Chapter Fourteen #2
I tried to muster the same bravery that had led me to blurt out my net worth in the first place.
“It’s not just for you,” I said, then immediately panicked that this sounded like I was trying to buy his affection, which, okay, a little, but not in a transactional way.
“I mean, it’s for all of you. You’re my—” I stopped, knowing better than to say the F-word out loud in this context. “You’re my people.”
Knox’s jaw flexed. “That’s not how it works.”
I squinted at him, determined not to fold. “I thought I was a McKenzie now,” I said, aiming for confident and landing somewhere around “lost puppy.”
The silence was instant and suffocating.
Ransom’s fork hovered mid-air, a slab of butter poised for takeoff.
Harlow stopped chewing, mid-masticate, and just stared at the table.
Aunt Georgia’s eyes darted between me and Knox, and for a second I saw actual sympathy, which only made me want to crawl into the nearest cabinet and eat my own shirt.
I felt my cheeks burn. I did the only thing I could.
I stared at my plate, praying for a sinkhole to open up and swallow me.
I started mentally calculating how fast I could pack a bag, how much cash I could get from an ATM, and whether I still had enough frequent flyer miles to escape to rural Canada.
The voice that broke the silence was not Knox’s. It was Pa’s, low and gruff and final. “Leave the boy alone, Knox. He’s right. He’s one of us now. Let him do what he wants.”
You could have powered the whole valley with the relief that flooded through me. It was like every muscle in my body unclenched at once. I actually sagged in my chair, then straightened and tried to beam gratitude at Pa without looking like I was about to cry.
I was, but only a little.
Knox looked at Pa, then at me, then back at Pa. The standoff lasted a solid five seconds, which is a McKenzie world record for not getting punched.
Finally, he sat back, arms crossed, and gave me the look of a man who had lost a battle but fully intended to win the war.
Pa grunted, then picked up his coffee and took a sip, like the matter was settled.
“Well,” I said, not sure if I was supposed to stand up, salute, or run laps around the table. “I have a plan.” I paused, realizing no one was going to ask me what it was. “It’s a good one. I mean, I think so.”
The skepticism in the room could have been packaged and sold as a nutritional supplement. I launched in anyway, feeling the confidence-building in my chest like a slow, hesitant helium balloon.
“We go to the bank. Not just me and Knox, but the sheriff too, and maybe even someone from the FDIC. We pay the whole thing off—every last dime—and we make damn sure there’s paperwork, real paperwork, that says my father can’t touch you or this place again.”
It sounded more plausible in my head than it did in the living room, but I held my ground, staring into the blue depths of the McKenzie family’s collective gaze and refusing to blink.
Knox was the first to react. His eyes did that thing where they go dark and predatory, but this time, instead of being terrifying, it was a little bit like foreplay.
“Smart,” he said, so quiet I almost missed it.
My entire body flushed with pleasure at the word. It’s possible my toes actually curled in my slippers.
Harlow, never one for a lot of words, simply grunted and gave me a thumbs-up.
Ransom hooted, “That’s my boy,” and then went back to trying to mainline pure syrup without using his hands.
Aunt Georgia smiled, soft and proud, and I could see her already running the numbers in her head, cross-referencing the best pie recipe for a victory celebration.
Even Pa looked impressed, which I suspect is a rare and beautiful thing.
For a second, I let myself believe it was going to be okay. That I could just… stay. That I was one of them, not just in a name-on-the-mortgage kind of way, but for real.
I almost didn’t know what to do with the feeling.
I settled for sitting up straighter and saying, “So, what’s next?” like I was used to being included in this sort of thing.
Knox stared at me with that intensity that always made me want to crawl under the table or maybe climb onto his lap. “What’s next,” he said, “is we win.”
I grinned. “I can do that.”
I could, too. If it meant saving the McKenzies, I’d drain every penny I had and call it the best deal I’d ever made.
At the far end of the table, Harlow made a pancake sandwich, stuffed it in his mouth, and said, “He’s family.”
Ransom raised his mug in salute. “To Newt. The best Bridger we ever had.”
Aunt Georgia and Pa raised theirs too. Even Knox, finally, lifted his coffee in my direction.
I beamed, probably way too hard, and raised my glass of orange juice. “To us,” I said, and tried not to sound like I was about to cry. Nobody even noticed the tears. They were too busy eating.
Which is how I knew, for real, that I belonged.
The thing nobody tells you about having a plan is that you actually have to, you know, explain it.
Out loud. To people. People who are not paid to listen, but who are perfectly capable of ignoring you, or, worse, staring at you with the blank, carnivorous curiosity of apex predators considering a new food source.
I had never given a presentation in my life, but the closest thing I could compare it to was this: standing in the middle of the McKenzie war room—living room, technically, but all the furniture had been pushed against the walls and the only centerpiece was a battered whiteboard Harlow had found in the barn, propped between two kitchen chairs.
Knox watched from the opposite side, arms folded, eyes locked on me with that signature blend of “I’m deeply invested in your success” and “if you mess this up I will literally eat you.”
His brothers loitered around the perimeter, making bets in undertones on whether I’d faint or break something. Even Aunt Georgia had pulled up a folding chair, needlepoint abandoned, fingers laced in anticipation.
I took a breath and launched in, the way a doomed man launches from the gallows, fast, before I lost my nerve.
“Okay,” I said, pointing with a dry-erase marker that had seen better days.
“The only way this works is if we take away every angle my father can use to claim you’re a threat to his interests.
That means no backroom deals, no handshake arrangements, nothing that can be re-interpreted by a creative lawyer or a cranky judge.
We need it airtight, irreversible, and most importantly, public. ”
Harlow nodded like I was preaching to the converted.
“First,” I said, “we get Sheriff Hardesty. Not just because he’s law enforcement, but because he has jurisdiction and a vested interest in keeping the peace.”
I scribbled “Sheriff” on the board, underlined it three times, and drew a crude badge that looked more like a starfish with a thyroid problem.
“Second,” I said, warming up, “we need a representative from the FDIC, or at least someone from the regional oversight office. Because even if my father’s the managing partner, the bank itself is federally insured, and there are regulations about how and when loans can be called in.
If there’s any sign of predatory practice, the feds can freeze the whole process.
He knows this, but he’ll try to bluff his way around it if we don’t bring our own referee. ”
I drew a tiny stick man in a suit and labeled him “Fed.”
Quiad snorted, but it sounded approving.
“Third, we bring the money. All of it. Up front. Not just the balloon payment, but the entire remaining balance on the loan. That way, even if my father tries to pull a fast one and change the terms after the fact, it’s already paid and closed, in the presence of law enforcement and a federal rep. No loopholes.”
Ransom whistled, low and impressed. “You sure you weren’t adopted from the CIA, Newt?”
I grinned, because I was proud, and if I stopped to think about it I would probably melt into a puddle of nerves on the carpet.
Knox’s eyes darkened, and for a second I got that look. The one that said, “I want to throw you against the nearest wall and do terrible things, but I’m holding back because my grandfather is watching.”
It was hands down my favorite look. I wanted to bottle it and wear it like cologne.
“Smart,” said Knox, voice all grit and velvet.
The effect on my nervous system was immediate. My face went red. My knees wanted to shake. I tried to play it cool, like I was just a guy who made complex financial rescue plans every day before breakfast.
“Well,” I said, and shrugged, which probably looked more like a baby bird preening than an actual human gesture. “Nobody messes with my family.”
I meant it, too. I’d been called family before, but this was the first time I wanted to put the word on a business card, maybe tattoo it on my arm just to make it official.
For a second, the room was quiet. Not the awkward, “someone’s about to die” kind of silence, but the thoughtful, “damn, the nerd has a point” kind.
I watched as the faces around me transformed from skepticism to something like respect. Even Pa, who had seen more battles than anyone in the room, gave me a sharp little nod.
Ransom grinned. “You want me to drive the truck?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And wear a nice shirt. This has to look legit.”
He thumped the table so hard the dry-erase marker vibrated off its tray and rolled under the couch.
Aunt Georgia smiled at me, genuine and proud, and I wondered if this was what it felt like to have a mother in your corner. “You’ll do us proud, Newton,” she said, using the full name like it was a term of endearment, not a sentencing guideline.
Knox was still watching, but his expression had shifted. I recognized it from the river, from the first night he’d held me after I’d stabbed a man in self-defense and then cried about it while pretending I hadn’t.
It was pride, sure, but it was also hunger. Like he couldn’t decide whether to hug me or drag me out to the truck bed and ravish me in full view of the entire family.
I decided I was perfectly fine with either option.
I straightened my shoulders and said, “We’ll go at noon. That way, the whole town can see we’re not hiding.”
The brothers nodded, and even Ransom got serious. “You want us armed?”
“Only with pens,” I said, grinning. “And maybe a notary stamp.”
The meeting ended with less chaos than I expected. The brothers dispersed to change into “court clothes,” which for the McKenzie clan meant plaid shirts with the least amount of visible blood or paint.
Aunt Georgia went to make sandwiches, and Pa sat by the window, staring out at the fields, probably thinking about what it would be like to own them clear and free for the first time in decades.
That left Knox and me in the living room, the whiteboard still streaked with my terrible marker art, the air thick with everything unsaid.
He closed the space between us, one step at a time, until I could smell his skin and the faint trace of sweat that lived in his shirt collar. He reached up, hooked a finger under my chin, and tilted my face up to his.
“You did good, Bridger,” he said, voice low.
My insides went molten. “Thanks,” I mumbled. “Means a lot.”
He grinned, wide and wolfish. “Just wait till tonight. I’ll show you how much.”
I went red, again, but this time it felt like a medal. I’d earned it. Because tomorrow, for the first time in my life, I was going to walk into that bank and show my father—and everyone else—that I was here to stay.
And if I got to celebrate afterward by being thrown against a wall by the man I loved, well, that was just icing on the victory cake.