Chapter Fourteen
~ Newton ~
You ever have one of those mornings where your body wakes up before your brain, and by the time your consciousness catches up, the world has already rotated several degrees off its axis?
“Knox!” It was not a friendly call, nor the kind that heralds pancakes or even the prospect of coffee. It was more the kind of shout that made you think: this is it, the Civil War is back, and my side is losing.
Knox was out of bed before the second syllable, which would have been impressive if I wasn’t so preoccupied by the fact that he was, as usual, only half-dressed.
He threw off the covers, swung his legs to the floor, and stood in one motion, all six-foot-plus of him bristling with the kind of energy you usually see in disaster movies when the warning sirens go off.
And he was only wearing pajama pants. I am not saying this was a formative visual experience, but if I had to describe the exact texture and topography of Knox McKenzie’s back, I could do so with the kind of detail usually reserved for NASA moon landings.
He looked over his shoulder at me, eyebrows in full “DEFCON 1” mode. “Stay here,” he ordered, which I ignored by instantly rolling out of bed and trying to find my own pants.
You know those dreams where you’re naked at school, and everyone’s staring, but the real horror is that you can’t even find your locker, much less your locker combination?
That’s what putting on clothes was like for me at that moment.
Every item of clothing I owned seemed to have developed a grudge against me.
I got my shirt on inside out—tag in the armpit, sleeves twisted so hard my thumb went numb—and, in my panic, grabbed the sweatpants I’d been using as a pillow and put them on backward.
I spent a full thirty seconds yanking at the drawstring before realizing my left leg was stuck in the right pant hole. By then, Knox’s footsteps—barefoot, somehow heavier than boots—were thundering down the hall. The whole house vibrated like it was trying to shake me loose.
By the time I staggered out of the bedroom, the rest of the McKenzie house had already woken up and was doing what McKenzies do best—converging on a problem with maximum density and minimal warning.
The smell of percolating coffee was the only thing keeping me from passing out, and I used it as a homing beacon to stumble my way to the living room.
The entire clan was assembled.
Harlow stood by the front door, shirtless and frowning, arms crossed so hard his biceps looked like they were trying to choke him out.
Quiad loitered behind the couch, sleepy but alert, hair sticking up like an electrified hedgehog.
Ransom sprawled on the armrest in sweatpants and nothing else, cigarette tucked behind his ear, eyes bloodshot but sharp.
Uncle Cyrus and Aunt Georgia were already in their flannels, but you could tell from their faces that neither one had slept.
And at the center of it all was Pa, perched in his throne-chair, hands gripping the arms so tight you’d think he was trying to steer the house through a tornado.
His white beard was bristling at an angle I had previously considered mathematically impossible. His eyes—normally bright and mischievous—were flat, black, and dangerous.
Knox was pacing a groove into the ancient rug, jaw so tight I was pretty sure his molars were fusing into a single bone. He looked up as I entered, and the look he gave me was pure possessive relief—quick, bright, and gone before anyone else could see.
“Sit,” he barked, pointing at the only empty spot on the couch. I sat, immediately, which put me between Aunt Georgia and Harlow. Aunt Georgia patted my knee, Harlow just kept frowning at the door.
No one said anything for a few seconds. The only sound was the wet, desperate gurgle of coffee filling the carafe in the kitchen.
It was Pa who broke the silence. “It’s your father, son,” he said, not looking at me. “He’s called in the loan.”
I blinked. “He—what?”
“The mortgage,” said Knox, voice like ground granite. “Your dad’s the bank’s managing partner. He waited until the government moratorium lifted and filed a demand for full repayment. Sixty-five grand, due in two weeks, or the farm goes up for auction.”
I processed this at the speed of an overloaded dial-up modem. “But—that’s—he can’t just—”
“He can,” grunted Ransom, who was staring at the ceiling like it owed him money. “And he did. He signed the paperwork last night.”
My mouth was dry, my tongue a small dead fish. My vision swam. “But why?”
“Because he’s a vindictive son of a bitch,” said Pa, and this time he did look at me. “And because he wants you back or wants to ruin us if he can’t.”
A heavy silence settled over the room, weighted at about a hundred pounds per square inch. Knox stopped pacing and glared at the floor, fists clenched at his sides.
I felt the full force of every eye in the room swing my way. There was no accusation there, but I felt it anyway—a familiar, centuries-old guilt. I had never, in my life, wanted to vanish so completely as I did right then.
My stomach went hot, then cold. My jaw actually dropped, which I didn’t think happened in real life, but there you go.
I could hear my pulse, quick and brutal, and I was suddenly certain I was going to throw up all over the vintage McKenzie heirloom rug and become an anecdote for future generations.
I did the only thing I could think of. I blurted, “I have money. Like, a lot of money.”
Every McKenzie in the room froze.
“I mean—” I fumbled, searching for words. “I—I have about two hundred thousand dollars in savings. From—my mom. Before she—” I did a vague hand gesture, as if the actual cause of death was too complicated to mime out at this hour. “It’s in a trust, but it’s liquid. I could transfer it today.”
Nobody moved.
Ransom’s cigarette fell out from behind his ear, hit his lap, and he didn’t even notice. Harlow’s arms went slack, and for the first time in my life, I saw genuine shock on his face. Knox stared at me like I’d just told him I was secretly the Queen of England.
Pa grunted, deep and surprised, and said, “Son, this is not your problem to fix.”
I shook my head, which only made the inside-out shirt situation more obvious. “But it is. He—my father—he did this because of me. And because of you. If I can pay it off, it’s done. He can’t use it anymore.”
Aunt Georgia recovered first. She clamped my hand in both of hers and said, “You sweet child. You’d do that for us?”
I nodded, then realized that was probably the least articulate way to communicate the magnitude of what I was proposing. “Yes?” I said, voice squeaky. “Absolutely. I mean, you guys have done more for me in two months than my own family did in twenty years. It’s not even a question.”
Harlow nodded, slowly, like this made perfect sense. Ransom looked at me with new respect, like he was debating whether to propose marriage or try to rob me.
Knox just kept staring, eyes unreadable. I could see him weighing something, and I wanted to say, It’s not a trap, I promise. I’m not going to run. But the words got stuck, so I just stared back.
For a second, I worried I’d said something wrong. That they’d reject my offer, that I’d overstepped, that I’d just ruined the one thing in my life that felt like home. The urge to bolt off the couch and out the door was so strong I actually started to rise.
Knox’s hand shot out and pinned me to the cushion. It was gentle, but absolute. His thumb pressed into the meat of my shoulder, grounding me in place. He said, “We’ll talk about it later,” in a tone that brooked no argument.
And that was that.
The room exhaled, as if on a shared cue, and the crisis shifted. Pa stood, his knees cracking like old timber, and said, “Well. I guess we best have breakfast and plan a war council.”
Everyone dispersed at once, like the tension had been holding them in orbit and now, released, they could go back to normal McKenzie priorities—food, strong coffee, and plotting elaborate acts of rural vengeance.
Only Knox stayed, hand on my shoulder, gaze fixed on my face.
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, quiet but intense, he said, “You didn’t have to do this.”
I shrugged. “I wanted to.”
He let go, finally, but not all the way. His hand slid down to mine, and he squeezed, hard enough to leave marks. Then he said, “Thank you,” so softly I barely heard it.
I grinned, teeth and all, and said, “Anytime.”
Even if I was still wearing my shirt backward.
If you think the worst possible way to start your day is with a family meeting at dawn, let me offer a pro tip: it gets even worse when the family in question is determined to protect you from yourself, even if it means letting the entire McKenzie operation go down in a blaze of noble, debt-fueled glory.
Case in point, the kitchen, thirty minutes after I’d thrown my inheritance onto the table like the world’s lamest hand grenade.
Harlow had made a “victory” stack of pancakes that was easily three feet high, with a scoop of butter on top so large it could have solved the energy crisis.
I tried to focus on the syrup, but my nerves were vibrating so fast I was pretty sure the spoon was in danger of achieving liftoff.
Knox had not said a word since his “We’ll talk about it later.” I kept waiting for the “later” part. It was like living with a time bomb where the only clue it’s going to explode is the fact that it’s still ticking, louder and louder, and sometimes it glares at you from across the table.
I made it halfway through a pancake before Knox finally snapped. He set his fork down, very deliberately, and said, “You’re not spending a dime of that money, Newt. Not on this.”
Every face at the table pivoted to me. The pressure was enough to force the half-chewed pancake down my esophagus without a swallow.