Page 51 of Indigo Ridge (The Edens 1)

I blew out a long breath, then told him about Briggs.

“Damn,” he cursed, his hands tightening on the wheel. “I’ll talk to him.”

“You need to do more than talk.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“Maybe we should call Grandpa’s doctor. See if we could get Briggs into a home or—”

“I said I’d handle it, Griffin,” he snapped.

Christ. I held up my hands. “Fine.”

Tension crept through the truck’s cab, and when Dad pulled in beside my rig on Main, he didn’t say a word as I climbed out. He reversed out from his spot and drove away before I’d even fished the keys from my pocket.

I unlocked my truck and hopped in, slamming the door too hard. “Damn it.”

Briggs had had a few episodes like this over the past year. It had started with mixing up a name at family dinner. But that happened all the time, right? Mom used to run through all our names before landing on the one kid in trouble.

Except for Briggs, the small mistakes were becoming habit. He’d driven into town this winter and Knox had stumbled upon his truck on Main. Briggs had forgotten where he was. Six months ago, Talia had bumped into Briggs at the grocery store and Briggs’s shirt had been backward.

But tonight . . . tonight had been the worst. He’d actually thought I was Dad. The entire time we’d been at Willie’s.

Maybe if my grandfather hadn’t suffered from dementia, I wouldn’t worry as much. But I’d been a teenager when Grandpa’s mental health had deteriorated. I’d watched him become a ghost of the man I’d known.

It had crushed Dad. Briggs too.

Now our family would go through it again.

My stomach growled, forcing me out of my head. Leftovers waited for me at home. So did a pile of work. But as I drove down Main, my truck steered itself toward a little gray house with a red door.

There was no time for this. The ranch didn’t run itself and I had shit to do. But I parked on the curb, spotting Winn through the front window.

She’d shed the black shirt she’d had on earlier for a plain white tank top. The straps of her black bra peeked out at her shoulders. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, the ends swaying across her shoulders as she dragged a tall cardboard box down the hallway.

When I rang the doorbell, I heard a loud thud and then a pair of muted footsteps before the door flew open.

“Hi.” She shoved a tendril of hair off her sweaty forehead. “How’s your uncle?”

“Not great,” I admitted. “My grandfather had dementia. Alzheimer’s. It didn’t set in until he was in his seventies. It’s happening earlier with Briggs.”

“I’m sorry.” She waved me inside, closing the door behind us.

I inspected the living room, as full of boxes as it had been this morning. “Are you unpacking?”

“Sort of. My bedframe a

rrived today.”

“So you aren’t planning on sleeping on the floor forever.”

“It was on backorder. My mattress arrived before I moved, but not the frame.”

“What about the one you had in Bozeman?”

“It was Skyler’s.” Her lip curled. “I left all of the furniture to start fresh.”

“Ah.” I nodded. “So where’s the frame?”