“Daily?”
“Exactly.”
Lila approved.
Jacob lived long enough to rebuild something resembling a relationship with his daughter.
Not childhood.
That could not be returned.
But adulthood offered new territory.
He died when Lila was forty-nine.
She cried more than she expected.
Cole held her.
No commentary about what Jacob deserved.
Grief did not require legal judgment.
On their twentieth anniversary, Cole repaired the bathhouse himself.
Lila found him replacing boards.
“You pay six men for this.”
“They do it wrong.”
“They do everything wrong when you want an excuse.”
Cole smiled.
She entered.
Steam pipe new.
Windows larger.
Second door added years ago.
Copper pitcher still on shelf.
Lila picked it up.
“This?”
“Yes.”
“The same one?”
“Yes.”
“You kept it?”
“It works.”
She laughed.
Then looked toward the tub.
Memory.
A younger Cole.
Wet hair.
Bare chest.
Her own pale blue nightgown.
Terror.
Desire.
A note.
“If he bathes tonight, he dies before midnight.”
Lila shook her head.
“What?”
Cole asked.
“I was thinking how absurd that night was.”
He leaned against the wall.
“You stared.”
Her face warmed despite twenty years.
“I was concerned.”
“You stared while concerned.”
“I thought you were injured.”
“For a very long time.”
Lila threw the towel at him.
Cole caught it.
Laughing.
Then approached.
His beard now streaked gray.
Shoulders still broad.
Movement slower.
He placed one hand at her waist.
“Still frightened something might happen to me?”
Lila looked up.
“Every day.”
His smile disappeared.
“Good.”
She frowned.
“That is terrible.”
“No.”
He touched her cheek.
“Means I’m still important.”
“You always were.”
Cole kissed her.
Twenty years collapsed.
Steam.
Lanterns.
Wood.
No killer.
No conspiracy.
Just memory softened by survival.
They grew old at Bennett Ranch.
Not gracefully.
Cole complained about knees.
Lila developed arthritis in her hands.
Both denied needing help until the people around them stopped asking permission.
The ranch became a company.
Then a family trust.
Their adopted granddaughter eventually ran operations.
She was terrifying.
Cole was proud.
Lila was more proud.
One afternoon, a young accountant discovered historical cattle ledgers from the Elias conspiracy.
He brought them to Lila.
“These are yours?”
“Yes.”
“You found all this manually?”
“Yes.”
“No calculators?”
Lila stared.
“Leave my house.”
He laughed nervously.
She smiled.
“Mostly joking.”
He never asked again.
Cole died at eighty-two.
Not in a gunfight.
Not from betrayal.
Not in the bathhouse.
He died in bed after a quiet winter illness.
Lila sat beside him.
His hand looked thinner in hers.
That bothered her.
Cole Bennett should have remained enormous forever.
Life disagreed.
He looked toward her.