"Aiden." Delaney smiles as she comes across the gravel. "Lord, you've gotten big."
The yard tilts. My vision narrows to a point.
Twelve years. I'm standing in a ranch yard in Oregon with sawdust in my beard, and Nacogdoches just climbed out of a Hertz rental.
"Do you know what it took to find you?" She's coming at me with her arms half open, still smiling, and there's nothing behind it. Never was. That's what took me too long to learn. "Nobody had a thing. No phone, no address. You've got a business with no address, Aiden. That's not normal."
She stops in front of me.
I don't move.
"Well." Her arms drop. She gives me the once-over, head to boots, settles her weight on one hip. "Your mama's dying."
The creek. The wind. The saws running up in the timber. Everything goes far away.
"Cancer. Pancreas. They gave her four months back in March, so." She glances at her nails. "Do the math. Wyatt's a mess. She keeps asking for you. She told him it's the only thing she wants, so he sent me to come find you."
My throat is cement.
"You'll come home." Not a question. "Whatever happened, Aiden, that was twelve years ago. People move on. You've had your space. Time to come back."
Space.My mother’s dying, my brother's ‘wife’ standing in front of me calling twelve years of exilespace.
"There's the house," she keeps going. "And there's the hospital bills. Wyatt hasn't been sleeping. He's not in a good place financially, and you've been up here for over a decade with nobody to spend your money on, so."
There it is. Under two minutes, and she's at the money. I should be surprised. I'm not. Some things about people don'tchange. The ones who take from you always come back for the same thing.
I still can't speak. My body's locked from the jaw down, hands at my sides doing nothing, twelve years of things I wanted to say jammed behind a wall I built myself.
"Aiden? You hearing me?"
Boots sound on gravel behind me. Close. Closer than professional.
Then a hand slides down my forearm. Finds my wrist. Threads fingers through mine.
Squeezes.
"Sorry, I only caught the tail end." Paige's voice is warm as a Sunday. Easy as breathing. "I'm Paige."
Delaney looks at our hands.
"Delaney Harrison," she says.
Harrison. My last name. My brother gave her my name.
My grip goes tight enough it should hurt. Paige doesn't flinch. Just holds on.
"Harrison," Paige repeats. "Now, forgive me, I'm terrible with family trees. You're his?"
"His brother's wife."
"Ah." A nod. Casual. Warm. Absolutely deadly. "Long way to come."
"I'm here for his mother."
"Course you are." Paige's thumb moves across the back of my hand. Once. Small. Nobody sees it but me. "Only this is a working yard, and he's got a trailer to drop, so I'd rather not do this over a load of pine."
"And you are?" Delaney's voice sharpens.
