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“D’you see that one, Michaels?” Pax asks, referencing the lightning strike none of us could miss.
Case grunts his response and Pax continues, his tone definitely up to something. “Looked like it nearly took out the grain bin—excuse me,silo—out at my place.”
I stiffen, but Case just shakes his head, the dimple closest to me popping in and out of view.
“Reckon it’s about… what? Thirty feet in the air?”
“Reckonthat’s the grain bin,” Case says, honey-thick Texas accent in place. “The silo’s a good seventy-five, hundred feet.”
“Right, right. I always mix those up. Easy to do.”
Maria finally cuts in, exasperated. “Okay. What’re we missing?”
Case raises a brow at me, and I press my lips together. I know the rumors, of course, but if he’s willing to share the facts firsthand, I won’t stop him.
He lets out a long-suffering sigh, but I don’t think he’s really mad. This feels like a schtick between him and Pax. “Well, Maria,” he drawls, “you see, a long time ago, when I was a child…”
“March,” I pipe in, amused. “Barely two months ago. Tell the story right, Michaels.”
“When I wasmuchyounger and more irresponsible than I am now,” Case presses on, “and truthfully, fucking sad and also drunk, I found this list—”
Ooh. A list.I focus my attention, intrigued.
“—from my dead best friend, Walker Gibson.”
“Ah. I knew Walker. From rodeo,” Maria says. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Case’s expression tightens ever so slightly, but he shakes itoff and continues, “Right. Thank you. So as I was saying, Walker, the meddling fucker, made this list before he died. I don’t know when,” he rushes to answer the question before I ask. “Sometime, and when he was dying, he gave it to me. He said they were all these things he’d wanted to do but didn’t get the chance, and maybe I could do the list without him.”
Even the storm seems to go quiet around us, and the only sound is the low, sloping cadence of Case’s voice. The air is at once static and expectant. “Oh god,” I whisper.
Case turns to me, his eyes meeting mine. “Yeah.
“Anyway,” he carries on, a little louder, a little gruffer, the electrified space between moments lost. “This list runs the gamut. There’s your typicalGo on a road tripandSing karaokekinds of tasks, and then there’s far stupider shit likeJump off a corn silo.”
My voice strangles. “Jump off?”
“A fucking corn silo,” Pax says. “Damned city boy.”
“He meant grain bin,” Case explains.
“Apparently,” Maria says mildly.
“But of course, I didn’t realize until I was already at the top. And I was stuck, because it was fucking high and I’d been drinking.”
“So the fire department came and got you down,” I finish for him.
“Pretty much.”
I lean back in the painted wooden rocker and imagine Walker as I knew him. “In the spirit of fairness, he didn’t mean to almost kill you.”
“Not with that one,” Pax says darkly.
I stiffen, halting my rocking. “What doesthatmean? What else is on the list?”
Case rolls his head to the side and raises a single dark brow.“I’ll tell you, but first I need you to know it’s already done, and also remember I wasn’t hurt.”
“Case!” I smack his arm, and he grins sheepishly.
