Page 38 of The Wrangler and the Tenderfoot

He saw me look but didn’t flinch. “My mother’s,” he said.

I nodded, not trusting myself to answer.

He poured water into a glass, offered it, and when I took it, our fingers brushed. He held my hand for a second, thumb tracing the scar I’d gotten when I was twelve falling off my neighbor’s bike. I thought he might kiss me. I hoped he would.

Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, looking out the window at the moon, and I sat beside him. He said, “You figure us out yet?”

Somewhat. “You’re more like a unit than a family. Everyone’s got a role, and it changes depending on what the world needs that day.”

He nodded. “That’s how it’s always been, but it is family.”

I said, “You ever want something different?”

He was silent so long I thought maybe I’d pushed too far. “Sometimes. A partner. But I wouldn’t know what to do with her.” He looked at me, eyes yellow in the lamplight. “What about you? You ever want to stop running?”

It was my turn to look away. “I don’t know how.”

We sat there a while in a comfortable silence. I was aware of him in a way I didn't usually let myself be aware of people, the particular quality of his attention, the way he sat beside me and didn't fidget, didn't perform, was just exactly where he was. I'd spent years reading people for tells and motive and threat. What I was doing right now felt different. It felt like something I'd forgotten I knew how to do.

"I like you," he said. "You don't scare easily."

"You should see me around cats," I said. "Total meltdown."

He snorted. He was looking at me sideways in the lamplight, those yellow-gold eyes patient the way he was patient at everything, and I thought, not for the first time tonight and probably not for the last, that I was in some trouble I hadn't accounted for.

I leaned in. He didn't move to meet me or pull back, just let me come to him, and when I kissed him, he kissed me back with the same deliberate care he brought to everything. His hand came up and settled at the back of my jaw, warm and certain, and I felt the roughness of his palm, the particular weight of someone who worked hard every day and never once thought about it.

When we broke, he touched his forehead to mine, and we stayed there, breathing the same air.

"You sure?" he asked. No pressure in it. Just the question.

"Not even a little," I said. "But I want to be."

He looked at me, and whatever he was looking for, he seemed to find it, because he nodded once, and something eased in my chest.

"You can stay," he said, "if you want."

I wanted to. That was the thing I hadn't planned for, the wanting. I'd been careful for a long time, careful about people and what I let matter, careful the way you get when you've had things taken and learned the cost of replacing them. But sitting in this small, immaculate cabin with his hand warm at my jaw and her locket on its nail above the bed, I thought maybe I'd been calculating the wrong kind of cost. Maybe what I should have been watching out for was the price of not.

"I have to get back," I said. I didn't let go of his hand.

He kissed me again, slower, like there was no particular hurry about any of it, and when we finally broke, I pressed my lips together to keep the feeling in. I never wanted to lose it.

Chapter 19: Jennie

The world came back online in layers, first the groan of the air conditioner, then the drone of insects, and finally, the hard staccato of truck engines firing in tandem. I blinked into the thin light, not quite registering where I was for a moment. Nothing says “good morning” like waking up in someone else’s home.

I didn’t remember falling asleep. The last thing I remembered was sitting cross-legged on the bed, rerunning every minute of the Maddox dinner.

I listened again. The trucks weren’t idling. They were leaving, distance chewing up the diesel until the only thing left was the echo of tires on gravel and the faint rattle of loose tailgates.

I rolled to the window, careful to keep the blinds angled just enough for a clear view but not so much as to silhouette myself. The driveway was empty. Every vehicle gone. Even the barn looked still, no morning traffic, no hands shuffling hay bales or unloading feed. No sign of Levi’s after-market Jeep, which usually squatted at the edge of the lot.

This had never happened before. Not since I’d been here. There was always a Coleman in the house or very close. Even on the rare occasion Harlan had to haul himself into the city for a banking meeting or a shot of vitamin B, Wyatt or Levi or at least Cordelia held down the fort, shuffling paperwork in the office and micromanaging the hands.

Not today. Tonight, the property felt like a prop on a stage, silent like the eye of a tornado.

I wasn’t about to waste this opportunity. I’d spent years in the field, and there’s a rhythm to these moments. If my window opens, I jump. I pulled on a tee and a clean pair of jeans.