Page 76 of Josephine and Clay

Mom sets the knife down. “Eat your breakfast, Clay.”

That flat tone is worse than if she’d snapped, so I shut up and shovel eggs into my mouth as if that’ll fix anything.

It doesn’t.

By the time Boone and I head outside, I’m in an even fouler mood than when he dragged me out of bed.

The morning’s cool enough to bite a little, the kind that still holds onto the night before the sun starts baking the dust up out of the ground. The yard stretches wide and familiar around us, all fences and outbuildings and long shadows, with the cattle lowing somewhere distant and the first light catching on the weathered boards of the barn.

Rusty trots up the second we hit the porch steps, old red heeler body low and wiggly, ears crooked, eyes bright with the particular expression of a dog who thinks every human activity exists purely for his entertainment.

He circles me once, sniffs my cast, and sneezes loudly.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I hate it too.”

He thumps his tail against my good leg.

Boone tosses tools into the bed and jerks his chin at me. “Get in.”

I look at the passenger seat. “You know this still feels dramatic, right?”

“You gonna climb in or keep whining?”

“Bit rich coming from a man who married the first woman who looked at him too sweet.”

He huffs a laugh. “Get in, jackass.”

The ride out to the east pasture is rough enough that every bump jars pain through my leg despite Boone trying to take it easy. I grit my teeth and stare out across the ranch instead of giving him the satisfaction of knowing it hurts.

The land rolls out big and dry under the morning sun, all gold grass, sage, and fence lines cutting through it as old scars. The mountains sit blue in the distance. Same view I grew up with. Same ground I used to tear across on horseback before I got old enough to start itching under my own skin.

Boone parks near the fence and kills the engine. “There.”

I look.

There are only three loose boards to deal with, a repair so minor it barely feels worth calling a chore.

I turn slowly toward him. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“You dragged me out here for three boards.”

He grabs the tool belt from the dash. “Told you it was simple.”

“That’s not help. That’s pity.”

His jaw ticks once. “You want to lie in bed all day and rot? That’s your plan?”

“My plan was sleep.”

“Your plan has been acting like the world ended because you can’t climb on a bull for a while.”

I bark a short laugh. “For a while.”

Boone slams the truck door and comes around to the fence. “Yeah. For a while.”

“Easy for you to say.”