The worn metal handle of the feed bucket bit into Elara’s palm as she hauled it across the tack-room floor. Grain shifted inside with a soft sliding weight, and she braced her hip against the doorframe to swing it onto the shelf beside the others.
Dust drifted in the warm, close air, thick with hay, horse sweat and the faint copper tang of the metal bins.
She straightened and pressed the heel of her hand to the small of her back. The morning was barely old enough to have a shape—pale light still filtering through the gaps in the plank walls—and already her shirt clung between her shoulder blades.
Three more buckets waited by the door.
She carried each one across with the same economy of motion: lift, brace, swing, settle. The rhythm was familiar enough that her thoughts moved ahead to everything that needed doing before the first lesson arrived.
The latch on the far stall.
The hay net in the mare’s pen.
The eastern fence line sagging after winter.
The last bucket landed harder than she intended, the sound ringing off the tin roof.
Elara stood for a moment with her hands on her hips, breathing in the sweet-sharp smell of molasses and oats. The stables were quiet in the way they only were before the property properly woke—the deep breathing of horses in their stalls, an occasional hoof against timber, the creak of the building settling.
She gave herself ten seconds.
Then she wiped her hands on her jeans and stepped into the yard.
The pump chose that moment to complain.
A dry metallic whine rose from beside the rainwater tank at the stables, caught, then ground against itself like a gear chewing gravel. Elara’s shoulders tightened before she had even turned toward it.
She was halfway across the yard when Grant’s voice carried from the doorway.
“Ah. She’s just having a moment.”
He stood with one hand resting against the frame and a mug of coffee in the other, studying the machinery with the cheerful uncertainty of a man who knew horses inside out and machinery not at all.
He gave the casing an experimental kick.
The grinding stopped for half a second, then returned louder.
Elara looked at him.
Grant took a sip of coffee. “That didn’t help.”
“No.”
“Thought it might.”
She leaned past him, checking the pressure gauge, pipes and motor housing. The vibration came through the frame in a rough shudder.
“How long has it been doing this?”
“Since I got here with the coffee.”
“So?”
“Four minutes. Maybe five.”
Elara reached past him and killed the power. The pump died with a final clunk.
Grant peered into the sudden silence.
“Fixed.”
She gave him a flat look.
He smiled. “Temporarily.”
The trough sat half-empty, the water dark and still at the bottom.
“The back paddocks are fine,” Elara said, thinking aloud. “But the stables run from this line. We’ll need it going again before the heat comes in.”
Grant nodded thoughtfully, though she knew the expression meant very little where pumps were concerned.
“We’ll find someone.”
“We always find someone.”
“That’s because people like me.”
“That is unfortunately true.”
He grinned and leaned in to kiss her temple before carrying his coffee back toward the yard.
Saige led a chestnut pony past on her way to the tie-up rails, the lead rope hanging loose in one hand. At fifteen, she had already spent most of her life moving through Ironstone’s routines without being told where to stand or what needed doing. Her dark hair was tied back badly, and sleep still softened her face until she rolled her eyes.
“What did Dad break?”
“The pump.”
“I didn’t break it,” Grant called over his shoulder. “I discovered it broken.”
Saige clipped the pony to the rail. “That sounds more like you.”
Elara gestured toward the pump. “It started grinding.”
“It’s been making that noise all week.”
“You said it sounded rough.”
“I said it sounded like it was chewing rocks.”
“That would have been useful information.”
Saige shrugged. “I assumed you heard it too.”
She ran a hand down the pony’s front leg, lifting the hoof with easy familiarity.
“The pony’s feet need checking before the nine o’clock,” Elara said.
“Already done.”
“The filly?”
“Done too.”
Elara watched her daughter move toward the stables, quick and capable in worn boots and an old work shirt. Saige complained often enough about chores, early mornings and being treated like free labour, but she rarely left a job unfinished.
Grant appeared beside the first rider of the morning before Elara had finished checking the trough.
The woman stood just inside the gate in new boots, hands twisted together, her body angled faintly toward the car.
“You must be Jenny,” Grant said.
The woman nodded. “I nearly didn’t come.”
“That would’ve been a shame.”
“I haven’t ridden since I was a kid.”
“Then you already know more than someone who’s never ridden.”
The woman gave a nervous laugh.
Grant offered his arm and guided her toward the tie-up rails, asking about the horses she had ridden as a child and whether she preferred English or Western saddles. By the time they reached the yard, her shoulders had lowered and her hands had stopped trembling.
Elara left Grant with Jenny and crossed toward the eastern paddock.
The grass was still wet with dew, soaking the cuffs of her jeans as she followed the fence line. She had checked it before winter, but the recent weather had shifted one of the posts and pulled the wire loose.
The damage was worse than she remembered.
A timber post leaned at a lazy angle, and the lower strand had enough slack for a determined calf—or an inquisitive horse—to test it.
She crouched and pulled the wire toward her. It came too easily.
“Fence,” she muttered.
That put it after the pump and before the hay net.
The sun crested the trees as she stood, and movement on the other side of the boundary caught her eye.
Someone was working on Black Cattle Co.
The property had carried cattle for years, but no one had lived there. The yards were weathered and the old fencing unreliable. A utility now stood near the hay shed, with a caravan parked beside it and building materials stacked under a tarp.
Closer to the boundary, a man was resetting a fence post.
He was tall and broad across the shoulders, dressed in a dark work shirt, boots and a hat pulled low against the rising sun. Even at a distance, his movements looked deliberate. He tested the post, adjusted its angle and tamped the soil around it before checking the wire.
No wasted effort.
No kick at the machinery followed by a hopeful shrug.
Elara rested one hand on the sagging strand on her side of the fence and watched long enough to decide he knew what he was doing.
Useful.
That was promising.
The man straightened and looked across the paddock.
For a moment, they stood on opposite sides of the boundary, each with a hand resting on the same neglected line of fence.
Elara lifted one hand in greeting.
He returned the gesture.
No smile she could see. No attempt to cross the distance. Just a brief acknowledgement before he bent to his work again.
Grant’s voice carried faintly from the arena, followed by Jenny’s startled laugh and Saige telling someone to keep their heels down.
Elara looked back toward Ironstone.
Then at the fence.
The new neighbour had arrived at a convenient time.
She turned toward the yard, already knowing what Grant would say when she mentioned him.
They should introduce themselves.
Grant would bring beer.
He would ask questions.
And before the afternoon was over, he would almost certainly invite the man to dinner.
Elara walked back through the wet grass, adding one more thing to the morning list.
Meet the neighbour.