I watch her face closely as she reads. I see the shock register. Then the confusion. Then the dawning of the reality.
“Eighteen thousand dollars?” she whispers. “How... when did this happen?”
“Anthony missed the inspections,” I say, keeping my tone even. “He was sick, Saramaria. It wasn’t malicious. But the County doesn’t care about intent.”
She reads on, her eyes scanning the page frantically. “Next inspection... two weeks?”
“Yes.”
“If they condemn the barns...” She trails off, her mind working fast. She knows what it means. She’s a lawyer. She knows liability.
“If they condemn the barns, we have to move the cattle,” I say. “And in this weather, moving them could kill half the herd. We don’t have anywhere else to put them.”
She looks up, her eyes wide. She opens her mouth to speak, to deny it, to argue, but she stops. She looks at the paper again.
Her hands shake.
It’s a subtle tremor, but I see it. The paper rattles in her grip. She tries to steady it with her other hand, but that one is shaking too.
“I can fix this,” she says, but her voice wavers. “I have money. I have savings. I just need to transfer it. But the banks might be closed because of the storm, and I don’t know if I can get it cleared in time.”
“Banks are open online,” Knox points out gently.
“But the transfer might take days to process,” she says, panic rising in her scent. It’s sharp, like ozone. “And then there’s all the repairs. What if they come out here and... and...”
She looks at me, lost.
“Saramaria,” I say. I step closer, invading her space just enough to ground her. “We can handle the repairs. The physical ones. We know what needs to be done. We can do the work before the inspector gets here.”
“But the materials,” she says. “The wood. The wire.”
“We can front the cost,” I say. “Knox and I have enough liquid to buy the supplies. Boone can source the lumber from the mill on credit.”
I don’t tell her that we might need to take an extra loan to handle all of it.
“You can’t...” She shakes her head. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t ask,” I say. “We’re offering. Consider it a loan against the lease. We can work out the details later.”
She stares at me. The panic in her eyes slowly recedes, replaced by a overwhelming look of gratitude. It makes my chest tight.
“You would do that?” she asks. “Even after... everything?”
“We live here too,” Knox says from behind me. “We don’t want to see it fall apart any more than you do.”
Saramaria looks down at the notice, then back at us. She swallows hard. “Okay. Okay. Thank you.”
She sets the paper down on the table, her hand lingering on it. She looks toward the window, where the gray rain is still falling.
“I just...” She lets out a breath. “I need to get out of this house. I need to clear my head.”
“You just got back,” Knox says.
“I know,” she says. She turns to me. “Do you think... is there a horse I could ride? Just for an hour? I need to feel the wind. I need to move.”
I hesitate. The horses are slick with mud; the ground is treacherous.
“We have the mustang in the east pasture,” I say slowly. “He’s green, but he’s gentle enough.”
