He said it pleasantly. He said everything pleasantly. Like it was just a question, like it was just information he was curious about, like he hadn't just put the arrangement in the center of the table in front of everyone in it.
I set my fork down again.
"That," I said, "is not your business."
"Family business," Arlo said, in that reasonable tone. "My claim's tied to the timeline. I assume she’s here as…what? Some kind of broodmare?”
The word "broodmare" hit the table like a dropped plate.
Nobody moved.
Millie's hand had gone very still on my knee.
I stood up, the chair going back hard enough that it squealed on the floor, and I was on my feet before anyone had exhaled. Arlo's smile stayed right where it was, watching me, which was the worst part. That it didn't move. That he'd planned for this.
"You need to leave," I snarled.
"Gage,” my dad said, voice too calm.
"No." I didn't look away from Arlo. "He's going to leave."
"I asked a reasonable question," Arlo said. "Your grandfather's deed uses specific language.Natural heir, produced within the claimant's primary household.I've got a right to understand how you're interpreting that. Seems like an arrangement worth?—"
"She's not an arrangement." The words came out clipped and low and I was aware of my own hands on the table, both of them, flat. "You say that word again, I will put you out of this house myself."
Arlo spread his hands. "I didn't mean any disrespect."
"The hell you didn't."
Stetson spoke up from the far end of the table. Quiet. "Arlo. Let it go."
Arlo glanced at him. Just a flicker. "I'm havin’ a conversation?—"
"You're not." Stetson set his fork down. He looked at his father the way you look at a problem you've already done the math on. "You came here to see what she looked like. You've seen her. You got what you came for."
The pleasant smile finally moved. Not gone—just reconfigured into something more honest, a little thinner, the edges showing. He looked at Stetson the way he'd looked at the property earlier. Taking stock.
"Good to know where you stand," Arlo said.
"You've always known where I stand."
"With them." He said it without heat. Like he was stating a distance on a map. "Your family shows up and you choose this table every time."
"They are my family," Stetson said.
"I'm your blood."
Stetson’s eyes narrowed, the only reaction I’d actually seen all night. "Blood doesn’t mean a damn thing when your blood disrespects a lady.”
Arlo was quiet. That was somehow worse than anything he'd said. The quiet had weight to it—not empty, loaded, the specific silence of a man revising his next move.
My mother got up.
She crossed the kitchen and opened the door and stood beside it. She didn't say anything. Didn't have to.
Arlo looked at her. At the door. At the table—at Wyatt, who was watching him with no expression whatsoever, at Sawyer, at my dad sitting with his hands folded on the table and his face giving nothing.
Cooper was looking at the floor.
