I set my mug down.
"Larry."
He turned. So did most of the room.
"If you’ve got something to say about historical records, say it so everyone can hear it. That way we're all on the same page."
Larry’s expression closed up the way men's faces do when they've been called out and they know it. "No offense meant, Torin. Just saying some old family history tends to stir more trouble than it solves."
"Stir trouble for who?" I let the question sit without softening it. "Because Claire came back here to settle her aunt's estate, and while she was doing that work… going through files most people in this town haven't thought about in forty years… she connected the Hollister breeding records to Dawson Griffith's horse ledger. Bad Habit, joint-listed under both families in 1912." I looked around the room slow and steady. "That solved the lineage question on Dawson's stock. Which means the permits go through and this town gets the rodeo we’ve been trying to build."
The room was very quiet.
"She did that," I looked at Larry. "So if anyone's got a problem with her finishing what her aunt started, I'd like to hear the actual reason. Not the comfortable version."
Larry didn't answer. No one answered.
I turned back to Claire.
She was watching me with an expression I couldn't fully read. Not surprise, exactly. Something more careful than surprise.
The noise of the room built back up gradually. Cups clattered against saucers. The legs of a chair scraped the floor. Ruby asked someone if they wanted a refill. The temperature had changed again, less wary now, or at least more honest about what the wariness had been.
Claire looked down at her coffee, then back at me. "You didn't have to do that.”
"No."
"But you did it anyway."
"Yes."
She held my gaze, and I let her read whatever was there. I was done being careful with what was true.
"I love you, Claire." My voice came out steady because I meant it, not because I had to work at it. "I didn't plan to say it like this, in the Merc with Larry Ingram staring holes in the back of my head. But you're sitting here trying to decide between the life you built somewhere else and the one still half-finished here, and I need you to have the full information." I turned my mug once. "I don't want you to leave again."
She was quiet for long enough that I heard Ruby drop a spoon in the back.
"That's a lot of information," Claire said.
"Yeah."
She let out a long breath, like she needed the time to decide how to respond.
"I love you too," she said. "That part's not actually complicated." Her eyes were steady on mine. "The rest of it is."
"I know."
"I have a job in Seattle. I have a condo. I have colleagues who expect me back."
"I know that too."
"And this town still watches me like I'm about to burn something down just because of my last name."
"They'll get used to being wrong." I leaned forward slightly and set my elbows on the table. "I'm not asking you to make a decision right this second. I just want you to know where I stand before you make it."
She looked at me for a long moment, her hands around the mug, and something in her expression settled. "I'm not ready to leave. The research, the Bible entry, whatever Lois was building toward… I haven't found it yet. I can't leave so many questions unanswered." A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "I'm too stubborn for that."
Relief surged through me. She wasn’t leaving yet. "I know."
