The swing creaks under us when we sit down. Cal doesn't stir. He's the easiest baby I've ever been around.
The cicadas are warming up in the cedar.
A hawk is circling lazily out past the bunkhouse.
Marlena says, "Phantom and I are drivin' down to College Station in two weeks."
"For what?"
"Presley's graduation."
I turn to look at her. "From A&M, right?"
"Four years. Animal science. The girl's about to come home and tell us all how to run this ranch better than her father’s been runnin' it for over thirty years." She smiles down into her glass. "She's already talkin' about helpin' Rogue with the operations side. He's been runnin' those books alone for too long, and she's got the head for it. The girl's got more sense than her sisters combined, and don't you dare tell Grace or Dakota I said that."
"Her sisters?"
"Grace and Dakota. Grace and Dakota are Phantom's first wife's girls. Presley is mine and Phantom's, though that's alonger story than I've got time to tell on this porch. Point is, all three of those girls are mine to claim, and I claim 'em."
She says it with such matter-of-fact warmth that I have to look out at the yard for a second before I can answer.
I had two pregnancies that didn't take before Nash. I have one sister in Tulsa who hasn't spoken to me since the funeral.
My mother died when I was eight. The only woman who has ever sat on a porch with me and called girls she didn't birth her own is the one beside me right now.
Marlena doesn't look at me while I gather myself.
She’s good at that.
After a minute she says, soft, "How you doin', sweetheart?"
I want to say fine. The word is already in my mouth. I've used it on every doctor, every funeral guest, every neighbor who brought a casserole the week after Garrett died.
But Marlena is the kind of woman who hears fine the way a deer hears a twig snap. I'd be wasting both our time.
"I don't know yet."
She nods, like that was the answer she wanted. "You're allowed to not know."
"I keep thinkin' about what he said yesterday."
"Rogue?"
"He told me Nash and I are safe on this property."
Marlena rocks the swing slow with her bare foot on the porch boards. "You are."
"That's not what I'm askin'."
"I know it isn't."
I look at her.
She looks back at me with those quiet brown eyes that have seen more than she ever tells anybody.
She says, "Phantom told me about Rogue the second week I was here. Bits and pieces. Enough I knew not to ask the rest of it.He's a good man, Hadley. Under all that quiet, he's a good man. He just—he doesn't know how to be loud about it."
My right hand goes to the chain at my neck before I know it's moving.
