The perfectly fine beams. The structurally sound beams. Nothing there. He listened for 10 more seconds. Heard nothing.
You're imagining things. He closed his eyes. It's been 4 days and you married a stranger and you should sleep. He slept. And in the darkness above him absolutely still.
Absolutely silent. A shape that had not been there before the fire went out settled against the shadow of the largest beam and waited. Morning came the way Arizona mornings did. Sudden, golden, committed. Cole woke to the smell of coffee.
Which was wrong. He was the only one who made coffee in this house. Had been for 5 years. The coffee lived in a specific tin above the stove. You had to know where to find it and you had to know how he'd rigged the percolator because it had a tendency and if you didn't know the tendency you got grounds and everything.
He got up. Walked to the kitchen. Kaya was at the stove. Not looking at him. Moving a spoon with the specific motion of someone listening to what's happening in a pot rather than watching it.
Her braids over her shoulders, slightly looser than yesterday. The fringe of the ochre dress catching the morning light. On the table, two cups, a plate, something he didn't recognize that smelled better than anything he'd made himself in recent memory. The coffee was exactly right. The percolator hadn't given her any trouble.
He stood holding the cup and she stood at the stove, not looking at him and he thought about saying thank you and then thought about how she'd respond. The shrug, probably. Or nothing. And what he said instead was nothing. He just drank the coffee.
And for the first time since Tuesday, the quiet felt almost okay. Day five. The south fence section he'd been putting off for two weeks was repaired. Three rails, clean posts, the kind of work that took an afternoon. She'd done it before breakfast.
Cole stood at the fence with his coffee and felt something he didn't have a word for. Not gratitude, exactly. Something more unsettling. The specific feeling of realizing someone has seen your incompleteness and addressed it without being asked. He wasn't sure if that was generous or an accusation.
Day six. The mare. Rosie was the difficult one. Bay quarter horse with opinions about everything and the willingness to share them physically. She'd been limping for a week, left front.
Cole had checked the hoof four times. Found nothing. She wouldn't let him close enough to look properly because Rosie's feelings about being handled were complicated and resentful. He was planning to get the farrier from Dustfall. Next week.
He came to the stable that morning and Rosie was standing on all four feet. Weight even. Not shifting. Not favoring. standing the way a horse stands when it doesn't hurt anymore. Kaya was at the far end of the stable rinsing her hands already putting away small tools he didn't recognize.