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That was not how charming men operated. Charming men offered things that cost nothing and took things that cost everything. Charming men smiled through meetings and missed deadlines and left you holding the contract. Charming men did not pick up your coffee mug off a stock tank in a field and wash it and offer to bring it to you full.

Unless that was the charm. Unless the mug was the first brick in the road and the coffee was the second and by the time I noticed I’d be standing in a foundation I hadn’t consented to, smiling, holding a clipboard, saying I’ve got it.

I locked the phone.

Unlocked it.

Read the texts again.

if you tell me when you’re coming out

He’d assumed I was coming out.

Not asked. Assumed. The confidence of it should have been insulting. It was a little insulting. It was also, somehow, the reason my thumb was drifting toward the reply field instead of the send button on the withdrawal email.

I opened a new tab.

The motel in Ennis came up on the search with a phone number, a single review, and a rate that suggested it hadn’t been renovated since the Reagan administration. Three nights. Close enough to the ranch to drive out each morning. Far enough to retreat to when the field and the man and the nine-item list became more than I could hold and still sleep.

I called the number. A woman answered on the fourth ring. I booked three nights. She didn’t ask why. She took my name and my card number and told me the wifi worked “sometimes” and the towels were in the bathroom “probably.”

I hung up.

I was going back.

I was going back with conditions.

I opened a new document on my phone. The template I’d built two years ago, in the first month after Denver, in the frame of mind of a woman who had sworn that the next time she trusted a man with a project, it would be on paper, in writing, with every obligation named and every escape route mapped.

CONDITIONS OF ENGAGEMENT.

The title sat at the top of the page in bold, the way a locked door sits at the top of a hallway — not unfriendly, just closed.

I typed.

1. No work commences until liability certificate (minimum $1M) is confirmed and named on county filing.

2. Producer must be licensed in MT. No exceptions. No “I know a guy.”

3. Separate ledger. Ranch funds and event funds do not mix. Not one dollar.

4. Budget submitted to and approved by me before any vendor contract is signed.

5. All permits, filings, and insurance documentation handled by me. No informal arrangements. No handshake deals. No “it’ll be fine.”

I stopped typing.

The skeleton of a contract I’d built to keep myself from being the person who held everything while somebody else smiled and signed nothing.

The document looked like Denver’s opposite. Denver had been trust. Denver had been “I’ve got this” and “don’t worry” and a man who walked through every question I asked with a grin and a reason.

This would not be Denver.

I opened the text thread. Cash’s three bubbles sat on the screen, waiting.

I typed.

Monday. I’ll be on site by 8. Have the revised site plan ready and the tape measure calibrated. I’m bringing my own.