I mean we call in favors. Every rancher I've helped owes us something. Maybe not money, but goods, services, things we can trade or sell. Rose's mind was racing now, fitting pieces together, and I can take on more patients, work longer hours. We've got a week until the loan is due.
That's enough time. Rose, even if we liquidate everything, we'll still be short. Bur made sure of that. "Then we find another way," Rose stood, offering Wyatt her hand. "My father used to say that the only impossible problems are the ones you stop trying to solve.
We haven't stopped trying yet. " Wyatt took her hand, let her pull him to his feet. He looked at her for a long moment, something shifting in his expression. "Why are you doing this? " "You could walk away, take your money, and start over somewhere Birch can't touch you. Because this is my home," Rose said simply. "Because you trusted me when no one else would.
Because partnership means fighting together when things get hard. " She paused, then added quietly. "And because somewhere along the way, I started caring what happens to you. " "Wyatt's breath caught. His hand tightened on hers. " "Rose. Well talk about what that means later," Rose said, pulling back gently. "Right now, we have a ranch to save. " The next week was the hardest Rose had ever worked.
She saw patients from dawn until midnight, treating everything anyone brought her. Took payment in whatever form people could offer. Cash when they had it, but also goods, barrels of grain, sides of beef, lumber, tools, things they could sell or trade. Tom Bradley showed up on day three with $900 in cash. "I told you I owed you a life debt," he said, pressing the money into Rose's hands.
Betsy thrown twofold since you saved her. Worth twice what I'm giving you. Consider this interest on the debt. Other ranchers came too having heard what happened. Small amounts, mostly $5 here, 10 there.
But it added up. Combined with what they got from selling the recovered yearlings and trading the goods for cash, they had $2,700 by March 14th. Still 300 short. Rose sat at the kitchen table that night, exhausted beyond measure, staring at the money they'd collected. So close.
They'd come so impossibly close. We could sell Delilah, Wyatt said quietly. He'd barely slept all week, and it showed in the hollows under his eyes. She's worth at least 500, maybe more with the fo she's carrying. No.
Rose's voice was sharp. That's your breeding future, seller, and you might as well give Birch the whole ranch. Then what do you suggest? Rose thought of the tin box under her bed, the emergency fund she'd been building. Money that was supposed to be her escape route if things went wrong.
If Wyatt turned out to be cruel, if ranch life became unbearable, her safety net, $320, saved coin bycoin over the past month. I have money, she said slowly. Personal savings $320. Wyatt shook his head immediately. That's yours.
Your security. My security is this ranch. Our ranch. Rose stood, went to get the tin box, brought it back, and set it on the table between them. I'm investing it, not giving it away.
Investing it in our future. Rose, if the bank still forecloses, you'll lose everything. And if I don't try, we'll definitely lose. At least this way we have a chance. She pushed the box toward him.
Besides, I trust you to pay me back with interest. Wyatt stared at the box, then at Rose. You're remarkable, you know that? Absolutely remarkable. I'm practical, Rose corrected.
And I'm choosing to invest in something I believe in. He reached across the table, took her hand. When this is over, when we've paid the loan and dealt with Bir, we need to talk, really talk, about what this partnership means, about what you mean to me. Rose's heart did something complicated in her chest. I'd like that.
The next morning, they rode into town together, walked into the bank with $3,000 in cash and goods. The bank president, a thin man with calculating eyes, who looked remarkably like his brother-in-law, Clayton Burch, counted it twice. It's all here, he said, sounding disappointed. The loan is paid in full. And I want that in writing," Wyatt said with the original note marked satisfied and returned to me.
The president's mouth tightened, but he did as requested, handed over the satisfied note with obvious reluctance. Outside the bank, Wyatt pulled Rose into his arms, right there on the street in full view of anyone passing by, held her close, and breathed into her hair. "We did it," he said. "God above, we actually did it. " Rose held him back just as tightly. We did.
They stood like that for a long moment. Two people who'd started as strangers and become partners who'd fought together against impossible odds and won. When they finally pulled apart, Rose saw something in Wyatt's eyes that made her breath catch. Something warm and deep and promising. "Tonight," he said quietly, "After supper, we talk. " Rose nodded, her heart beating faster.
Tonight. But tonight would bring revelations neither of them expected. Tonight would change everything. Because Clayton Burch wasn't the kind of man who accepted defeat gracefully, and his revenge, when it came, would test their partnership in ways they couldn't imagine. The celebration lasted exactly 4 hours.
Rose and Wyatt returned from town in high spirits. The satisfied loan note folded carefully in Wyatt's coat pocket. They'd stopped at the general store, bought supplies. As they'd been putting off real coffee, not the chory blend they'd been stretching. Sugar, a bolt of fabric Wyatt insisted Rose needed for new dresses, small luxuries that felt enormous after weeks of scraping together every penny.
Lily had prepared a special supper roasted chicken with vegetables from the root seller. The ranch hands joined them, crowding around the big table, passing dishes and telling stories. Billy recounted how Rose had saved Tom Bradley's mayor, embellishing the details until it sounded like she'd performed a miracle. Hank, normally tacitern, raised his glass of cider in a toast. To the boss and his wife.
May they never owe Clayton Burch a damned thing. Everyone drank to that. Rose felt Wyatt's hand find hers under the table. A brief squeeze there and gone, but enough to send warmth spreading through her chest. Tonight, he'd said they would talk tonight.
She was both eager and terrified to hear what he'd say. But at 8:00, just as the hands were heading back to the bunk house, and Lily was clearing dishes, hoof beatats thundered into the yard. Fast urgent, the kind of riding that meant trouble. Wyatt was on his feet instantly, hand going to the rifle mounted above the door. Rose followed him outside her medical bag in hand from pure instinct.
Tom Bradley nearly fell off his horse, his face gray in the lamplight spilling from the house. Fire, he gasped. The yearling barn saw smoke from my place and rode over. Wyatt, it's bad. Real bad.
Rose's blood turned to ice. The yearling barn housed the eight recovered horses from the stampede. The ones they' nursed back to health, the ones that represented what little financial cushion they had left. Wyatt was already running toward the barn rose close behind. She could see it now.
Orange light flickering through the cracks in the walls. Smoke pouring from under the eaves. Not fully engulfed yet, but getting there fast. The screaming started before they reached the door. High terrified winnies.
Horses trapped inside panicking as smoke filled their lungs and fire licked at the walls. "Get buckets! " Wyatt shouted over his shoulder. "Form a line from the well. We contain this before it spreads to the other buildings. " Hank and Billy were already moving, rousing the other hands from the bunk house. Within minutes, a bucket brigade formed water slloshing from hand to hand.
But Wyatt wasn't joining the line. He was heading straight for the barn door. Wyatt, no. Rose grabbed his arm. The smoke will kill you before you get three steps inside.
Those horses are trapped. I'm not letting them burn. He shook her off and yanked open the door. Black smoke billowed out thick enough to choke on. Through it, Rose could hear the horses screaming.
Could hear the crackle of flames eating through dry wood. Wyatt wrapped his bandana around his nose and mouth and plunged inside. Rose stood frozen for exactly 3 seconds. Every instinct screamed at her to run after him to pull him back. But she'd be just as blind in that smoke, just as likely to get herself killed.
Then she saw it. A water trough near the barn nearly full despite the cold. And beside it, horse blankets hanging on a rail. Rose ran to the trough, plunged two blankets into the icy water, soaking them through, wrapped one around her own shoulders and head, took the other in her hands. The wet wool would filter some of the smoke by her a few extra seconds.
She went in low beneath the worst of the smoke, the way her father had taught her during a warehouse fire in Boston. Stay below the heat. Feel for obstacles. Count your steps so you can find your way back out. The barn was chaos.