Page 22 of September’s Cowboy Travis

I caught it before she could say anything. “Don't.”

“There it is.”

“What?”

“The beer box I expected the first time.”

“You've been holding onto that joke for days.”

“It was worth the wait.”

I set the box on the table her and pulled out the chair across from her. The paperwork inside wasn't organized nearly as well as my current records, mostly because half of it had belonged to people who'd been dead long enough that nobody remembered why they'd saved it.

Kaycee worked through every page, making small stacks across the table. Watching her concentrate was different from watching her at the rodeo. She pushed her glasses higher when they slipped down her nose and read every handwritten note twice before moving on.

I lasted about fifteen minutes before my stomach reminded me I'd eaten breakfast before sunrise.

“Did you eat lunch?” I asked.

“I had a cinnamon roll.”

“That doesn't count.” I got up and opened the refrigerator. “I've got burgers.”

“Is food included with every forensic audit, or am I getting special treatment?”

“Don't put it on the invoice.”

She smiled and went back to the papers while I heated the cast-iron skillet.

It shouldn't have felt strange having her at my kitchen table. Plenty of people had sat there over the years, but most of them hadn't spent Sunday afternoon digging through property records while I cooked dinner.

The way Kaycee fit into the room felt different. I didn't know what to do with that yet.

“Your mom kept these, didn't she?”

I looked over. Kaycee had one of the old cattle ledgers open in front of her. My mother's handwriting ran across the page in the neat blue script I hadn't seen in a while.

“Yeah. She handled most of the books.”

“I thought I recognized her handwriting from some of the older records.”

I shaped another burger patty and set it next to the first. “She made me learn the basics when I was a kid. Said if I planned on running cattle someday, I'd better understand where the money went too.”

“That explains the filing cabinet.”

I gave her a look. “You really were expecting the beer box.”

“A little.”

I shook my head and put the burgers into the skillet. The meat hit the hot iron with a hiss, and the smell filled the kitchen.

“She liked things done right,” I said. “Didn't matter if it was a tax form, a fence repair, or cleaning out a stock tank. If you were doing the job, you finished it.”

Kaycee closed the ledger and gave me her full attention. “You said things got rough after she died.”

She didn't push or lean forward like she was trying to get a confession out of me, and she didn't soften her voice like she thought I might break. That made it easier to answer.

“I was mad for a long time.” I flipped one of the burgers and watched grease run toward the edge of the skillet. “At her for dying. At everybody else for still being around. Mostly at myself because there wasn't anything I could do about any of it.”