CHAPTER 11 #3
For one absurd second, she thought about ducking. Behind what, she had no idea. A mesquite shadow? Her own bad judgment? Instead, she opened her door, put one foot inside, and froze as Colt's truck came around the bend with dust rolling low behind it.
Beau was visible in the passenger seat, her face turned toward Wren before Colt had fully stopped. Her mouth opened in bright recognition. The passenger door did not open until Colt came around and helped her down, because rules were rules even when excitement had both of Beau's hands flapping.
"Miss Wren!" Beau called.
Colt looked up then.
The awkwardness from the night before arrived like a third person in the yard.
Wren could see it land in him too, though he gave away almost nothing.
Hat brim low. Work shirt dusted at the shoulder.
One hand still resting lightly behind Beau as she hopped from the truck to the ground.
His gaze moved from Wren to her car, then to the porch, then back.
He had not seen the envelope yet. Or if he had, his face did not say.
"Hey," he said.
One word should not have been able to remember a kiss.
"Hey. " Wren shut her car door because standing half inside it made her look as if she might flee, which was accurate and therefore unacceptable. "I was just leaving."
Beau came across the yard with a folded paper clutched in both hands. "We got a picnic paper."
"A very official paper," Wren said, meeting her halfway because standing still felt dangerous.
Beau unfolded it with grave importance. The sheet was covered in bright crayon marks, a printed line of text, and several stars drawn around the margin. Some of the stars had too many points. Some had three. All of them seemed confident.
"It says family picnic," Beau announced. "At preschool. You sit on blankets and eat sandwiches and there is watermelon if the grown-ups remember."
"Watermelon depends on grown-up competence," Wren said. "That is a serious risk."
Beau nodded. "I told Daddy we should bring our own."
Colt reached them more slowly, carrying a small backpack and the weight of a man who had already spent the day negotiating with time. "Picnic is Wednesday," he said. "Late morning. I have to rotate cattle after lunch, so we can only stay through the first part."
Wren heard the apology he did not quite say. Beau's joy had been fit between ranch work and weather, between a child's schedule and an afternoon pasture rotation that could not wait because grass, water, and animals did not rearrange themselves around construction-paper invitations.
"The first part has sandwiches," Beau said. "And the song."
"One song," Colt corrected.
"Maybe two if people clap."
"One," he said, but there was no heat in it.
Wren smiled because Beau expected it, and because Colt's restraint with his daughter made something inside her ache in a place she could not put on a list.
Beau thrust the paper toward Wren. "You can come."
The yard seemed to still.
Colt's hand tightened on the backpack strap. Barely. Wren saw it because she was watching for every sign that she was standing too close to the wrong future.
"Beau," he said gently.
"What?" Beau looked up at him, then back at Wren. "It says family. And people can bring special people. The teacher said."
"She said grown-ups need to ask first."
"I am asking."
Wren's mouth had gone dry. She crouched because towering over Beau while her own heart panicked felt unfair. At Beau's level, the world narrowed to pink boots, dust on small knees, and a star sticker crooked on the collar of her shirt.
"That is a kind invitation," Wren said.
"You make good stars," Beau said, as if kindness had nothing to do with it.
Wren almost laughed. Almost cried. Neither would have helped.
Colt stood a few feet away, quiet as a fence line before weather.
Wren could feel his caution without needing him to speak.
This was not a square dance. This kiss belonged to daytime, preschool, blankets, other families, and a little girl who understood invitations as promises; it had none of the hidden safety of the gate behind the feed store.
"I would not want to crowd your picnic," Wren said.
Beau frowned. "There is grass."
"She means," Colt said, and stopped.
Wren looked up.
He met her eyes then, and the last night stood between them with the envelope waiting unseen behind him. His expression was wary, yes, but not closed. Tired. Careful. Trying to give Beau hope without handing Wren a burden or himself a wound.
"If you want to come," he said at last, "and if the preschool says guests are all right, Beau would like that."
Beau beamed as if the matter had been settled by law.
Wren should have asked for time. She should have checked with Paloma, with Della, with the list of reasons old love and a child's open heart were a dangerous combination.
She should have remembered the envelope under the boot scraper, the old letter in Sudie's kitchen, the debt that Paloma's money had only dented.
Instead, she looked at Beau's hopeful face, then at Colt's careful permission, and felt proximity open in front of her like a gate she had no business touching.
Wren said yes before she could protect herself.