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"I'll call her in the morning. I'll leave my intern Beau to work with her if she accepts. He's a good kid and can assist her." He turns back toward Two-Step, checking his wrap one more time before he lets Mason lead her toward a stall bedded deep with straw.

I stand in the barn doorway long after Roy's finished for the night. Rain continues to come down. I watch Renegade shift his weight off that ruined leg and Two-Step nose at his hay.

I'll be damned if I lose everything I've spent three years building.

Somewhere out past the storm, there's a woman with a full client list and a waitlist I'm apparently about to jump. I don't know a single thing about her beyond the fact that Roy trusts her more than he trusts anybody else in this business. So I need to do whatever it'll take to get her to take on these horses.

I'm done losing things I care about because I wasn't willing to pay whatever the cost turned out to be.

Whatever it takes.

I've lost enough this year. I'm not about to lose more.

CHAPTER NINE

Lainey

Charlie's asleep on my chest when the sun comes up. For a few minutes, I let myself lie in my childhood bedroom, listening to her breathe, before the day gets its hooks into me.

Six weeks old, and she already snores like her daddy probably does. It's a soft, stubborn little rasp that used to keep me up worrying something was wrong. Then the pediatrician assured me for the third time that it's completely normal.

Everything about her feels like a small miracle wrapped around a mountain of things I never planned. Most mornings, I can hold both those truths at once without it splitting me down the middle.

Most mornings.

I ease out from under her, rewrap her swaddle, and put her in the bassinet. Then I pad down the hallway in socked feet, following the smell of coffee and bacon grease.

Daddy's already at the table with the farm ledger open in front of him, a mug going cold at his elbow. The deep line between his eyebrows has gotten a lot more permanent since I moved back in ten weeks ago.

"Morning," I offer, pouring my own coffee.

"Morning, baby girl." He doesn't look up right away, which tells me the numbers in that ledger aren't behaving any better than they were yesterday. When he finally does glance up, he tries for a smile that doesn't quite make it all the way to his eyes. "Charlie sleep good?"

"Five hours straight. Mama said practically unheard of."

"That's my granddaughter. Champion already." He says it light, but I catch him rubbing at his jaw the way he does when he's working up to saying something he doesn't want to say.

"Yeah, she is. What are you looking at?" I inquire, staring over his shoulder and down at the numbers.

He sighs. "Feed rep called again yesterday. We're thirty days out on the last invoice."

My stomach tightens the same way it has every time this conversation comes up since I moved back. I told myself it was just until I got on my feet postpartum. But it was never just that, not really. Once I saw how tight my parents' books had gotten while I was building my own business and not paying close enough attention to theirs, I couldn't forget it.

I reassure him, "I can cover it."

"You've covered plenty already." He waves a hand like that settles it, even though we both know it doesn't. "You've got your own baby to think about now. Don't need to be bailing out your old man's cattle operation on top of everything else."

"It's not bailing out. It's helping. There's a difference." I sit down across from him, wrapping both hands around my mug for warmth as much as comfort. "Besides, I'm going back to work full swing starting tomorrow. Marlene's got Cash booked for a follow-up, and I've got three more appointments lined up by Thursday."

"You sure you're ready? Charlie's barely six weeks."

"I'm ready to have my hands doing something other than holding a bottle for a few hours a day." It comes out more honest than I mean it to, and Daddy's mouth twitches like he understands exactly what I'm not saying. I love my daughter with everything in me, but I also miss the version of myself who had a life outside diaper changes and two a.m. feedings.

I add, "Mama said she'd watch her while I'm out. It'll be good for both of us."

He nods, satisfied enough to let it go, and we finish breakfast talking about the price of hay, whether the back forty needs reseeding come spring, and anything except the numbers still sitting open on the table between us.

I finally get up and go outside. I load my truck, then check my cold laser unit and stretching bands. I review my client list pinned to my clipboard when my phone rings with a number I don't recognize.