Forrest set his mug down.
"Doesn't matter how long it's been," he said. He wasn't looking at me, still looking out the window. "It just doesn't."
The table went quiet.
Forrest wasn't a man who said much, and when he did people tended to listen. Even Dakota.
"No," I said. "It doesn't."
He picked his mug back up. That was the whole conversation. It was enough.
My mother put her hand on my shoulder again as she passed, briefly, and then she was back at the stove and the kitchen noiseresumed. Bea grabbed a fistful of whatever was in front of her. Millie said something to Gage that made him shake his head slowly in the way that meant he was trying not to smile.
Normal. All of it normal.
Except Haven's truck still wasn't in the yard and it was 7:06, and Haven was never late.
“Could’ve sworn Haven was coming in today,” Dakota said, once again putting his foot in his mouth—even if this time, he couldn’t have known that. “She call in?”
“Not as far as I know,” I said.
"Guess you're gonna have to be your brother's assistant today," my mother said, eyeing him.
Dakota was already shaking his head. "Can't. Me and Maverick have got work to do." He grabbed his hat off the hook. "Those loops aren't gonna throw themselves."
"Maverick's been out every morning this week," Gage said, not looking up.
"Maverick likes mornings."
"Maverick likes you leaving him alone."
Dakota pointed finger guns at our older brother and backed out the door, which was apparently his idea of a rebuttal.
The door swung shut.
My mother sighed. “That boy…”
Then her eyes flitted to the window. “Oh—well there she is. Looks like you won’t need Dakota’s help after all.”
My stomach twisted.Haven.
A few minutes later, Haven came through the door pulling her hair back—dirty blonde, always escaping whatever she'd tried to do with it—and said "Morning" to the room like she hadn't been the first thing I thought about when I woke up.
She was pink-cheeked from the walk from her truck, hazel eyes already moving around the kitchen taking stock the way she always did. She was short, but she wasn't a petite woman. Solid,the way someone gets from real work—broad shoulders, capable hands, the kind of build that made you believe her when she said she could handle a calf on her own. She'd been working this land since she was fifteen and it showed, and she'd never once seemed to care about that either way.
She'd been the prettiest thing I'd ever seen since approximately the moment I'd noticed, which I tried not to think about. She’d been too young then, too—nineteen and flushed from helping me deliver a foal, hair a mess.
My mother was already pulling a plate from the cabinet.
"Sit down," she said. "I made extra."
"Yes ma'am." Haven dropped into Dakota's vacated chair without ceremony and accepted the plate my mother set in front of her. Eggs, toast, the good salsa. She reached for it without hesitation.
Gage looked at her. Looked at me. Looked back at his coffee.
"How are your folks?" my mother asked, settling into the chair across from her.
"Good. Dad's been messing around with a new deer blind out back, so he's happy." She took a bite. "Mom thinks it's an excuse to avoid cleaning the gutters, which it is."
