She laughs against my mouth. She sits.
I bring her the eggs and slide them onto her plate next to the bacon and the biscuits and the peach, fill her coffee from the French press, and sit down across from her with my own plate.
She eats.
Her bare collarbone is in the morning light and the place where the chain used to lie is in plain view, and I can't take my eyes off it for the first thirty seconds.
She catches me looking. "You're staring."
"I'm lookin'."
"Same thing."
"It isn't."
She bites her biscuit and watches me. "What?"
"I'm tryin' to figure out how I got here."
She sets the biscuit down. Her thumb goes to the chain that isn't there and catches itself. "You got here because I walked over."
"That right?"
"That's right."
She picks up the biscuit and takes another bite.
I drink my coffee and watch her eat and it hits me—this is what I want.
With any luck, Hadley will be barefoot and pregnant by the end of the year too.
* * *
Thunder's truck pulls up at the cabin around mid-morning.
The engine rumbles in the gravel before the boy's voice does. Then the passenger door opens and Nash comes flying out of the cab with Stitch under one arm, his hair every direction at once, and Diesel hops down behind him with the slow careful jump of an old dog who has somehow had a better night than I have… and my night was damn good.
I open the door. Nash hits me at full speed in the thighs.
"Rogue! Mama Lou let me pour my own milk! I poured Raine's too and I didn't spill it and Mama Lou said, 'That's a fine job, Nash Garrett Cross!' And then we watched two movies but I fell asleep in the second one and Raine fell asleep first because she always falls asleep first because she says being a nine year old is exhausting."
I put my hand on top of his head and look up at Thunder, who has climbed out of the driver's side with a coffee cup in his hand and a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Mornin', brother."
"Mornin'. Boy was good as gold."
"Thank you, Thunder."
He nods once. "Mama says she's keepin' the boy any time you need her to."
"Tell her thank you."
He lifts a hand and climbs back into the truck. The engine turns over and he rolls back down the gravel toward the gate.
Hadley is at the door behind me. She drops to her knees on the porch boards and opens her arms and Nash launches himself at her. "Mama! I told Rogue first because he was at the door, but I missed you the most."
She laughs into the top of his head. "You missed me the most for one night?"
"It was a long night."
