It always goes on last.
CHAPTER TWO
Hadley
"And his ears, Mama. His ears go straight up when Rogue makes a clicking sound with his teeth, like this?—"
Nash clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth from where he's sitting on my kitchen counter, swinging his legs and missing the floor by about six inches.
"—and Diesel comes running. From all the way across the pasture. Like a soldier."
"That's the third time you've told me about Diesel, baby."
"Because he's the best dog I ever met."
"He's also the only dog you ever met, besides Bella and Jagger."
Nash thinks about that for a second and then shrugs because six-year-olds don't have time for technicalities. "Still the best."
I'm wiping my hands on the green dishtowel, untying my house apron, and reaching for the cleaner one I keep on the hook by the door, the one that doesn't have biscuit flour ground into the front of it.
The bunkhouse dinner bell's gonna ring in fifteen minutes whether I'm ready or not, and the brisket I've had on low andslow since lunch is gonna come out of that smoker in the next ten.
I can guarantee Nash is still on the counter telling me about Jagger, Bella, and Diesel for what is now the fourth time, not the third.
I let him.
He's only been this animated about a thing twice in his life. The first time was the day Garrett brought home a kitten in the pocket of his work jacket when Nash was four. The second time was last Christmas when his mamaw gave him a remote control monster truck that lasted six days before he ran it into a curb.
He hasn't talked like this about anything since his daddy died.
I keep my back to him for a second so he can't see my face.
"Boots, baby."
"I'm wearing 'em."
"Then hop down. We gotta go feed the boys."
Nash hops down off the counter, drags Stitch with him by one ear, and runs out the screen door ahead of me without waiting.
I stand in my kitchen with the cleaner apron in my hand and I listen to the sound of my son's voice yelling something across the yard at someone—I can't tell who from in here, probably Thunder, who's become more like the big brother I never had—and I think about the fact that my boy is yelling.
Yelling.
About something that isn't a nightmare.
I tie the apron, kill the kitchen light, and follow him out.
The walk from my cabin to the bunkhouse is about eighty yards across gravel and packed dirt, and the gold light is doing that thing it does where everything goes warm and sideways, and the cedar smells stronger this time of evening than any other time of day.
Nash is already on the bunkhouse porch when I get there.
So is Thunder.
He's got my son in a headlock, the kind big men give little boys to make them squeal, and Nash is laughing the way only Thunder can make him laugh, and Stitch is on the porch rail looking very judgmental about the whole situation.
"Look what I found wanderin' the property," Thunder calls when he sees me. "You lose somethin', Cross?"
