One clean blow.
The porch became silent.
Reid came through door before Lena reacted.
He had heard enough.
His face was white with anger.
Adeline stepped back.
“Reid.”
“Leave.”
“She insulted—”
“Leave.”
“You don't know what she—”
“I heard.”
Adeline looked at him.
Something broke in her expression.
“You’re choosing her?”
Reid’s answer came cold.
“I already did.”
Adeline’s eyes filled with tears she refused to release.
She turned toward carriage.
Before stepping down, she looked back at Lena.
“You have no idea what you’re destroying.”
Lena touched cheek.
“No.”
“Your father does.”
Adeline froze.
That was enough.
Margaret Boone, standing just inside doorway unseen by Adeline, had heard the whole conversation.
Later she asked:
“Think she knows?”
Lena answered:
“Yes.”
“Enough to charge?”
“No.”
Margaret smiled faintly.
“You’d make a decent investigator.”
“I prefer kitchen.”
“Less lying?”
“Usually.”
Prescott struck next.
The bank called Reid’s operating note.
Immediately.
Reid had thirty days to pay $1,800.
Impossible before cattle sale.
The bank manager claimed “risk reassessment.”
Margaret asked:
“Who sits bank board?”
Everyone knew.
Nathaniel Prescott.
Lena stared at Reid.
He looked almost amused now.
“What?”
she asked.
“He’s desperate.”
“How can you tell?”
“Men start using expensive tools when cheap ones stop working.”
The ranchers’ cooperative order had already been placed in Helena.