout goes up across the field as water surges into the lower channel, dark and fast beneath the morning light. Sunwheat roots drink. Mud shifts. The crop is not safe, not yet, but it’s no longer dying by the minute.

I climb down with shaking arms.

Torren checks the flow meter and lets out a breath. “We saved enough.”

Enough.

The word almost undoes me.