I work on commission, I write back. From now on, I want a proper cut of the pay.
There’s no clients right now. Pandemic, remember? Right now, the only assignment is daily massages for two. We’re offering three hundred bucks a week and you’ll have your own room. We expect you to quarantine before you start—IF we hire you.
I stare at the barely legible message in disbelief.
I can interview today, if you tell me where to go.
There’s a long pause before the person on the other end texts me an address. I punch it into my phone and roar out of the parking spot, pumping my fist.
I’m halfway to The Black Diamond Ranch before I realize that I don’t even know who I’m on my way to meet with. All I know is that by the end of today, I’m either going to be dead or sleeping in a proper bed for once—and to me, a night in a bed is worth the risk.
My name is Sadie Banes. I have the world’s worst luck, but I am no fool. I have just enough money to get enough gas to drive out to the address he texts to me next. I had better get this job, because I won’t have enough cash or fuel to get back to Albuquerque if they don’t.
2
Dakota
When I set out to buy my own ranch, I did not think about digging fence posts. It’s dry, boring, muscle-busting work.
I’d rather be riding horses, but our staff has been reduced to the couple who live above the barn and care for the horses, and their son. With ten boarded, plus eight of our own, we need the use of this field. The Black Diamond is thirteen hundred acres of deeded land, plus another two thousand leased from the government. That means a lot of fencing.
One thing I did not appreciate about New Mexico before moving here was just how harsh the land is. We are fortunate to have our own tributary and wells. We could have up to fifty horses, but I’ve been cautious about taking on more cattle than I can handle with a small crew. I’ve already been bitten by one thieving employee. It shook my confidence in my ability to manage all this property.
Until recently, I hired people to fix things. The pandemic has killed the income I rely on, which meant I had to stop contracting workers. I’m twenty-nine years old, but damn if digging post holes doesn’t make me feel ancient. My muscles ache. I think about the better times, before this horrible virus crashed like a wrecking ball through everyone’s lives, and wish we could hire that massage therapist we’d talked about. I’m not the one who needs such services, but I would certainly enjoy partaking of them after a day of this shit.
I long ago took off my shirt and tossed it over the side of my red pickup truck. Dust and sweat have settled into layers on my skin, and new drops of perspiration form arroyos with each pound of the sledgehammer. With no one to cut my hair, I have twisted my natural curls into tiny dreadlocks. They bounce around with every movement, annoying me. I prefer to keep my hair short.
“Figure that’s secure enough?” asks my companion, Beau, in his Southern drawl. He’s a Georgia boy, but you’d never know it. He loves playing cowboy even though he can’t ride a horse to save his life. His background is in security services. I shoot him a half-grin.
“It’ll have to do.” I swig from a battered stainless-steel canteen and gesture at the road. A plume of dust kicks up behind a battered-looking van that’s crawling toward us like a clumsy beetle. “We have company.”
“Well, shit.” Beau glances over and knocks the brim of his cap up a notch. “I didn’t think she was serious.”
The only reason anyone ever drives up this direction is if they want to come and see us—and we haven’t had visitors in weeks. Not since the pandemic started and cut off my main source of revenue, paying guests. I’m puzzled about who our guest could possibly be, so I ask him, “Who?”
If you guessed I’m not from around here, you would be correct. I grew up in Chicago, the youngest of four kids. When my dad passed away two weeks after my twenty-fifth birthday, I was blown away to discover I had inherited three million dollars. That’s just my portion of the trust fund, too. Mom’s set for life. My three siblings received equal amounts, which they put into real estate and stocks.
Not me. As much as I respect my dad, and my siblings, I didn’t want to climb the corporate ladder. To my family’s bafflement, I quit my job and focused on doing the thing I love most—working with horses, not computers.
Eventually, I bought The Black Diamond Ranch.
My mother was not about to let me move to another state all alone, though. The ranching community throughout the United States is overwhelmingly white. I knew that no matter where I went, I’d be defying expectations. I still was not prepared for how many people have reacted badly to a Black rancher—most people have been fine, but all it takes is one asshole to get me killed out here.
I’m mostly grateful that Mom worked her connections and hired Beau. Yes, her gift to me was a personal bodyguard who would keep an eye on her youngest son. For all his faults—and Lord knows he has plenty—Beau has made my transition from city to country one-thousand-percent easier.
Yet there are times when Beau forgets who’s in charge. He isn’t the boss, but he likes to act as though he is. Too often, I stand down no matter how much it grates, because I trust him with
