The brothers come in around five-thirty.
Banshee first, on account of he sleeps less than I do these days. Then Spur, then Blaze, then Thunder, then the prospects two at a time the way prospects move. Blight last, like always, dragging his feet because he's never gotten used to the early hour even after years of riding for the Shotgun Saints.
I take my seat at the head of the long table by the window.
Same seat I've taken every morning for the better part of a decade.
Hadley brings the plates out without asking who wants what. She knows.
Banshee gets four eggs over easy and three biscuits because his metabolism runs hot.
Spur gets a steak with breakfast because he's been working the round pen since before dawn and burns it off.
Blight gets dry toast and black coffee because he's nursing the kind of hangover a man earns.
The prospects get whatever's left and they get it gratefully.
She brings me my plate last.
Two eggs scrambled. Bacon. A biscuit. A small bowl of her redeye gravy that nobody else at the table gets because she made it special the second week and saw the way I cleaned the bowl.
She sets it down in front of me.
I look up at her.
She doesn't quite meet my eyes.
"Thank you, sweetheart."
The word slips out before I can catch it.
I’ve been doing that a lot lately.
She turns and walks back to the kitchen without responding, but I see the back of her neck go pink above the collar of her t-shirt before she gets to the door.
That's mine to keep.
Banshee's grinning at me from across the table.
I look at him and he keeps grinning.
I don't say a word.
Halfway through breakfast, the screen door bangs open and a six-year-old comes barreling into the bunkhouse in pajamas covered in dinosaurs, dragging Stitch by one ear and looking for his mother.
The whole table goes quiet for the half second it takes for the brothers to realize he’s there.
Then everybody goes back to eating.
Nash has done this every morning for the last three weeks.
The first time he did it, Spur asked Hadley if she wanted him to walk the boy back to the cabin, and Hadley said no, that as long as Nash wasn't bothering anybody he could come find her, and that was the end of that.
The brothers like the kid.
Banshee taught him how to whistle through his teeth last week.
Spur let him sit on the fence at the round pen for an hour last Saturday watching the mustang go around.
