I got my father home to Conifer, made him eat something, and sat on his couch until he fell asleep in his own chair like a man who'd set down a nineteen-year weight and couldn't stay upright under the lightness.
Then I drove to Denver and signed the restructure in Alderman's office at six forty in the evening, and he read the Pueblo page twice and looked at me over his glasses and said, "Miss Bridger, do you understand you've just executed a separation agreement with a party in active litigation against your counsel's client?" And I said yes. And he said, "Then Mr. Mares is going to withdraw that filing by Friday, because his own client just signed a document acknowledging the founding instruments are valid enough to divide," and he laughed once, dry, the laugh of a lawyer watching somebody win with a tool he hadn't thought to hand them.
Treeline was safe. I'd saved it with a pen in a distribution yard in Pueblo.
Cole got back to Denver at ten fifteen.
