The weeks after Saige’s birthday settled into the long, slow slide of late summer. Bryce had his own work to keep him busy—the cattle were thriving on the improved pasture, and he’d finally started building the garden beds around the veranda that he’d been putting off for months. The days had a rhythm to them: feed, fence, repair, and the occasional cold beer shared with Grant when the afternoon heat broke.

He was still at Ironstone often enough. There was always something that needed doing, and Saige was usually somewhere in the middle of it—helping Elara with the horses, shifting feed, holding a gate while Bryce fixed it, or handing him tools before he asked for them.

Nothing about that was new.

The first time Saige showed up at Black Cattle Co. with a genuine reason, he didn’t think twice. She pulled up in her little ute, dust curling behind the wheels, and hopped out holding a socket set he’d left at Ironstone the week before.

“Mum said you’d probably need this,” she said, holding it out. She was wearing old jeans and a faded work shirt, her long dark hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She looked like she’d been helping with the horses, which she probably had.

“Thanks.” He took the socket set, weighing it in his hand. “Didn’t even realise I’d left it.”

“You were in a hurry to get home. Grant was going on about the new stallion again.” She grinned, and it was the same grin she’d had since she was a kid hanging around the yard, waiting to be given a job.

“That I was.” He set the socket set on the veranda railing. “You want a coffee before you head back?”

It was an automatic offer, the kind he’d made a hundred times to whoever happened to be standing in his yard. He didn’t expect her to take him up on it.

“Yeah, alright.”

She followed him inside without hesitation, settling onto the stool at his kitchen bench while he filled the kettle.

“This place is looking good. The gardens are coming along.”

“Slowly.” He leaned against the counter, watching the kettle. “I keep getting distracted by other jobs.”

“That’s how it always goes, isn’t it?” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Dad’s the same. He’ll start something and then get pulled away to help someone else.”

“Your dad’s got a different problem. He starts something and then calls me to finish it.”

She laughed, bright and easy. “True. He’s hopeless with tools.”

The kettle boiled. He made them both coffees, black for him, milky with sugar for her—he remembered that from years of making them at Ironstone. She took the mug with both hands, cradling it even though the day was hot.

“So what are your plans for the place?” she asked, nodding toward the window. “For the cattle operation, I mean. Are you going to expand?”

“Maybe eventually,” he said. “I’ve got the land for it. Just need the capital and the time.”

“You’ve got plenty of time, though, don’t you? You’re young.”

“Younger than I feel some days.”

She smiled at that, and they talked for a while longer—about the property, about the fencing he’d done, about whether he’d thought about getting more cattle. It was a good conversation, easy and comfortable, and he didn’t notice until she stood to leave that nearly an hour had passed.

“Thanks for the coffee,” she said, heading for the door. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah. See you, Saige.”

He watched her drive off, the dust settling behind her ute, and went back to work without thinking much of it.

Except it happened again three days later.

This time she brought a container of Elara’s beef stew, still warm, wrapped in a tea towel.

“Mum made too much,” she said, holding it out. “She said to bring it over before it went to waste.”

He took it, the heat seeping through the towel into his palms. “You could have just called. I would have come and got it.”

“I didn’t mind.” She shrugged, already walking toward the house like she belonged there. “I had to come this way anyway.”

He didn’t ask what she meant by that. He just put the stew in the kitchen and made them both coffee again, and they sat on the veranda this time, watching the sun sink toward the treeline.

“How’s school going?” he asked, because it was the sort of thing he’d always asked her.

“Good. Busy.” She pulled her knees up onto the chair, wrapping her arms around them. “I’ve been looking at courses for next year.”

“What sort?”

“Business. Maybe agriculture. I don’t know yet. Something useful.”

“That narrows it down.”

She smiled. “Something that gives me options.”

“Ironstone?”

She was quiet for a moment, looking out at his paddocks.

“I don’t know if I want to take over Ironstone.”

That caught his attention.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—” She hesitated, chewing on her lip. “I love the horses. I love teaching the kids. But I don’t want my whole life to be decided for me just because I grew up there, you know? I want to do things that are mine. Have experiences that are mine.”

He nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

“Does it?” She looked at him. “Dad keeps talking about how I’ll take over the business. Mum doesn’t say it as much, but I can tell she assumes it too. And I just—I don’t know if that’s what I want.”

He set his mug down, giving her his full attention.

“You don’t have to know right now. You’re eighteen. You’ve got time to figure it out.”

“Everyone says that.” She pulled a loose thread from the hem of her shirt. “But it doesn’t feel like I’ve got time. It feels like the longer I stay, the harder it’ll be to leave.”

“Leaving doesn’t have to be forever.” He said it carefully, because he knew how much Ironstone meant to her. “You could go away for a while. See some things. Come back if you want to.”

“Is that what you did?”

The question caught him off guard. He thought about his own path—the years of working other people’s land, saving every cent, waiting until he could afford a place of his own.

“Something like that,” he said. “I worked around for a while. Picked up skills here and there. Then I found this place and knew it was right.”

“You’re lucky.” She said it without bitterness, just a simple statement of fact. “You found your thing.”

“You’ll find yours too. Just takes time.”

She smiled.

“Thanks, Bryce. I should get home. Mum’ll be wondering where I am.”

She left, and he watched her go.

She was eighteen now, trying to figure out her future. It made sense that she’d want to talk to someone who wasn’t her parents.

The visits became more frequent after that.

Sometimes she had a reason—a question about her ute, which had developed a worrying rattle; a request for help moving some timber he’d said she could have; a message from Elara that could have been delivered by phone but somehow wasn’t.

Other times she just turned up.

They’d end up talking for an hour or two, sitting on the veranda or walking the paddocks while he checked the fences.

She asked questions about everything. How he’d learned to build. What it was like running a property on his own. Whether he ever got lonely. She offered to help with things he would have expected her to turn her nose up at—shifting feed bags, cleaning out the shed, even helping him sink a new fence post near the dam.

She helped him lay out sleepers for the new garden beds around the veranda too, arguing with him over whether one corner was square until he handed her the tape measure and told her to prove it.

She did.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said another afternoon, as she picked up the post driver like she’d been using it her whole life.

“I know.” She swung it, the weight of it pulling her arms down. “But I want to.”

She was stronger than she looked. He’d give her that. And she was stubborn—she wouldn’t let him take over, even when he could see her arms shaking with the effort.

“You’ve done this before,” he said, watching her line up another post.

“Dad made me help with fencing when I was younger. I hated it then.” She grinned, sweat beading on her forehead. “Changed my mind, I guess.”

It wasn’t all at Black Cattle Co.

At Ironstone she still worked beside Elara and Grant, and when Bryce was there for a repair or helping shift something heavy, Saige often joined in exactly as she always had.

It simply became more common for her to keep helping after the job was technically finished.

Grant laughed about it over a beer one afternoon.

“You’ve acquired another unpaid apprentice,” he said, clapping Bryce on the shoulder. “First it was me, now it’s my daughter. You’re building yourself a workforce over there.”

Bryce shook his head. “She just likes helping out. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Nothing wrong at all.” Grant’s smile was easy. “She’s always looked up to you, you know. Ever since you moved in.”

“I’m just the neighbour.”

“You’re more than that, mate. You know that.”

Bryce didn’t know what to say to that, so he just took a long drink of his beer and let the subject drop.

Elara noticed too, though she said less about it.

“Saige spends a lot of time at your place,” she said one afternoon when Bryce came over to help with a stuck gate.

“She’s been helping with some jobs. Says she wants to learn.” He shrugged. “She’s a good worker.”

“She is.”

“She still does plenty here.”

“I know.”

Bryce looked at her.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Right.”

Elara smiled and handed him the spanner he’d been reaching for.

They let it go.

The barbecue was a small one—just Grant and Elara, Mauve, Adele and Ethan, Tessa, and a few others from the district. Bryce arrived with a carton of beer and a bag of snags, and he found a spot near the fire pit, settling into the familiar rhythm of the group.

Saige had been helping her mum set up.

When she chose the seat beside him, he didn’t think anything of it. There was room on the bench, and she’d always sat near him at these things.

“You’re quiet tonight,” she said, nudging his arm with hers.

“Just enjoying the evening.” He took a sip of his beer. “It’s a good night for it.”

“It is.” She looked out at the fire, the flames reflected in her eyes. “I like these nights. Everyone together. No drama.”

“That’s the best kind.”

She laughed softly. “You always say that.”

“Because it’s true.”

Across the fire, Tessa caught his eye. She was sitting with Adele, a glass of wine in her hand.

Her gaze shifted briefly toward Saige beside him.

Then back to Bryce.

The corner of her mouth lifted.

Bryce frowned.

“What?”

Tessa raised her glass.

“Nothing.”

“There’s that word again.”

She laughed and turned back to Adele.

Bryce shook his head and returned to his beer.

The evening wound down slowly. People drifted off in pairs and small groups, until it was just Bryce, Grant, Elara and Saige left around the dying fire.

“You staying for another?” Grant asked, holding up his beer.

“Nah, I should get home. Early start tomorrow.”

Saige stood up too.

“I’ll walk you to your ute.”

She fell into step beside him, her hands in her pockets, the night air cool against their skin.

“Thanks for coming,” she said. “It’s always better when you’re here.”

“Thanks for having me.”

He stopped beside his ute, keys in his hand.

“You heading back inside?”

“In a minute.”

She looked up at him.

“Hey, Bryce? Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Are you doing anything next weekend?”

He thought about it.

“I was going to finish those garden beds. Why?”

“I need to pick up something from town. It’s too big for my ute, and I thought maybe you could help.” She paused. “We could get lunch while we’re there.”

“Yeah, alright. What time?”

“I’ll text you.”

She smiled.

“Thanks, Bryce.”

“No worries.”

He climbed into his ute and started the engine.

In the rear-view mirror, Saige was already walking back toward the house.

Bryce pulled onto the track and headed home, mentally adding whatever Saige had bought to the list of things apparently requiring his ute.

The garden beds could wait another day.