Page 157 of Rhodes

“Perfect timing.”

There's no awkward pause this time, no nanosecond of figuring out what we are supposed to do with each other. She walks toward me and holds out the clipboard.

“Your driver called Dale this morning and wants the unloading area moved twenty yards north because he's worried about the turn.”

“I saw that.”

Her brows lift.

“He called me, too. That's why I'm here, to make sure there are no hiccups on Monday.”

That gets the smallest smile.

I take the clipboard from her and follow her toward the access road.

Dale has marked off the space they planned to use for the first delivery. The approach is tight, but not impossible. I walk it once, check the turn from the road, then pull out my phone and look at the dimensions the carrier sent me.

“He can make this.”

Dale crosses his arms. “That's what I told him.”

“He doesn't like the grade.”

“He's hauling oyster shells, not nitroglycerin.”

Tallulah laughs beside me.

“We can keep this staging area and bring the first load on a shorter trailer. It costs a little more because they have to split one of the runs, but not enough to wreck the freight savings.”

“How much more?”

I tell her. Dale whistles softly. Tallulah studies the road, then the bank. “What do you think?”

I know which one I would choose. Six months ago, that would have been enough.

“Shorter trailer makes more sense to me,” I say. “But it's your budget and your worksite.”

Her eyes stay on mine for a beat. Then she looks back toward the road.

“Do the shorter trailer.”

“Okay.”

I make the call. It takes less than five minutes. The carrier complains exactly as much as I expected. I remind him what Nero sends his way every quarter, and by the time I hang up, the first delivery is locked for Monday morning.

Tallulah is still watching me. Dale takes the clipboard from her and then disappears across the yard.

“Come on,” she says over her shoulder. “You said you wanted to see what we've done.”

I follow. The property looks different from two years ago. It's not transformed, because marsh does not care how badly people want dramatic before-and-after pictures, but I can see how much work they've done. There are new markers along the bank, protected sections where the plantings have taken hold, and areas Tallulah points out where they pulled back after the new delineation.

She knows every inch of it.

“This section was the biggest problem,” she says, stepping carefully over a muddy rut.

“You were right about the bank.”

“What do you want me to say? I spent half a year proving it.”