“He was like an old boyfriend sort of,” Deacon explains, like that makes sense. “You gave me Brothers’ number on the condition I don’t tell him I got it from you.”
“Yeah?”
He squints at the sun. “I sort of recall him implying he knew you were out here in Montana. I just had a lot of my own shit going on, with the baby and all, and I forgot to bring it up.”
I put my hands on my hips and stare. “Oh yeah? That seems like important information.”
“In hindsight, it probably was,” he admits.
Out of every wild escapade and harebrained scheme Deacon Ryder and I have shared, this might be the dumbest thing he’s ever done. Old Jensen would have punched him in the jaw, but right now, still in the afterglow of marriage, I don’t even care anymore.
“Just for that, I’m gonna make you keep Chicken,” I say.
He lifts a hand. “Please don’t do that.”
There’s a low whine from the porch, and we both turn. Chicken heaves his haunches off the porch and ambles over, sniffing my pant leg. He does a circle around us, stares at Deacon like he could care less, and heads towards my truck.
“I think he’s ready to get out of here,” Deacon says.
“I better get back,” I say. “Next time you get info like that, at least clue me in.”
“Will do,” he says, standing back.
On the drive back, it’s hard to focus. Chicken is panting like he just ran the derby, but I turn everything over in my head. It doesn’t matter that Deacon knew. It’s an irrelevant detail at this point. Everything that happened, happened for a reason, and that reason led me straight to my family.
I’m lighter than air.
Back at the house, Della sits in the front yard, watching Landis play in the driveway. I pull up and circle the car, opening the door.
“You want a dog, Landis?” I call.
His eyes light up, and he’s up and running, skidding to a halt. Chicken heaves himself to the ground, sniffing and flinging drool everywhere as he licks his lips. The yell of delight from Landis as he drops to a crouch and flings his arms around Chicken brings Della running.
She looks from me to Chicken, her brows knitting.
“You bought him a dog?” she whispers.
“I already owned a dog,” I say, wrapping my arm around her waist. “He was staying with some friends, but it was time for him to come home.”
Landis starts running, clapping his hands for Chicken to follow. For the first time in his life, Chicken gets some life in him and runsafter him. They start circling the yard until Landis throws himself into the grass, and Chicken collapses next to him, panting hard.
“What is he?” Della asks.
“Some kind of hound mix,” I say. “Hard to say, I found him a while back, and he just kind of stayed.”
She lays her hand on my chest, looking up with a smile. “He’s always wanted a dog. You scored some points today.”
“With you or him?”
“Both.”
I kiss her, and she kisses me back.
The days pass in a golden haze as we slowly adjust to being a family together, but there’s always an image in the back of my brain I can’t shake. It’s Brothers Boyd, holding Kayleigh’s body as the fire raged behind him. It’s the realization he wasn’t lying when he said he was truly sorry for the part he played. And that he’d done his best back then to keep me safe.
It’s this nagging feeling there’s still one more step in tying up all my loose ends.
A week passes, then another. The fields are growing golden, ready for the haying season. I don’t say anything until one Sunday night after Landis has gone to bed. We’re on the porch. She’s laying in my lap on the steps. That’s when it all spills out, and I tell her what I saw.
