"Because it's good work. And because the program you're envisioning is exactly the kind of thing I'd want to build." I kept my eyes on the road ahead, giving her the space to hear this without having to manage her expression. "The Raven Spur stallion at Fort Worth—I pulled his full progeny report. Twelve foals on the ground, eight of them working stock. Temperament scores in the top ten percent across the board. He's not flashy, but he'd throw foals that match everything in your projections."
Maggie didn't respond for a long time.
When I finally glanced over, her hands were tight on the wheel, and her jaw was set in that way it got when she was trying not to feel something.
"Nobody does that," she said quietly.
"Does what?"
"Works on my thing. Without being asked. Without wanting credit or a say or—” She shook her head. "People work on Wyatt's vision. They work on Ivy's breeding program. They work on Daddy's legacy. Nobody just… quietly works on mine."
The rawness in her voice hit me somewhere I wasn't expecting. Not because she was fragile—Maggie Blackwood was the least fragile person I'd ever met. But because underneath all that strength was a woman who'd been putting herself last for so long, she'd stopped expecting anyone to notice.
"Get used to it," I said.
She let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "You can't just say things like that."
"You keep telling me that. I keep saying them anyway."
"It's a character flaw."
"One of many."
This time she did smile. Not the controlled, professional expression she wore like body armor. A real one—brief, reluctant, like it had escaped before she could catch it. It changed her whole face. Softened the sharp edges. Made her look like the woman in Wild Creek who'd laughed at my tractor story and decided she wanted me before I'd finished my beer.
I wanted to see that smile every day for a very long time.
I filed that thought away in the place where I kept things that were true but not yet useful.
"Tell me about Montana," Maggie said.
The question came easy, tucked into the flow of conversation like she'd been waiting for the right current to carry it. Not pushing. Just… opening a door and seeing if I'd walk through.
"What do you want to know?"
"Whatever you want to tell me."
I thought about that for a mile or so. The road unwound ahead of us, straight and flat, the kind of driving that lets your mind unspool.
"My family's place was called Clearwater," I said. "Bitterroot Valley, south of Missoula. Dad built it from nothing—proposed to my mom on the front porch before the house was even finished. She said yes anyway. Said she'd rather have the man than the floor plan."
Maggie's expression shifted. Listening.
"My sister Sarah was the real horse person in the family," I said, and her name came out easier than I expected. "Better instincts than me by a mile. She could read a horse's mood from across a paddock. Dad used to joke that the mares trusted her more than they trusted him."
"How much older?"
"Younger. Two years. She never let me forget that she was better with animals despite the head start." I smiled, and it felt strange and familiar at the same time, like flexing a muscle I hadn't used in a while. "She'd have liked you."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. She had a thing for women who didn't take shit from anyone. Said the world would be better off if more people had spines."
Maggie laughed—short, surprised, genuine. "I'd have liked her too."
I let the silence settle after that. Didn't fill it. Sarah's name was still warm in my mouth, and I wanted to hold it there for a moment longer—the version of her that lived in good memories, in kitchen-table laughter and horse-barn arguments and the screen door that never closed right.
Maggie didn't push for more. Didn't ask what happened or why I talked about them in past tense or where Clearwater Ranch was now. She just let the quiet sit between us, comfortable as an old blanket, and I knew—with a certainty that settled deep in my gut—that she understood loss. Not because I'd told her, but because she recognized the shape of it.
