Another voice, this one connected to her body, said that it would be good to not sleep alone anymore. She didn’t listen to that voice, because if she did she would know that Mrs. Rodriquez was right, and that meant that her days would go back to the way things were before him, and she was having too much fun seeing where this new thing with Chad would take her.

The first month, a May that started out being unusually warm and dry, she didn’t regret her decision at all. They worked side by side, Chad always a step ahead of her in getting the work done. He worked sometimes in the hottest part of the day—filling the water troughs, repairing the shelters the horses sought out for shade, or even cleaning the bunkhouse he and Jessie agreed he should stay in.

In June it occurred to Jessie that he was working like he owned the place. When she finally asked him why he worked so hard for the same paycheck, he replied that the Lazy K was like a home to him and he guessed he should treat it like it was. At the time, this fell on her ears like the rain that was needed for their pastures. She was so taken in by him that the bunkhouse was soon just a place to store his stuff, and he moved in to her house and made that his own, too.

It was a month before they were to open for guests that fall that Jessie broke it off with Chad. And while he seemed upset, he found her alone a week later and told her that she wouldn’t be able to resist him for long, and once she came to her senses, she would see how good it was for him be a part of her life. She was too angry to talk with him, because the incident that had spurred her decision was still raw.

For most people, the trip from the ranch to town would take close to forty-five minutes. Jessie drove it, as she usually did, in thirty. Once in Grant, she stopped to get ten bags of grain, and then she swung over to the market and picked up two steaks and a bottle of wine for dinner. Jessie returned to the ranch earlier than she had planned that evening, singing along to a song about a pony and a boat by Lyle Lovett that was playing on the truck radio. She couldn’t find Chad anywhere near the house. From the kitchen window, she saw a bulging cloud of dust that spiraled up in shimmering heat waves. When she got down to the corral, she saw Chad in the middle of a tornado of horses, their manes tangled with sweat and dust and their eyes brimmed white. One of the three-year-olds, a colt out of her favorite Mustang mare, was caught on the end of a rope and almost down because the noose was so tight around his throat. Chad, smiling grimly, was on the other end.