Page 46

Late in the afternoon, Rachel waved me over to the heritage tent. Beau had told her Friday she could take copies of the Jordan pages out of his office, and she had them spread across a table behind the display with Kaycee and Roman.

“We finally got the Daniel Hale piece,” Rachel said. “Two separate records put him in Margaret’s household, and the dates line up with the Jordan transfers.”

“So Daniel was her son?” I asked.

“As close to proven as we’re going to get without somebody handing us a birth certificate we don’t think exists.”

Kaycee held up a piece of paper. “And the livestock trail closes. Cedar Draw paid for legitimate boarding and transport. The stock moved through third parties and eventually to Daniel. It wasn’t stolen.”

The whole puzzle hadn’t been completed, but a piece of it had been sitting in a box in Beau’s office the whole time. I left them to it and tried to get through the rest of the day without cracking.

By six, the last visitors were gone. The grounds slowly turned back into the same stretch of dirt I’d walked two weeks earlier. The festival was over.

I packed my things into a box while two volunteers folded the last tablecloth. Tomorrow morning, I was supposed to leave Mustang Mountain.

On Tuesday I’d be in Denver. After that, Colorado Springs, Boise, Jackson, Salt Lake City. The contract mapped out the first three months clearly enough that I could already picture the hotel rooms.

I’d done this before. Dozens of times. Why did it suddenly sound exhausting?

Ruby found me carrying a box toward my SUV.

“Are you heading out tonight?”

“Tomorrow.”

She nodded. I waited for advice. For once, she didn’t give me any.

“What?” I asked.

Ruby smiled. “Nothing.”

“You’re making a face.”

She opened my back door while I slid the box inside. Beau’s flannel was still lying across the seat.

Ruby saw it. “You want me to tell you what to do?”

“No.”

“Good. I wasn’t going to.” She laughed and walked away.

Monday morning, I called Lauren at eight fifteen. I’d been awake since five.

“I need to change the contract.”

There was a pause. “You signed it yesterday.”

“I know.”

“That usually means we’re done negotiating.”

“I know that too.” I stood next to my packed suitcase in the cabin rental I’d barely lived in for the past two weeks.

Everything I owned in Mustang Mountain fit into the back of my SUV again. That used to make me feel free. When had it started feeling like losing something?

“I want the job,” I said. “But I don’t want three or four weeks a month on the road. I can lead western events from Montana. I can travel for site visits and event weeks, but I want a home base and I want limits.”

Lauren was quiet. “That’s not the position we offered you.”