Two Plain Bands

He won't take the bed. You argue about it for ten minutes, which is nine minutes longer than anyone has argued with Colt Branson in years, judging by his face.

"You're the guest," he says.

"I'm the owner. Allegedly. Half-owner."

"Then half the floor's yours. Take the other half of the bed." He tosses two couch cushions down by the stove and a wool blanket that smells like horse. "Go to sleep, Counselor."

You lie in Mavis's narrow brass bed under Mavis's quilt with your clothes on, staring at the log ceiling while the wind screams around the chimney. The stove ticks. The fire throws orange shapes across the room. And six feet away, on the floor, a man you met this morning breathes slow and even, wide awake.

At eight o'clock his phone buzzes. You hear him sit up.

"Hey, bug." His voice changes completely. It goes low and soft, warm as the stove. "No, I'm okay. Stuck at Aunt Mavis's cabin. Big snow. Did Grandma let you have the cocoa with the little marshmallows or the big ones?" A pause. "Both? That's corruption. Okay. You want the song?"

You hold very still.

And Colt Branson, six foot three of sheepskin and silence, sings, quietly and completely off-key, a song about a cow who wanted to be a ballerina. It has four verses. The cow does a pirouette. The cow falls in the creek. You press your face into Mavis's pillow so he won't hear you.

"Love you, bug. Night."

He hangs up. The fire pops.

"You heard that," he says to the ceiling.

"I didn't hear anything." You wait a beat. "Does she land the pirouette eventually?"

A long silence. Then, so low you almost miss it, the sound of him laughing. Once. Rusty, like a gate that hasn't been opened in a while.

"Verse five," he says. "Haven't written it yet."

You talk for an hour after that, in the dark, which is easier. You tell him about Avondale, your mother's pierogi, the trial in March, the way your boss Ellis Marquardt bills in six-minute increments and once billed a client for the time it took to sneeze. He tells you almost nothing, but he listens like it matters. He asks what you'd do with your half of a ranch if you could do anything.

"Honestly? I don't know. I've never seen a cow up close."

"You will," he says. "Tomorrow. Arturo'll want to show you off."

The last thing you remember is the fire, and his voice saying, "Sleep, Ava," the first time he's used your name, so quietly you might have dreamed it.

Arturo comes up the ridge on a tractor at ten the next morning with a blade on the front and a thermos of coffee on the seat, singing. Badger rides on the fender like a figurehead.

"Licenciada!" he shouts. "You survived the jefe!"

"Barely," you call back, and Colt, shoveling the porch, mutters something in Spanish that makes Arturo laugh so hard he nearly drives into a tree.

The furnace gets its part. The cabin gets warm. Colt goes back to the main house and you don't see him for two days, except once, at dawn, riding past the cabin window on a big bay horse with snow on his hat brim, looking up at your porch like he's checking on something.

Friday is Halloween. The clerk at the Galena County courthouse is wearing cat ears.

"Branson and Mrozek?" She looks at the license, then at Colt, then at you, then at Colt again with an expression of pure scandalized delight. "Well, I'll be."

The judge is a retired rancher in a robe over his jeans. His courtroom has a copper dome and smells like floor wax. Merle stands up as your witness in his best bow tie. Arturo stands up for Colt in a pressed pearl-snap shirt and holds his hat over his heart like it's the national anthem.

You wear the only dress you packed, navy, for the funeral you thought you might be attending. Colt wears a white shirt and a dark jacket and he's shaved, and you are not prepared for what shaving does to his face. Without the stubble his jaw is a weapon. His mouth is the kind of thing sculptors get grants for. The clerk in the cat ears actually fans herself with the license.

"Rings?" the judge asks.

Colt pulls two plain gold bands from his jacket pocket. You can still see the little paper tag on one of them. Ember Creek Hardware. Pawn. Twenty-two dollars.

He sees you see it. His ears go faintly red.

"Short notice," he says.

"It's perfect," you say, and somehow mean it.

You say I do. He says I do, in a voice like gravel. He slides the band onto your finger and his hand is warm and rough and shaking, very slightly. You don't think anyone else notices.

"You may kiss the bride."

He leans down. You close your eyes. And Colt Branson kisses you on the cheek, very lightly, just beside your mouth, so carefully it feels like a question he isn't going to ask.

Arturo applauds anyway.

The main house is warm and smells like woodsmoke and coffee. You'll be living here now. The will says so. Your suitcase is in the truck bed, and Colt carries it up the porch steps without being asked.

Someone is already on the porch.

She's sitting on the swing with a casserole dish in her lap and a pink suitcase at her feet. Long copper hair falling over a fitted suede jacket. Green eyes. Boots with silver toes. A rodeo-queen smile. She's so beautiful it takes you a second to understand she's furious.

"Colt," she says sweetly, standing. "I heard. The whole courthouse heard." She kisses his cheek, exactly where he kissed yours. "I brought a lasagna. And I'm staying through Sunday. Clover's going to need her family."

"Raelynn," Colt says, in a voice you can't read. "This is Ava. My wife. Ava, this is Raelynn Hadley. Laurel's sister."

Raelynn turns. Her eyes travel over you, the navy dress, the pawn ring, the red coat, slowly, from the top of your head to your heels and back. Taking inventory. Deciding where to bite.

"Welcome to the family," she says, and smiles with all her teeth.

That night you lie in Colt's bed, alone, in a room that still has a woman's hairbrush on the dresser. Raelynn is down the hall in the sewing room. Colt is on the couch downstairs. You listen to the house creak and wonder what on earth you've done.

Your phone lights up on the nightstand.

An unknown Montana number. You know who it is before you read it.