Page 15 of Branded

The ranch office smells of burnt coffee and printer heat. In the live system, dormant consignor account 4471 is closed, balance zero, contact history scrubbed to a single automated notice. In the copy counsel preserved at three this morning, the same account has six cattle movements, four settlement adjustments, and an address it shares with two other dormant consignors.

The closure carries Mott’s credentials and a timestamp from forty-three minutes ago. One of the related accounts is already queued for closure. The other has been renamed with a string of digits that will hide it from a casual search.

Someone knows where I’m looking.

Garrett comes in with two cups and sets one beside me without touching my papers. “Coffee. Sealed creamer. You can test either one for poison if it improves your morning.”

“It would improve yours less than mine.”

He changed clothes sometime after he left me at my door, but the gray under his eyes says he didn’t sleep. Neither did I. I lay in a bed in his house and listened to his footsteps pass twice in the hall after midnight, slow, stopping once outside the connecting door and then moving on. I told myself I was listening for threats.

I turn the monitor toward him. “Mott started closing dormant accounts before dawn.”

He reads it without leaning over my shoulder. “Can we stop him?”

“We can cut his credentials, and he’ll know exactly how close I am. If he has another way in, he burns whatever I haven’t found.” I tap the shared address. “I need the original onboarding files and the sale settlement queue.”

“They go into the family records room this afternoon. For the memorial dinner.”

That puts the paper I need inside a private family event while Mott watches for an auditor.

“I need to look harmless by tonight,” I say.

Garrett’s expression doesn’t move. “You haven’t made a serious attempt so far.”

The door opens before I can answer. Russell McCall steps in without knocking, trailing expensive aftershave. He looks at Garrett’s coffee, at mine, at the master key beside my notebook.

“The estate call starts in twenty minutes,” he says. “Unless your houseguest has moved that too.”

“She has a name,” Garrett says.

“She also has an engagement letter. Usually those don’t include a bedroom in the family wing.” Russell sets his folio down. “The lenders are asking whether your judgment is compromised. I told them grief affects men in unpredictable ways. They see you holding cattle and installing an attractive auditor in your house. People will decide there’s a simpler explanation.” He glances at me like a charge he plans to code to the wrong account. “Calvin always did leave expensive problems for someone else.”

I close my laptop. “Does the simpler explanation make me more dangerous or less?”

“It makes you temporary.”

He leaves. Garrett watches the door, and I can see what it costs him not to follow his uncle into the hall.

“Don’t defend me,” I say.

“That wasn’t a defense.”

“Good. I need the insult to spread.”

His attention swings back. “Explain.”

Russell wants the lenders to think Garrett’s judgment is compromised by me. Mott needs to think the same thing. If they believe I’ve gone from independent auditor to a woman distracted by a rich man’s attention, they might stop hiding the records I’m supposedly too compromised to understand.

“We give them the simpler explanation,” I say. “We get engaged.”

Garrett goes silent for three seconds. I count because his silences have started to mean different things. This one isn’t surprise. It’s want, being forced through judgment before either one reaches his mouth.

“Publicly,” I add. “Temporarily. I become the opportunist who got absorbed into the McCall family before the estate cooled. You become the grieving heir making reckless decisions. Russell spreads it because it helps him. Mott relaxes because the audit looks bought.”

His gaze drops to my left hand. “You would wear my ring.”

The quiet possession in it goes straight down my spine. Another woman might mistake it for romance. I make myself hear a term.