Page 60 of Branded

“The buyer preview starts in the morning.”

“Those can coexist. The clinic gave you a slot before the buyer gate opens.”

“You scheduled it.”

“The clinician scheduled it. I just kept your calendar from developing a selective memory.”

I finish taping the dressing. I don’t step back.

We’re alone in the sale office. Through the glass, the pens stretch under the yellow lights, and cattle shift and call, and an employee walks the south row with a clipboard. Garrett is sitting and I’m standing, so for once I’m looking down at him. His hair has fallen over his forehead. There’s a nick on his jaw where he shaved left-handed this morning.

I put my palm flat against his chest, over the white shirt, over his heart.

He looks up at me and doesn’t move.

I almost say it. It’s right there. It’s been right there since the clinic, since before the clinic, since a kitchen that smelled like burnt tortilla, since a hole in a chain six inches from his head. I open my mouth.

I can’t say it yet. I wanted Garrett before I found my private stop on his security screen and my work copied to his server. He has owned both breaches, but I want these words to come from a choice I’ve had time to make.

Garrett covers my hand with his good one. “You don’t have to,” he says quietly.

“I know I don’t.”

“I meant what I said. Keep it as long as you want.”

“I’m not keeping it to punish you.”

“I know.” His thumb moves once over my knuckles. “I gave you a reason to wait. I’m not in a hurry. I’ll still be here.”

I have to look out the window for a second.

“That’s annoyingly perceptive,” I say.

“I had a good teacher.”

The six o’clock count starts on the south row. Employees read pen, lot, owner, head count, water, holds. I follow on paper while Nora marks the official copy. The bait group stays in the south pen, twenty head, no false account, no movement.

At 6:14, Mott’s voice comes over the operations radio.

“Need those six red heifers split out before night crew,” he says. “Move them to W-Seven and hold them under 4473 till morning.”

The room goes still around the exact combination that only existed on his page.

Garrett doesn’t reach for the radio. Cole looks at me and waits.

I write down the time, the channel, the voice, the cattle, the pen, the account, and everyone who heard it. Mercer sends one acknowledgment to my phone.

It connects Mott to his copy. It doesn’t prove he started the scheme, or intended a false sale, or sent anyone to that crossing.

Cole keys the radio. “Request held. No written authorization. Leave them where they are.”

Static. Then Mott: “Garrett approved the contingency.”

Garrett speaks from his chair, loud enough for Cole’s open mic. “I approved no move.”

A pause travels down the recorded channel. “Then Rowe did. It’s her schedule.”

I take the radio in my left hand. “The page says draft. It says no movement without written confirmation. Go back to the public office and wait for Nora.”