Page 63 of Josephine and Clay

“Yes.”

“That’s all you’ve got?”

“It’s a starting point.”

She studies me, caught between concern and an uncertain softness. I understand the feeling.

The technician continues speaking, explaining what she’s seeing, outlining timelines and measurements in a calm voice. I listen, absorbing what I can, filing the information away even as part of my mind struggles to keep pace. There will be time later to organize it, to make sense of it properly.

Later.

When this feels less immediate.

When I’m not lying here trying to reconcile the life I thought I understood with the one that has just, quietly and irrevocably, changed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Clay

JUNE 19TH

Turns out coming home busted feels a whole lot different than coming home by choice.

That probably shouldn’t surprise me, but it does anyway.

The drive back to Buckhorn is a blur of pain, road noise, and the kind of exhaustion that feels mean. By the time Boone pulls into the yard, my leg is throbbing so hard I can taste it. Every bump in the road has worked its way straight up into my spine, and the pills they gave me at the hospital have left my head wrapped in cotton, without doing nearly enough for the pain underneath it.

Worst of both worlds. “Careful,” Boone mutters as I swing the truck door open.

“I know how to get out of a damn pickup.”

“Not on one leg, you don’t.”

I glare at him, but it loses some bite when I have to suck in through my teeth just to stand up. The crutches are awkward under my arms, the cast heavy and wrong, dragging at me in a way that makes my whole body feel off balance.

I hate it before I’ve even taken three steps.

Mom’s already on the porch before we make it up the steps, wiping her hands on a dish towel because she probably hasn’t stopped moving since she got the call. Her eyes land on the cast first. Then my face.

The look that passes over hers is quick. Worry, anger, relief, all jammed together tight enough she can barely show any of it without the rest spilling loose.

“Well,” she says, clipped in that way she gets when she’s feeling too much. “You made a proper mess of yourself.”

I snort once. “Good to see you too, Mom.”

She steps forward anyway, one hand brushing my arm, brief and firm. A check. A confirmation that I’m really here.

“Get inside.”

It’s easier to obey than argue.

Everything in the house is too familiar. The smell of coffee long gone stale in the pot, lemon cleaner, bacon grease sunk into the walls from decades of breakfasts. The old clock over the stove ticking louder than it ought to.

Mom’s got me set up in my old room by dinnertime. Boone hauled my bag in. Dallas found extra pillows. Faith appeared with water and instructions I ignored on principle. Tessa hovered in the doorway with baby Hailey tucked against her shoulder, probably because she wanted to help but didn’t know how. Nash offered me a beer before Mom told him if he handed alcohol to a man on painkillers under her roof she’d knock him into next week.

That almost made me smile.

By dinner, the whole thing’s already a punishment I didn’t agree to.