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Into the middle of the May afternoon.

It was enough money to change the shape of a life.

Enough to pay every debt.

Enough for Wyatt never to sit with reading glasses over refinancing figures again. Enough for Cash to buy his stock. Enough for Boone to put a house on some other ground and never wonder whether the bank owned the pillow beneath his head.

The table went silent.

Wyatt looked down at his figures and did not look up.

Boone reopened the syringe case and moved an orange-capped syringe half an inch to the left.

The neighbor cleared his throat. "Forecast says rain Tuesday."

"Could use it," the Harmon's clerk said.

"Creek's already high."

The afternoon moved around the number without touching it.

Cash ate the rest of the pie.

I returned to the vaccination table. Dose. Mark. Needle. Record. My hands knew the order. Inside, I made my own accounting.

I lived in the main house now.

Not because Boone and I slept apart. We rarely did. But Wyatt had insisted I needed a room that belonged to me, and Boone had agreed before I could argue.

My boots stood beside theirs at the back door in descending sizes.

Wyatt.

Boone.

Cash.

Me.

The arrangement made Cash laugh every morning.

My handwriting covered the kitchen whiteboard. Clinic calls. Grocery lists. Calving follow-ups. Reminders that Cash's shoulder did not become medically sound because he ignored it.

Clover sat on Boone's mantel across the yard beside a plush Hereford with impeccable references, the two of them still spaced at the distance I'd negotiated in April — close enough for company, far enough for dignity. Boone dusted around them. He had never once moved either one.

My mug stayed in his cupboard.

My shampoo stayed in his shower.

My clover charm rested against my throat.

My hand went to it now.

Silver warmed beneath my fingers.

Ashford Development could write numbers on heavy paper. The bank could write dates in red. Neither paper answered the question my body already had.

Where did I live?