Page 53 of Thunder

Quiet.

Honest.

"Is that— can it be both?"

"Talk to me."

She pulls her hand back, wraps her arms around her knees, and for a second she's not the steady stockwoman who ran a whole breeding program through the worst summer of her life.

She's just a girl who got handed a wrecked family and a pile of secrets she never asked for.

"My whole life, the past couple of years has been things happening to me," she says. "I found out who my real parents were—didn't choose it. Found out my mother killed a woman—didn't choose that either. Got frozen out by my sisters for something I didn't do, and had no control over. Found out the man I was falling for helped bury the body. Every single piece of it landed on me, and I just had to stand there and take it."

Her voice tightens. "And yeah. Yeah, Thunder, some part of me knows that if my father ever finds out about us, he's gonna try to end it. He's gonna stand there and act like he gets a say in who I love, like he gets to protect me right out of the one good thing I've got left, after everything his secrets cost me. And some part of me wants it already done when that day comes. Permanent. On my skin. So he can rage all he wants and it won't matter, because it'll already be true and there won't be a damn thing he can do to undo it."

She looks up at me, eyes bright and fierce.

"But that's not the biggest part," she says. "That's the part that makes me feel strong instead of scared, so it's the part that's easy to say out loud. You want the real one?"

"Always."

"The real one is I love you."

The first time she's said it in those exact words.

"And for once since I’ve been on Sharp Shooter Ranch, I want to choose something. Not have it happen to me. Choose it. With my eyes open, knowing every reason it's a bad idea, and do it anyway because it's mine. You're the one thing I picked. And I want to wear that."

Her voice cracks. "Is that— does that make it okay? That it's for you and also a little bit for me, to prove to myself I still get to want things?"

And there's nothing left in me that wants to argue.

Because I know exactly what she's talking about.

I've spent my whole life being pointed at things by other men.

The one time I ever chose purely for myself was a snake on my neck in the dark, and here she is wanting the same medicine, the same proof that a person who's had everything done to them can still do one thing on purpose.

"Yeah," I tell her, rough. "Yeah, rattlesnake. It makes it okay."

I pull her in.

"But we do it right," I say into her hair. "Not here, not with anybody from the ranch. I know a guy. Rafe, up in Brownwood, did most of my sleeves years back. Knows the life, knows what a property tat is, knows how to keep his mouth shut. He's not a Saint and he's got no love for your daddy's charter one way or the other. It stays between him and us."

"When?"

"How's tomorrow?"

The smile she gives me could power the whole Hill Country.

* * *

Rafe's shop sits above a saddle repair place off Main, and he takes one look at Presley walking in under my arm and one look at my face and doesn't ask a single question he doesn't need the answer to.

That's why he's still the man I trust with this.

I’ve known him for two decades, and he's never once needed a thing explained twice.

"Ribs first," he says, when she tells him the plan. "Ribs hurt like the devil, best to get 'em while you're fresh. Snake on the ribs, script on the low back."