Rory turned around. The light in her eyes had disappeared. “I wasn't going to rearrange anything.”
“I'm just saying—”
“I know what you're saying.” She picked up the paper bag and folded it tight in her hands. “You're saying don't expect her. You say that every time.”
“Because every time—”
“I know.” Her voice rose an octave. “I know, okay? I'm not stupid. I know she might not come.” She stopped at the hallway. “I just wanted to be happy about it for one day without you reminding me how it will probably go.”
She stomped down the hall, but her door didn't slam, which somehow made it worse. A slammed door was still feeling something. The quiet click was her deciding not to bother.
I sat in the kitchen and listened to the house settle until I couldn’t take the quiet a second longer. Bella was standing at the paddock rail when I got outside, her elbows on the top board and her camera hanging loose around her neck.
She was just standing there listening to the horses move.
I leaned on the fence next to her and didn't say anything for a minute.
“She told me about the bracelet,” Bella said. “On the way in. She was happy.”
“I know.”
“You made her feel bad about it.”
I looked at her. “That's not what I?—”
“I know it isn't.” She turned toward me slightly. “But that's what she heard. She still gets to want things from her mother, Jace. Even if those things break her heart. That's not something you can protect her from.”
The air was warmer now, carrying the smell of grass and horses and the cedars at the far end of the property. I breathed through it. “She's going to be devastated when Dana doesn't show.”
“Maybe.” Bella's voice was even. “But she'll be more devastated knowing you never believed it was possible.”
I turned that over in my head a few times, not liking how it felt.
“You make it sound easy,” I said. “Let her hope, watch her get hurt, clean it up after. How many times does that cycle before it damages something permanent?”
“I don't know.” She was quiet for a moment. “But I know that a girl who feels like her own hope needs to be protected from her father is going to stop sharing things with him eventually.”
The fence post was rough under my hands. I was quiet long enough that the horses shifted in the paddock, one of them blowing through its nose.
“You don't have to fix it today,” Bella said.
“And when do I get to fix it?” I heard the edge in my own voice and didn't pull it back. “You're here for what, another week? Maybe two? You get to say the right thing and leave before you find out if it worked.”
She went still beside me. “That's not fair.”
“No.” I looked at the paddock. “It's not.”
“Jace.”
“I'm not trying to pick a fight.”
“You're not trying very hard.”
I exhaled. She was right, and I was tired, and the morning we’d spent up on the trail was sitting right under my rib cage, making me want things I knew better than to wish for. It was easier to put distance between us now than to let it keep building into something that would cost more later.
She straightened and settled her camera against her chest. “I’ve got some editing to do. I’ll see you later.”
I could have stopped her, but I didn’t. Instead, I watched her head back to the barn and climb the stairs. Then I headed out to see Slade at the Iron Spur Ranch with a single page from the Walker debt journal in a sealed envelope and a story I didn't want to be the one telling.
