Page 45

I read the number twice on my phone this morning again while standing in the kitchen in my socks. My coffee went cold in my hand, and even now, hours later with a fence post gripped between two freezing fingers, it still hasn't fully sunk in that I agreed to that number without blinking.

"Say it again," Mason calls from twenty feet down the line, wrestling a roll of wire and a gust of wind that's fighting him hard. "I want to hear you say it out loud one more time so I can watch your face do the thing."

"What thing?"

"The thing where you realize what you actually agreed to." He straightens up, wiping his palms on his jeans, and grinning at me across a stretch of busted fence. It stretches nearly as far as the one that almost bankrupted me last January. "Three hundred thousand dollars, Jagger. For a woman you haven't even met yet."

"Jesus. You act like she's a prostitute instead of the best equine rehab tech in the state, according to Roy." I drive the post hole digger down hard enough to jar my teeth, mostly because it's easier to take my frustration out on frozen dirt than admit my brother's got a point. "Renegade's worth more than that number by himself if he heals right. Two-Step too."

"Sure. But three hundred thousand's a house, man. It's a nice house. It's a house with a pool and one of those fancy outdoor kitchens Phoebe keeps showing Alexander pictures of." Mason hefts the wire back up onto his shoulder, grunting under the weight of it.

"I already have a house," I point out.

He chuckles. "She better be worth every penny. She better walk into that barn and heal horses with her bare hands like some kind of witch."

I jar back, "For that money, she can be a witch if she wants."

"I just want to see her work a miracle, is all I'm saying. For three hundred grand, I expect Renegade racing again by Christmas and maybe a foot rub while she's at it."

"You're an idiot."

"I'm an idiot with excellent financial priorities." He laughs, the sound cutting sharp through the cold air, and for a second, it's almost enough to make me forget how bone-deep miserable this November weather is.

This month has decided to get personal. The wind has been cutting sideways off the plains since before sunup, sharp enough to numb a man's fingers straight through his gloves. And Dad's got half the hands out doubling down on hay deliveries.

Mason and I pulled the short straw on fencing again. So we're redoing the stretch that the lightning tore through the other night plus another quarter mile farther out since it's getting worn.

"You'd think this fence would've learned its lesson by now," I mutter, tamping dirt around a fresh post.

"Fence doesn't learn lessons. Fence just falls down and waits for us to come fix it, same as it's done our whole lives." Mason squints down the line, judging how much more we've got left. From the look on his face, the answer's more than either of us wants to hear. He meets my gaze again. "You know what I keep thinking about?"

"Do I want to know?"

He grins. "I keep thinking about how three hundred thousand dollars' worth of woman is supposed to be showing up sometime today, and here we are, freezing our nuts off stringing wire, and missing the whole introduction."

"She's here to fix the horses. Not your cock."

He puffs his chest. "Of course not. There's nothing wrong with my cock."

"So you claim."

Mason's lips twitch. "For that kind of money, I'd at least like a look at her before she starts poking around my horses."

I scowl. "They're my horses. She's not here for me to fuck her. She can be the ugliest woman on earth for all I care."

He snorts, then grabs the post hole digger out of my hand. "Time to switch."

I don't argue and take over the wiring. We work in a rhythm we've had since we were kids. It reminds me of trailing behind Dad on this exact fence line. He'd string wire while I set posts, occasionally trading off when one of us started complaining loud enough that the other one needed a break from listening to it.

My phone buzzes in my jacket pocket.

Alexander: She's here. Truck just came through the gate.

Me: Great. Can you make sure she assesses the horses first thing?

Alexander: Yep.

I announce, "Alexander says the truck just came through the gate."