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She writes for a long time. She presses hard, so the carbon copy underneath comes out as dark as the top sheet, one for each of us.

When she's done, she turns the book around and slides it to me.

I KNOW ABOUT THE MARKER. I KNOW YOU KEPT IT FROM ME. I'M CHOOSING YOU ANYWAY.

I grip the edge of the table. I want to come around it and haul her into my lap, and I stay in my chair, because there's more under it.

MY NAME IS MINE.

MY WORK IS MINE. THE COUNTER, THE COLTS, THE PIANO.

MY TOWN IS MINE.

MY WORD TO STOP IS MINE, IN BED AND OUT OF IT. BANDERA.

NO MORE SECRETS. NOT ONE.

I read every line slowly while she watches me. Her bandaged hand rests on the table, close enough that I could cover it with mine.

"You're choosing me," I say. "Then you're mine, because you picked me. Not because anybody handed you over."

She meets my eyes across the table. "Yours because I said so. Not like land on a deed."

"Before I sign that last one, you hear this," I tell her. "Thursday I sat across from the county prosecutor with a lawyer. My ring's on paper in Torres's file. So is what I did to Dutch. Either one could end in charges. I told him nothing you say under oath gets traded for me."

She sets the pen down and studies my face.

"That's yours to carry," she says. "I just don't want to find out about it from Torres."

"You won't."

I pick the pen up off the table and write under her last line in my own block capitals. EVERY ONE. K. HOLLISTER.

She takes the book and the pen back. She holds the pen over the page so long I think she's changed her mind. Finally she writes one more line at the very bottom and slides the book across the table to me.

MY WRISTS ARE YOURS TO TOUCH THE NIGHT YOU COLLAR ME.

EPILOGUE

KNOX

The colt goes straight up the second Delilah's weight settles in the saddle, and I'm down off the top rail and inside the round pen before his front feet come down. Frost still lies white in the shade along the fence.

She doesn't need me. He dropped his left shoulder before he went up, the way a green fighter does right before he swings, and she was already sitting deep for it before I caught it.

She keeps his head turned to the left with one rein and rides him around in a tight circle until he quits fighting the bit and stands there blowing, his breath hanging in the cold air.

"Hey, sugar," she says to him, and rubs his neck with her bare hand. "That's all you've got?"

I climb back up on the rail. I keep my mouth shut, because the last time I told her to get off a colt, she rode him another hour to make a point.

I built this round pen in the gravel lot in front of the old fight barn, where the trucks used to park on fight nights. Out here the green colts can't see the house horses and holler for them.

Behind her, the fight barn stands with both front doors hooked open. Beckett's square bales fill the loft to the rafters, and round bales for the back pasture cover the floor where the ring stood. I pulled the corner posts myself the week I gave him the barn. I left the school bell on the shelf by the side door, and it's still there.

Delilah walks the colt along the fence on a loose rein. He's one of the old cowman's colts. She's had him under saddle since the start of the month, and he hasn't thrown her yet.

"You can say it," she says without looking at me.