Page 94 of Dusty Spur Ranch Cowboys

Red doesn’t answer. He asks Hank another question instead, but I catch the way his jaw hardens.

Beside me, Willy’s grin disappears.

Red glances his way.

The exchange barely registers before both of them carry on, yet it leaves me with the uneasy feeling they’ve already started asking questions the rest of us haven’t caught up to yet.

Sheriff Miller tucks his notebook into his back pocket and brushes the soot from his hands before looking at Red. “I’ll get somebody to haul the trailer away once I’m finished here.”

I catch myself speaking before I’ve decided whether I should. “You think somebody set the fire?”

The conversation around us fades.

Hank glances from me to the burned trailer and rests one hand against the scorched frame. “I’ve spent enough years wearing this badge to know evidence tells the story better than people do.” He gives the trailer one last look before meeting Red’s eyes. “Still, when odd things keep happening around the same place, I pay attention.”

“We will too,” Red says.

“I figured.”

Hank settles his hat, climbs back into his pickup, and drives out through the ranch gates, leaving everyone standing where they are until the sound of his engine disappears down the road.

The ranch slips back into its usual routine as though unanswered questions can wait until tomorrow.

Red heads for the corrals after checking the front gate again, Willy disappears into the barn with a couple of ranch hands while making them laugh about whatever ridiculous story he’s telling, and Emmett grabs a toolbox before heading back to the fence damaged in the fire.

I watch them spread out across Dusty Spur until Sadie slips her hand into mine. “Cinnamon needs a ranch.”

I look down at her. “Does she?”

She nods so hard her curls bounce. “She can’t live in a bucket forever.”

“That’s a fair argument.”

She pulls me toward the workshop before I can question her brilliant planning any further. We rummage through piles of old timber until she declares a stack of weathered boards perfect, then drag them back across the yard together while she explains that Cinnamon needs a bedroom, a kitchen, and somewhere to keep horse snacks because every horse deserves treats.

I prop two boards against each other. “Cinnamon cooks?”

“Everybody cooks.”

“I’ve clearly been doing life wrong.”

Sadie giggles and hands me another plank.

Emmett walks by carrying fence rails across one shoulder and slows when he sees us surrounded by crooked timber. “You two building a mansion?”

“It’s a ranch,” Sadie tells him. “You’d know if you were here.”

He presses a hand to his chest. “I stand corrected.”

“We don’t need help,” she adds before he can offer. “You’re busy.”

“I’ll stay out of the way then.”

“You probably should,” I tell him with a grin.

He laughs, shakes his head, and heads back toward the fence, stealing one last look over his shoulder before getting back to work.

By the time we’ve finished, Cinnamon has a tiny paddock wrapped around her upside down feed bucket, and Sadie looks ready to nominate it for a magazine cover.