I draw a breath.
"Cole Maddox showed up at the rodeo last night."
Mae doesn't startle. She doesn't sigh. She keeps her gaze on the pasture, fingers loosely interlaced.
"Yeah," she says after a moment. "I figured he might."
I nod once. "He said he's made you offers. To buy the place."
Another pause. Longer this time.
Mae exhales slowly through her nose. "He has."
I turn my head then, studying my aunt's profile in the fading light. The lines at the corners of her eyes look deeper than I remember. Not from grief—from effort. From carrying weight she didn't ask for help with.
"How long?" I ask. No edge. Just a question.
Mae doesn't answer right away. She leans back in her chair, eyes lifting to the sky as the last of the sun dips below the ridge.
"First offer came about two years ago," she says finally. "Right after his father passed and he took over."
The words settle heavy but not surprising.
"And since then?" I ask.
"Three more," Mae says. "Each one higher than the last."
I let that sit for a moment, watching the way the light catches in her hair, silver threads I don't remember being there five years ago.
"You said no," I say.
"Every time," Mae confirms. She glances over then, meeting my gaze squarely. There's no defensiveness there. No apology. Just readiness. "This land isn't for sale."
I nod slowly. "What else did he do?"
Mae's hand stills on her mug. "What do you mean?"
"Cole doesn't just make offers and walk away politely when you say no," I say. "So what else?"
Mae is quiet for a long moment, her fingers drumming once against her mug before going still.
"He stopped being a good neighbor," she says finally.
I wait.
"Used to be, if someone's fence went down in a storm, you'd help fix it. If a cow wandered onto your land, you'd call and let them know. Little things." Mae's voice stays even, but there's an edge underneath. "Cole doesn't do that anymore. Hasn't for a while."
"What does he do instead?" I ask.
"Nothing," Mae says. "And that's the problem. Fence goes down on our side near his property line, he doesn't mention it. Stock wanders over, we don't hear about it until we're short a head and have to go looking. Equipment breaks down and we need to borrow something—suddenly everything's in use or getting repaired."
My stomach tightens. "He's making it harder."
"Deliberately," Mae says. "Nothing you could call him on directly. Nothing that looks like sabotage. Just a steady withdrawal of the kind of help ranchers usually give each other."
I picture it easily enough. Small problems becoming bigger ones because the usual safety nets aren't there. Time lost. Money spent on things that used to be solved with a phone call and a handshake.
"And the boarders?" I ask.
