"Yeah, thanks." I start across the yard, my boots crunching on gravel mixed with dried mud and straw.
Ford's organizing his paperwork with an auction official when I approach. He glances up as I stop beside his trailer, and something flickers across his expression—not surprise, exactly, but the kind of careful neutrality that comes from expecting trouble.
"Halloway." He nods once, then turns back to his clipboard. "Surprised to see you here."
"Hard to stay away from good cattle and better company,"I say, letting my gaze travel over the Gritstone Ranch stock.
Ford signs with jagged strokes, then looks up at me with those cold green eyes. “Something you need, or you just here to make small talk?"
"Someone's been sending threatening texts to Kinsley." I keep my voice level, conversational, like we're discussing the weather instead of his daughter's safety. "Anonymous messages telling her she doesn't belong, warning her away from my family. Threatening her."
Ford's pen stops moving across the paper, but he doesn't look up. For a long moment, the only sounds are cattle lowing in the distance and the auctioneer's voice testing his microphone with rapid-fire nonsense syllables.
"That so?" he says finally, his tone carefully neutral.
"You know anything about that?"
He looks up. "Why would I?"
"Not many people around town that I know who would do something like that. I figured you know a lot more who would."
Ford sets down his clipboard and turns to face me fully. "Whoever's sending those messages, it's not me." He stops himself, jaw working like he's chewing on words too bitter to swallow.
"What do you know about it?"
"Nothin'," he spits the word.
Something cold settles in my stomach. "Anything else you want to say?"
"You better keep her safe." The words come out controlled—carrying the weight of a man who doesn't make idle threats and expects immediate compliance.
My chin juts back as I look him in the eyes. I don’t know what to make of his warning. It’s an odd thing to say for a man who doesn’t have anything to do with his daughter.
When I walk back to our cattle, Billy and Grandpa are waiting by the pen. Both of them got their eyes fixed on me with that look that says they saw enough of whatever just happened to know it mattered. Perfect.
"Well?" Grandpa asks, his weathered hands wrapped around the top rail of the pen.
"He says he's not sending the texts to Kinsley." I don't have to explain what texts I'm talking about. We're all aware. I lean against the fence beside him, watching our cattle mill around their temporary home. "And I believe him." I shudder because those are words, I never thought I'd say about Ford.
"Hmm." Grandpa's grunt carries years of experience reading men and their motivations.
I turn to face him, needing a second opinion on something. "What if we're putting her in danger by letting her stay and fight?"
Grandpa's quiet for a long moment, studying the cattle.
"Son," he says finally, "that girl of yours didn't come to Colorado to hide in the shadows. She came to fight. You try to protect her by sending her away, you'll lose her sure as sunrise."
"But if something happens to her—"
"World's a dangerous place for people who stand up for themselves and others. Always has been. Question is, do you trust her to know her own mind?" Grandpa challenges me.
The answer comes without hesitation. "Yes."
"Then trust her to know herown fight, too."
Billy shifts uncomfortably beside us. "She terrifies me," he admits quietly.
Grandpa and I both turn to stare at him, then burst out laughing despite the tension of the morning. The kid's face turns red as his shirt.
