They stood in silence for a while, drinking coffee, watching the sun climb higher. "There's work to do if you're staying," Rhett finally said. "Fence needs mending. Well needs cleaning. Barn's got a hole in the roof."
"I'm not your worker." "Didn't say you were. But if you're here, might as well make yourself useful." Ayah set down her cup and turned to face him fully.
"I'll work, but not because you tell me to. Because this land deserves better than what you're giving it." Rhett felt something twist in his chest. Shame, maybe, or anger.
Hard to tell the difference anymore. "Fine," he said. "Fine," she echoed. And that was how it started.
The first week was careful and quiet. They worked on opposite ends of the property, circling each other like dogs unsure of territory. Rhett fixed the fence posts along the southern border. Ayah cleared rocks from what used to be a garden plot behind the cabin.
They spoke in short sentences, practical things. "Need more wire." "Water's low." "Storm coming."
Rhett learned she was stronger than she looked. He watched her carry a load of firewood that would have made him grunt without so much as a grimace. He learned she knew plants. She could point to a scrubby weed and tell him it was good for tea, good for wounds, good for keeping snakes away.
He learned she didn't sleep much. Sometimes he'd wake in the middle of the night and see her silhouette against the cabin window, or catch her walking the rim of the canyon in the predawn gray. She learned he was a decent shot but a terrible cook. That he talked to his horse more than he talked to people.
That he carried something heavy he wouldn't name. On the eighth day, the well ran dry. Rhett stood over it, staring down into darkness, jaw tight. "Hell."
Ayah appeared beside him, peering down. "When did you last dig it deeper?" "Never." She looked at him.
"You've been here two years and never maintained the well." "I didn't..." He stopped. Didn't have a good excuse. "I'll ride into town. Get supplies."
"Or you could dig," she said. "I don't know how to dig a well." "I do." Rhett turned to stare at her.
"You know how to dig a well?" "My people dug wells in places where water didn't want to be found. This canyon has water. You're just not looking deep enough."
"Your people," Rhett repeated, and immediately regretted it when her expression shuttered. "Yes," she said quietly. "My people." He wanted to ask.
Wanted to know where she'd come from, how she'd ended up on that auction block, what had happened to the people she spoke of in the past tense. But the look on her face told him that door was closed, and prying it open would cost more than he had to spend. "All right," he said. "Teach me."
They spent the next three days hauling out mud and rock from the well, with a rope around his waist and Ayah working the pulley. His shoulders screamed. His back felt like someone had taken a hammer to it. But on the fourth day, water seeped up through the bottom.