Lila freezes in my arms and my grip tightens around her.
“No,” I say.
Her father blinks. “I beg your pardon?”
“You don’t know your daughter. You’ve never tried to. You don’t know what she’s built here, what she is to the people around her, what she is to me.” My voice drops. “And you sure as hell don’t get to come onto my land and tell me about my own damn marriage.”
I look at the envelope still in his hand.
“File whatever you want,” I tell him. “What happens between Lila and me is none of your concern. I will spend every dollar I have and every minute of my life making sure you stay out of my family’s business.”
“Lila,” her mother says, not pleadingly but icily. “Weare your family. Not this man.”
Lila’s hand squeezes mine as she gazes at me. “I made my own family.”
I’m about to tell the rest of them to go fuck themselves, in case it wasn’t clear enough—and that’s when I see the bear.
It’s the same young black bear who’s been hanging around for months now. It’s not charging. It’s just here, curious, ambling toward the house on no particular mission.
“Everyone needs to step inside,” I tell them.
Her father keeps talking. Something about depositions.
“There’s a bear,” I say pointedly.
Her mother looks up. Her father glances toward the tree line and then back at me with confusion. “So?”
Jesus. City folk.
I usher Lila towards the front door. The shotgun is where it always is. I’m back outside in under a minute, the gun over my arm, loaded, because I’ve done this before and the window is always shorter than you think.
“Get. The fuck. Inside,” I tell them.
They keep talking. Her parents, Peter, all of them still circling the same legal argument like the bear is a minor inconvenience in an otherwise important meeting.
The bear ambles closer.
Celia’s eyes widen. She takes three fast steps toward the SUV. Apparently she’s the only the smart one out of the bunch.
The bear swings its head toward the movement.
I raise the shotgun straight up into the Montana sky and pull the trigger once.
The crack splits through the air.
That gets their attention.
“What the fuck?” Peter screeches.
And then they scatter.
It’s something to witness. Her father, who came here with the posture of a man who has never let anything ruffle his feathers, scrambles for the passenger door like a startled rooster. Her mother actually dislodges not just one but several hairs out of place as she dives after him. Peter trips over his own loafers. Celia is already in the backseat with the door pulled shut, and I’d bet money she’s the one who locked it.
The SUV peels down the drive in a spray of frozen gravel.
Meanwhile, the bear startles. Swings its heavy head. Lumbers back into the tree line without a backward look.
Then I turn around. Lila is watching me.
