Not quite burning.
But present.
He told himself lying awake that night that he was waiting for the right moment.
That was true as far as it went.
But he was also honest enough with himself in the two-in-the-morning darkness, when self-deception got harder, to know there was something else under the waiting.
The ranch was different.
He didn't know how to account for it in any concrete way that didn't sound like a man who'd been alone too long trying to dress something sentimental up as practical observation.
But the fact was that the house ran differently now than it had run three years ago.
Five years ago.
Any time he could clearly remember.
Meals happened.
Mornings happened.
There was noise in the house that wasn't the wind, and noise in the barn that wasn't just livestock.
And in the evenings, when the work was done and everyone had moved inside, there was the low-register sound of a household operating as a unit rather than a collection of people occupying the same space.
He hadn't known he'd missed it.
He thought he was fine.
He thought the ranch was fine.
Functional.
Running.
Sufficient.
He had cattle and land and men who did their work, and a house that kept the cold out.
He thought that was enough.
And he'd been convincing himself of it for three years.
He'd gotten quite good at the convincing.
Clara Whitmore had been on his property for 22 days, and he had apparently not been as fine as he thought.
That was an uncomfortable thing to know about yourself at two in the morning.
He put the letter in the drawer of his bedside table, face down, and went to sleep.
The moment that made him tell her was Ethan.
Not because Ethan did anything dramatic.
It was actually the opposite.
It was a Tuesday, a week after the letter arrived, and Gideon had taken Ethan out to the far north pasture to check on a section of fence that had taken damage in the last windstorm.
The cold was serious that morning.
The kind that got into your lungs and made them feel smaller.
And the ride out was mostly wordless in the way their work together had become comfortable.
The fence damage was worse than the report.
Three posts compromised.
Two stretches of wire down entirely.
They'd have to come back with more materials.
While they assessed it, one of the horses, a mare named Birch that had been difficult since Gideon bought her two years back, moved close to Ethan along the fence line.
Ethan didn't flinch.
He turned slowly.
Extended his hand flat.
Let her nose it.
She blew out a breath and pushed her face against his palm with a force that nearly knocked him sideways.
And Ethan laughed.
An actual, unreserved, 13-year-old laugh that Gideon had not heard from him before.
Not the measured, controlled smile he sometimes permitted himself.