Ryan turned his hat slowly in his hands.
“I bought a horse today.”
“You already own a horse.”
“Another one.”
“That’s irresponsible.”
“Probably.”
Natalie smiled.
He did not.
“I might head south.”
Her smile faded.
“When?”
“Few days.”
“Why?”
Ryan watched the mountains.
“Things are settled here.”
“Are they?”
“You have money.
The ranch.
Margaret.”
“I see.”
“And the children—”
“Have an uncle.”
He looked at her.
Natalie folded her arms.
“If you’re leaving because you want another life, Ryan, I won’t stop you.”
He said nothing.
“But if you’re leaving because you think James asked you to stay and you have finally completed some obligation—”
“That’s not it.”
“Then what?”
Ryan looked toward the babies.
His voice was low.
“Because somewhere along the way, staying stopped being about James.”
Natalie’s heart beat harder.
Ryan continued.
“And I don’t know what to do with that.”
She understood.
The realization frightened her too.
She still loved James.
She always would.
But love, she had discovered, was not a chair with room for only one memory.
It could expand.
Change.
Take another shape.
Natalie walked closer.
“You could start by not buying unnecessary horses.”
Ryan laughed quietly.
Then he looked at her.
“Is that your way of asking me to stay?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m telling you not to be an idiot.”
“That sounds more familiar.”
She smiled.
“You may stay if you want.”
Ryan’s voice softened.
“And if I want more than that someday?”
Natalie looked down at his hand.
Then placed hers in it.
“Someday isn’t today.”
“No.”
“But it isn’t never either.”
Ryan closed his fingers around hers.
That was enough.
For now.
Behind them, Grace woke and immediately began screaming because existence had offended her.
Ryan sighed.
“There she is.”
Natalie laughed.
He went to pick her up.
And as Natalie watched him carry the little girl toward the house, something white near the cottonwood roots caught her eye.
Paper.
She bent down.
An old corner of an envelope had worked loose from the leather lining of James’s document case, which sat beside the picnic quilt.
Natalie frowned.
She pulled gently.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside was a final folded page.
Her pulse jumped.
“Ryan.”
He turned.
Natalie opened it.
The handwriting was James’s.
But this was no letter.
It was a legal declaration witnessed by two men.
Natalie read the date.
Three weeks before James died.
Then she saw the final provision.
She sat down.
Ryan hurried over.
“What?”
Natalie handed it to him.
James had formally transferred his entire interest in the disputed mineral claim.
Not to Natalie.
Her portion was already hers.
He had transferred
his remaining share to Ryan Patterson
.
Ryan stared.
“I never knew.”
Natalie looked at the witness names.
One was dead.
The other was Edgar Voss.
Ryan’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s why Voss came after me.”
Natalie nodded slowly.
They had assumed Ryan was hunted because he possessed the evidence.
That had only been part of it.
If Ryan died, and the transfer disappeared, Lucky Banner could challenge ownership of James’s remaining interest.
