30. Emmett
CHAPTER THIRTY
Emmett
I scrape the mud from my boots against the back step and walk into the kitchen to find Sadie curled up at the table with another picture of Cinnamon spread in front of her.
Her pink cowboy boots swing beneath the chair while she colors carefully around a pair of wings she decided the horse deserved this morning.
She glances at the clock above the stove. Then she goes back to coloring.
A minute later she checks it again.
“You reckon staring at that thing’s going to scare it into moving faster?” I ask as I hang my hat by the door.
She keeps her attention on the picture. “Mom said three.”
I look at the clock. Two forty-seven.
“She’s got time.”
“I know.”
She says it with the confidence of someone trying to convince herself.
I wash the dirt from my hands while the ranch carries on outside.
Willy’s butchering another country classic loudly enough for the horses to file a complaint, Red’s giving one of the pasture gates a lecture about cooperation, and somewhere beyond the kitchen window a rooster decides everybody needs reminding he exists.
Usually, this place settles me. Today, nothing can chase away the anxiety of my little girl looking at the clock every couple of minutes.
I dry my hands and wander over to admire the drawing. Cinnamon’s wearing a crown, sporting a magnificent moustache, and has somehow grown eagle wings overnight.
I tap the edge of the paper. “Your horse rob a costume shop?”
Sadie smiles without looking up. “She’s hiding.”
“Who’s after her?”
“The bad guys.”
I nod thoughtfully. “Well, the moustache’s a bold choice. Criminals usually change the facial hair.”
She giggles. “And guess what?” she says, switching up the subject. “Arizona said every good song needs a secret.”
“Oh yeah?”
Sadie nods. “She’s teaching me a funny one after Mom leaves.”
“What’s funny about it?”
“It has animal noises.”
I grin. “Poor Red.”
Sadie’s laugh fills the kitchen, and I catch myself hoping this afternoon might turn out differently.
My phone rings and Tori’s name lights the screen.
Sadie spots it before I can answer. Her crayon stops moving.
“So much for my dramatic entrance,” Tori says after I answer.
“What happened?”
She lets out a long breath. “Work’s blown up. I’ve been trying to leave, but they need me here.”
“You promised Sadie you’d be here at three.”
“I know, Emmett. I hate this. Tell her I’m sorry and I’ll make it up to her.”
I look across the kitchen.
Sadie’s coloring again, only now she’s pressing the crayon hard enough to bend the paper. “She’s been waiting since lunch.”
“I said I’m sorry.”
I rub the back of my neck. “When are you coming?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Tori.”
“Maybe next week. Look, I’m doing my best.”
My eyes drift back to Sadie. She hasn’t looked up once. “Your best keeps breaking her heart.”
Silence hangs between us before Tori sighs. “That’s a cruel thing to say.”
I rest my hand on the counter and watch Willy stroll past the window, still singing with absolute confidence despite missing every note. “I wish it wasn’t true.”
“I can’t have this conversation while I’m working.”
“I’m not asking for an argument.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I wanted you here.”
Another pause stretches between us before she speaks again. “Tell Sadie I love her.”
“I always do.”
The line goes dead.
I set my phone on the counter and turn back around.
Sadie’s swapped to a yellow crayon. She colors one of Cinnamon’s wings before asking, without lifting her head, “Mom has to work?”
“Yeah, sweetheart.”
“Oh.” She colors a little longer. “Maybe next week.”
I pull out the chair beside her and sit. “You don’t have to be brave for me.”
She shrugs and keeps filling the page with yellow.
I brush one of her curls behind her ear. “You can be upset.”
She stares at the drawing for another few seconds before giving the smallest nod. “I don’t want to be.”
She carries the drawing down the hallway instead of racing there. I watch her disappear around the corner, count to five, then follow.
Her bedroom door sits half open. I hear a sniff before I reach it.
Sadie’s curled up beside her bed with Cinnamon’s pink halter hugged against her chest. She presses her face into it, shoulders shaking while she tries to keep the sound in.
My heart sinks.
I step inside and crouch beside her. “Hey, sweetheart.”
She scrubs her cheeks with her sleeve before looking anywhere except at me. “I’m okay.”
I settle onto the carpet beside her. “You don’t have to be.”
She grips the halter tighter. “I waited.”
“I know.”
“I cleaned my room.”
I swallow hard. “I saw.”
“I brushed my hair, too.”
I smile, though it doesn’t last. “It looks beautiful.”
I wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her against me.
She doesn’t fight it.
She cries into my shirt while I hold her close, wishing I knew how to fix broken promises as easily as broken fences.
“I’m sorry, baby.”
A light knock breaks the silence.
Arizona stands in the doorway with her guitar case in one hand and a paper bag hanging from the other. Her smile fades as she takes in Sadie’s blotchy cheeks before looking at me.
She doesn’t ask what happened.
She sets the bag down beside the door and walks over. “Mind if I join the pity party?”
Sadie wipes her face again. “My mom couldn’t come.”
Arizona sits cross legged on the carpet. “Yeah.” She nods. “That really sucks.” She reaches into the paper bag. “I was saving this for after dinner, but I reckon today’s earned an exception.”
She pulls out a soft leather guitar strap stamped with a trail of galloping horses.
“They’re horses,” Sadie breathes.
“I thought you might like it if you ever get a guitar of your own.”
Sadie runs her fingers over the tooling before looking up. “It’s the color of Cinnamon. Can we play?”
“I brought the guitar, didn’t I?” She opens the case and settles the guitar across her lap. “Today’s lesson is extremely important.”
Sadie shifts a little closer. “More important than chords?”
“Much.” Arizona lowers her voice like she’s sharing a state secret. “It’s about a cow.”
Sadie frowns. “A cow?”
“The bravest cow in the Pacific Northwest.”
“What made her brave?”
“She entered a rodeo queen competition.”
Sadie’s eyebrows climb. “Cows can do that?”
“This one refused to read the rulebook.”
That earns the tiniest smile.
Arizona starts strumming. “There once was a cow in glittering boots, who fancied herself in sequins and suits…”
Sadie wrinkles her nose. “Cows don’t wear suits.”
“This one had confidence.”
“Did she win?”
“Absolutely not.”
Sadie blinks. “Why?”
“She kept eating the flowers.”
The laugh escapes before Sadie can stop it.
Arizona grins and keeps singing.
By the next verse, Sadie’s adding dramatic moos whenever she feels the song needs them. Arizona treats every interruption like brilliant musical instinct instead of terrible timing.
When Willy wanders past the bedroom carrying half a sandwich, he freezes in the doorway. “I leave for twenty minutes and somebody starts a cow band?”
Arizona keeps strumming. “You’ll have to audition.”
He straightens. “I’ve trained my whole life for this.”
Without missing a beat, Arizona nods toward him. “Give us your best moo.”
Willy clears his throat with theatrical importance before producing the loudest, most overcommitted moo I’ve ever heard.
Sadie laughs so hard she almost drops her guitar pick.
Red appears behind Willy, takes one look into the room and starts walking away.
Arizona catches him anyway. “Red.”
He stops. “I’m busy.”
“You’ve been volunteered.”
Sadie looks up at him with hopeful eyes. “Please?”
Red pinches the bridge of his nose before surrendering. “One moo.”
He delivers it with all the enthusiasm of a man reading legal paperwork.
Willy wipes imaginary tears from his eyes. “That cow sounds emotionally unavailable.”
Arizona nods thoughtfully. “Explains why she’s still single.”
Even Red’s mouth gives up enough to resemble half a smile.
I stay where I am beside Sadie and watch her laugh until she forgets she was crying less than an hour ago.
Arizona never tries to replace the afternoon. She never tells Sadie everything will work out.
She simply sits on the bedroom floor with a guitar, lets a ridiculous song grow into a room full of laughter, and somehow gives my little girl enough space to smile again.
That’s what frightens me.
Sadie doesn’t just look forward to seeing Arizona anymore. She counts on her.
As dark shrouds the ranch, I step onto the porch and find Willy sitting on the top step with an apple in one hand and a pocketknife in the other, shaving the peel away in one long ribbon that’s somehow survived far longer than I expect.
He glances over without looking surprised. “I was wondering how long it’d take before you escaped.”
“I wasn’t escaping.”
He flicks another curl of apple peel into the flower bed before taking his time carving the last strip away.
The ranch settles into evening around us. Horses move around the pasture, somebody bangs a gate shut near the barns, and Red mutters at whatever piece of equipment has annoyed him this time.
Willy studies the apple with unnecessary pride. “Perfect.”
“You peeled it.”
“I perfected it.” He offers me half. I wave it away. “Suit yourself.”
He bites into it and chews for a while before glancing sideways. “Kid asleep?”
“Yeah.”
“Doing better?”
I nod. “Arizona helped.”
“I figured.”
He says it like there was never any doubt.
Willy finishes his mouthful and wipes his hands on his jeans. “Tori canceled?”
I nod. “Sadie held it together until she got to her room.”
His shoulders sink. “That’s rough.”
“She told me she cleaned her room and brushed her hair specially.”
Willy closes his eyes briefly. “Kids shouldn’t have to think like that.”
“No.”
“They’re supposed to believe that adults will keep their promises.”
I stare out across the yard. “I keep thinking I handled this wrong.”
He turns toward me. “What’d you do?”
“I let Sadie get attached.”
“To Arizona?”
I nod. “I saw how happy she was, and after everything with Tori I kept telling myself having one more person who loved her couldn’t be a bad thing.”
“It isn’t.”
“It might be.”
He waits. I already know he isn’t going to let me leave it there.
“Arizona’s just passing through,” I say. “Sadie doesn’t get that part. She hears guitar lessons, bedtime stories, and somebody who always shows up when she says she will.”
Willy rolls the apple core between his hands before tossing it toward the compost pile. “Yeah.”
“If Arizona leaves…”
The words dry up before I finish them.
“She’ll wonder why another person walked away.”
I rest my forearms on my knees. “I don’t want that for her.”
“I know.”
“I should’ve protected her better.”
Willy lets out a quiet breath. “Tell me how.”
I look over at him.
“How were you supposed to stop it?” he asks. “You couldn’t have known that they’d get so close.”
I don’t answer.
“That kid would’ve ignored you anyway.”
A tired smile slips onto my face. “Probably.”
“No probably about it.” He nudges my shoulder. “You’ve met your daughter.”
I laugh under my breath, but it disappears almost as quickly as it came. “She still talks like she’s leaving.”
Willy nods. “I know.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I keep picturing her loading that beat-up truck, waving at everybody, then driving away like she was only ever passing through.”
I swallow. “I hate that picture.”
“So do I.”
But what can we do about it?