Page 31 of His Texas Claim

“I’m fine,” he said, voice short. “Let’s get goin’. I can call Gage to come and pick us up down at the road, but we need to move quick so Arlo and Cooper don’t see us.”

I felt small. “Is Cooper okay…?”

“He’s fine,” Stetson muttered, already moving toward the entrance—checking outside before pushing through the fern curtain. “Seen worse. Given worse, probably, knowin’ him.”

He held the ferns back so I could pass, then clicked his tongue at Buck, who shot through after me. Once we were through, he dragged a fallen branch across the gap, tucking it in against the brush already growing there.

“That’ll hold till we can figure out somethin’ better,” he said.

We didn’t say another word as we descended the hill—didn’t want to, not when Arlo and Cooper could still be nearby. In fact, it wasn’t even until we were on the road that he so much as acknowledged anything had happened at all.

“I’m fine,” he muttered to me.

I just nodded.

Didn’t seem like he was fine at all.

ELEVEN

Stetson

Gage didn’t say much on the drive back—just looked at me when we got in, read whatever was on my face, and let it be.

The horses were in the trailer; our stuff in the back of the truck. Bryn sat in the back with Buck’s head in her lap, and I felt ever inch of that separation now that we were with other people again. The things we’d said on that hike, the things we’d done…it all felt too private to share. Not with Gage. Not when I was so raw after watching my dad beat on my little brother while I’d sat in that cave and hadn’t said a word.

I hadn’t grown up with Arlo. He’d been away too long, and when he got out of jail, my mom kept it that way.

Cooper hadn’t been so lucky.

Night had begun to fall by the time we pulled up to the house, every window lit up. I almost wanted to just go home and drink it away…but I needed to fill everyone in, owed it to Bryn to explain why I needed to be alone before I left her at the main house. Peggy was standing on the porch next to my mom, Marlena.

Mom came down the stairs two at a time to greet Buck, who hurtled out of the car to see her—obedient in all aspects except when it came to greeting grandma—and then she looked up at me.

“Heard you had a run-in with your daddy?” she said.

I grunted. That was affirmation enough. Bryn, however, had already gotten out and decided she was going to explain everything her own way.

“That man is a monster,” she was saying. “That poor kid—oh, nice to meet you by the way, I’m Bryn⁠—”

“Peggy told me,” Mom said, smiling at Bryn as her eyes darted to me. She was picking up signals. I needed to shut this shit down.

“We should get inside,” I said. “Lots to tell.”

We got everyone settled around the kitchen table—Gage, Millie, Mom, Peggy. Wyatt and Haven had the kids; Forrest had joined us too. Uncle Adam came in and stood behind Aunt Peggy, his hands on her shoulders as he listened to our story. I told it plain, same as I would’ve told Gage in the truck if either of us had been talking.

The survey…the shove. Cooper on the ground outside the cave, blocking us from a father who’d never once looked at any of us like we were worth protecting instead of using.

Mom’s face didn’t change much. She’d had worse from Arlo herself.

But her eyes kept flicking to me, then to Bryn, then back to me…doing the damn math.

“So what now?” Gage asked Bryn. “You got enough evidence to do whatever it is needs doing?”

Bryn nodded. “I’ll need to go back for samples—probably find a way around that doesn’t reveal the exact location of the spring—but I can start compiling the paperwork to make a case for preservation of the aquifer. Then nobody has to claim the water rights, the frogs will be safe, and you all can go about the cattle business as usual.”

Gage nodded. “How long’s that take?”

“Filing itself, maybe a week once I’ve got the data compiled. Approval’s slower…could be months, depending on how fast the district wants to move.” Bryn glanced at her recorder, still clipped to her belt loop, dried mud crusted along the strap. “I’ll need to talk to my colleagues at the university, get the department involved officially. This isn’t something I can file alone and have it hold up.”