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“You and Kyle have the auger until eleven. Colin’s crew gets it after that, and it’s back on the trailer by six, because I am not paying another day’s rental. And whoever moved the quarantine pen thirty feet north, put it back.”

Kyle straightened. “It’s a shorter water run.”

“It’s also uphill of Arden’s pasture.” Jodie held up the plan. “Four horses coming off the range with no health history between them. I’m not sending their runoff down through a field with somebody else’s boarded horses in it to save you forty feet of pipe.” She flipped a page. “And unless you want horses, trucks, and people all funneling through the same twelve-foot opening, it stays where we planned it.”

He looked at Bear. Bear looked at the stakes. Then Kyle lifted both hands. “You heard the boss.”

“I am not the boss,” Jodie shouted back.

Arden snorted beside her. Jodie ignored her.

By late morning, the chaos had begun to look like an actual plan. Lumber moved where it belonged. New fence lines squared up. Posts went in where Jodie had staked them—corners, braces, and gate posts set in concrete, everything between them tamped down tight with gravel, because there wasn’t a chance in hell the wet ones would cure in time for anything to hang on them today. Twice the auger stopped dead on cobble and somebody had to go after the hole with a rock bar, and the language that drifted back from behind the barn would have stripped paint. Water, shade, food, and tools appeared before anyone had to ask for them.

This was what she did. And she was damn good at it.

A diesel engine rumbled up the driveway. Jodie knew that sound. Her gaze snapped in the direction of the white Ram before she could stop herself. Her stomach dropped about six inches.

Oh, for heaven’s sake.

A minute later, Mac came around the corner of the house wearing faded jeans, work boots, and a dark T-shirt that fit him entirely too well.

And a well-worn cowboy hat.

Sweet Mother of Mercy.

Below that hat, his head was on a swivel until he spotted her. He tugged the brim of his hat in greeting and smiled. Even from a distance, Jodie could tell it wasn’t the polite smile he gave everybody. Mac was giving her a real one that reached his eyes and made Jodie’s stomach do another completely unnecessary flip.

“Hey,” he called as he crossed the yard. “Fancy⁠—”

“—meeting you here,” Jodie finished along with him.

There was no indication in his eyes or his smile or his voice that he’d spent the last four days wishing he hadn’t told her he wanted to volunteer, or regretting standing close enough to kiss her, or anything else her mean little imagination had manufactured in his absence.

Jodie relaxed so quickly it made her lightheaded.

Mac stopped beside her and looked over the spread of plans and clipboards, Kyle’s scrawling crossed out with neat lines drawn straight through it, replaced by Jodie’s tidy handwriting.

“I see you’ve been promoted to boss.” He continued to study the plans.

“I’ve been imprisoned, you mean.”

Arden lifted her glass of lemonade. “You’re welcome.”

Mac laughed. “How’s the ankle?”

“Better. Much better. I’ve even been cleared to walk without a chaperone.”

“Impressive.”

Was that just the tiniest glint of disappointment in his eyes?

Just stop it, imagination. Do we have to go through this for the next week as well?

Jodie waited for Mac to tell her to sit down, be careful, take it easy, or other ways of showing he’d joined Arden’s conspiracy of chaining Jodie to the patio. Instead, he picked up one of the measuring tapes.

“Good. I need somebody who knows what’s going on to help me figure out what I’m doing.”

“See?” Jodie pointed at him. “This is why he’s my favorite. He doesn’t just assume he knows what he’s doing and override my plans.”