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Travis scraped his hair back. "Good."
He collected the plates, heading with Jude back to the kitchen, where they cleaned up and the girls talked softly at the other end of the table. By the time I was out of my head and back in the right place, Eve’s dark head of chestnut hair was down on the table, and she slept softly while Sienna stroked her back.
She smiled as I made my way back to their end of the table.
"Take you home?" I murmured, brushing back the curls from her face.
"What about Eve?" She gestured at the sleeping girl.
"I got her." Gage scooped Eve’s sleeping form into his arms, carrying her up the stairs.
"Sometimes I don't think I know what family is." Sienna stared at the vacant spot at the moment.
I kissed her cheek. "You're looking at it, Sienna. And I think somehow we're both part of it."
When she turned to look up at me, her eyes wide and alive with hope. Her lips wobbled, but nothing came out.
"Yeah, I think we are.” I replied to her unspoken question.
She noted, letting me help her rise. I tucked her into my side as I waved back to the kitchen.
"Are you staying at Longside?" Trav called.
I shrugged and glanced down at Sienna, not wanting to push her any more, but needing to keep her safe. "Might." She looked up at me, her lips parted. "Might not."
Gage came back downstairs and gave me a jerk of his chin. "Let me know if you're stuck anywhere."
"Will do. Thanks for dinner."And everything else.
I kicked my boots on while Sienna shivered beside me.
"Winter will hurt," she rasped, her voice tight as she walked down the steps in a pair of scuffed, brown ankle boots. Her pretty pale dress swirled around her ankles. She wrapped her arms around herself, staring at the sky. "We’ll get the freeze, soon.”
“I’ll trust you." I knew better than to question her.
She knew this land intimately, better than anyone I'd ever met, including Trav who seemed to commune with his mountain daily.
"I don't want to go home." She glanced back at me, new tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.
I swallowed and made the offer I knew I needed to make. "I can take you and your father off the land. Put you somewhere safe, out of Jamie’s reach. Will you let me do that?”
I’d give everything I had to give her what she needed. But first, she had to accept the offer.
She shrugged, and shook her head, her curl floating wildly around her face. "I don't know. I don't– I don't think so. Because of Mom,” she whispered.
"I understand."
She looked up at me and said nothing.
I loved this about her, the conversations where I mostly talked, and she listened. If I’d thought about it earlier, I would'verealised what a sign of trust it was that she let me talk and that she didn’t.
That she talked to me at all.
And we were back to story time, but this time...I was ready. "Dad was a trader. He didn't really have a place in the world, and he died when I was young. I was on the road with him since I was a toddler. Sleeping in swags, in the back of the tray at best, or a borrowed bed, wherever we got housed for the night. His territory was... It was down south." I blew out a hard breath. "Montana wasn't his, but somewhere along the line, it became part of me. "
She let me help her into my truck. I tucked her dress around her and fussed unnecessarily. Her hand closed over mine, settling gently on her knee, and she stared down at me steadily.
"Christ, you’re beautiful."
