“Can you ride?” Robbie can’t believe how calm he sounds. “We need to get you warm.”

“Yeah, I’m f-fine,” Lance says again, unconvincingly. “But what about her?” He frowns worriedly at Dusty. She’s wet on her legs and up her right side, but Robbie can see plainly that she’s fine.

“She’ll be all right, if we get her back to the barn and dry her off.”

Lance nods. Robbie grips his shoulder. “You’re sure you’re…?”

“Yes,” Lance says stubbornly, reaching for the saddle horn and fumbling a little with the reins in the process. Robbie takes the reins from him and bites his tongue while he watches Lance take three attempts to get his boot in the stirrup. Then he swings onto Dusty’s back—but so clumsily that she staggers.

Robbie gets on Poco and they ride back as fast as the horses can manage. Robbie isn’t worried about Dusty; he’ll put her in the barn and she’ll be fine. Horses’ bodies are made to survive the harsher elements. It’s Lance who has Robbie scared.

As soon as they get into the yard, Robbie jumps off Poco and goes to Lance’s side. “Need help?” He puts his hand on Lance’s thigh and flinches when he finds the denim stiff with ice.

“No,” Lance says firmly, then proceeds to dismount and almost fall over as his feet hit the ground. Robbie snags him by the waist.

“Shit. Lance.”

“M’okay,” Lance insists.

“You’re not—listen, let’s just get you in the bath.”

“Like a calf?” Lance sounds like he’s smiling, though Robbie can’t tell for sure, preoccupied as he is with towing him up the deck stairs while his head lolls on Robbie’s shoulder.

“I think I’d r-rather have a shower. Pretty sure you d-didn’t clean the tub.”

Is sarcasm a symptom of health or hypothermia? Robbie gets Lance to the door, and he seems steadier. Or, at least, he pushes Robbie gently away and walks inside with his own strength.

“I’m fine. Go take care of the horses.”

Robbie runs back down the stairs to deal with the horses as quickly as possible. He puts them both in stalls, dumps their tack in the aisle in an untidy heap that would have his dad turning over in his grave, and tosses a cooler on Dusty. He can barely keep himself from running upstairs right then. But instead, he takes the time to hurriedly fill two water buckets and hang them in the stalls.

When he lets himself into the hayloft, the shower is running. He leans against the door.

“Okay in there?” he calls.

“Yeah,” Lance calls back.

Reassured that he hasn’t collapsed, if nothing else, Robbie wanders around the hayloft nervously. The wood stove has almost burned out, and the triplicats are piled on the horrible couch. He hopes Lance didn’t trip over the calf when he went in the bathroom.

A glimpse of the clock on the stove gives Robbie a moment’s sense of lost time; it’s late afternoon. It’s been more than twenty-four hours since he picked up Lance from the courthouse. He forgot to change the bed linens the day before, and he worries about it for a moment, wondering if Lance noticed. He drifts over to the sleeping area with half a mind to change them now, but then he notices the folder on top of the dresser—the folder that Lance brought back from the jail.