I remembered the look on Hooper’s face, not when I’d said “I do” but when I’d said I wanted it to be real. It had rattled him, but he’d steadied after, like a man learning to trust the tread on new ice.
My mind kept circling to Emilio. I pictured him at the ranch, maybe asleep, maybe wailing his head off, the soft animal sounds that Jojo would try to interpret like a code. He wouldn’t remember any of this. By the time he was old enough to ask, the story would be so changed by retelling that none of it would be true anymore.
But right now, he was safe. We were all safe, at least until the next move.
It was a kind of luxury I hadn’t realized I wanted.
The silence stretched, then shifted when Hooper reached over and squeezed my knee, quick and grounding. “Fifteen minutes out,” he said.
I nodded.
In the rearview, Burke was watching us, his face unreadable but his eyes softer than I’d expected. “You know,” he said, to no one in particular, “I never thought I’d see the day Hooper got domesticated. Next thing, he’ll be mowing the lawn in a pair of white New Balances.”
Hooper made a rude gesture, but didn’t take his hand off me.
Macon opened one eye, then closed it again. “Might do him good,” he said. “He’s got the legs for dad shorts.”
I laughed, and it felt like a real sound, not just a reflex.
The last stretch to the ranch went by in a blur, the familiar landmarks half-lost to the darkness. The wind had picked up, and every so often a gust would rattle the cab, but inside it was nothing but warmth and the steady hum of the engine.
I looked at Hooper, and he looked back, and there was something settled in his face—a kind of certainty that didn’t need words. He squeezed my knee again, and this time, I put my hand on top of his and left it there.
We drove the last mile that way, the four of us in our bubble of heat and quiet.
Just before the turnoff, the lights of the ranch came into view, scattered and golden against the black. Someone had left the porch lamp on, and I could see a silhouette at the window, probably Jojo, maybe already holding Emilio, maybe just holding space for us to return.
I thought of the note I’d written in a Wyoming motel, the one I never sent, the one that ended with“If you ever come for me, I’ll try to believe it.”
I’d meant it then, and I meant it now.
I didn’t know if I could believe it yet, not all the way. But as the truck rolled up the drive and the light bled through the frost on the windshield, I thought maybe—just maybe—I could.
And that would be enough, for now.
Chapter Eleven
~ Hooper ~
The drive up the gravel was a rerun of every return I’d made in the last six years: the ruts felt in my spine before I saw them, the front porch lamp an accusatory yellow even in the dusk, the line of porch chairs ghosting out through the frost like a lineup waiting for mugshots.
Only this time, the truck was full of a silence that had a different voltage to it, a static cling on the back of the neck that wasn’t quite dread and wasn’t quite hope.
I braked three yards short of the barn, tires announcing us before anyone even thought about coming to the door. The headlights carved two perfect white holes in the front of the house and, for a half second, lit up the silhouette of Jojo in the window, face pressed flat to the glass.
I counted: one-one-thousand, two, three, and there he was, barefoot and already holding Emilio like a hostage, as if he’d anticipated this moment down to the minute.
I killed the engine and let the last of the warmth from the heater fade. The world outside was gunmetal and blue, March snow the color of old wounds.
Macon opened his door with a grunt, barely waiting for the click before he was halfway up the path, a blur of brown and motion. Burke stayed in the cab, like a man waiting for orders that weren’t coming.
Liam made no move to open his door. He just sat there, staring through the windshield, the courthouse papers still creased in his lap. I watched him for a beat, saw the flicker of indecision as his fingers hovered over the door handle.
He caught me watching and said, not quite a whisper, “Do we tell them?”
I shrugged, then reached across him and opened the door from the inside. “It’s a ranch, not a court,” I said. “We don’t have to do shit except feed the livestock and keep the roof up.”
He took a breath, nodded, and got out, the cold peeling the flush from his face before he’d even made it to the bottom of the porch steps.
