Chapter Twenty-Three
~ Ransom ~
Sunsets on the McKenzie porch hit different. It’s not just the slant of gold through the orchard or the way the last light scalds the battered wood rails to the color of old pennies—though that’s part of it.
It’s the sense of deliberate, generational stubbornness that clings to the place, like even the sunset has to square off with a McKenzie before it’s allowed to drop behind the hills.
I stood at the porch rail, elbows planted on the rough wood, half-watching the sky bruise up for evening. Below, the valley looked like someone had poured honey over the fields and then let a dog run wild through it, nothing but gold and unruly shadows.
In the near distance, Ma wrangled a folding table into submission with all the grace of a champion wrestler, calling out orders that pinged across the yard like rifle shots. Her voice could make a Marine blanch.
I grinned. The old man had set out two extra sawhorse benches, expecting a crowd. He always did, even when it was just us and the ghosts of every McKenzie too ornery to leave this patch of dirt.
I heard him before I felt him. Floyd’s boots on the planks, his gait clipped and self-assured—a cop’s walk, even out of uniform.
Then: arms around my waist, tight, like I might try to take a header into the flower beds for old time’s sake.
His chin bracketed my shoulder, lips finding the place just below my ear that always ran a shiver down my spine, no matter how many times he found it.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just breathed in and out, slow, his chest a steady pressure at my back. After a minute, he leaned his head, brushing his nose along the scruff of my jaw.
“You’re still,” he murmured. “You okay?”
“You make me sound like a horse on tranquilizers,” I shot back, but didn’t bother to hide the edge of contentment warming up my ribs.
He squeezed tighter. “Could be worse. Ma wanted to rent a clown for the party. I told her you scare easy.”
“She’s saving that for the rehearsal dinner.”
It was easy, with Floyd. Ridiculously easy. He always knew when to prod and when to back off, which for a man who’d once tried to arrest me for vandalism was saying something. He was the only person I’d ever met who could both calm me and drive me batshit, sometimes in the same breath.
“Do you ever think it’s all a setup?” I asked, not expecting him to answer. “The normal, the family, the dinners. Like it’s a test we all keep failing but nobody calls time.”
He went quiet, which meant he was about to get philosophical. “I used to. Not so much anymore.” He picked at the sleeve of my shirt, plucking lint with unconscious precision. “I don’t know, Ran. Maybe failing the test is the point.”
“That’s deep, for a man who can’t cook boxed mac and cheese without calling the fire department.”
He huffed. “One time.”
Out in the grass, Harlow herded a mismatched trio of kids and mutts toward the main house.
The smallest of them, a dark-haired waif with an alarming amount of confidence, was Levi.
Still skinny, but no longer hunched up like a bundle of exposed wires.
Six months ago, the kid barely spoke in full sentences.
Now he could out-talk Floyd on a bad day.
I caught Ma’s eye as she set a platter of fried chicken—her version, which involved an amount of hot sauce only permissible under federal law—onto the table.
She jerked her chin toward us, like it physically pained her to see an able-bodied man not carrying something, then pretended not to be watching when I waved.
“I think you made her nervous,” I told Floyd.
He made a noncommittal noise. “That’s just because she knows you’re my only weakness. She’s plotting ways to exploit it.”
“You say that, but—”
He cut me off by nipping my ear. “I mean it.”
The porch swing creaked. I let my hand drift down to the curve of his forearm, tracing the veins that ran up to his wrist. The silver band on my ring finger glinted, a harsh stripe against all that sunburnt skin. I turned it, slow, working up to a joke that fizzled on my tongue.
Floyd noticed. He always did. “You regret it?” He nodded at the ring.
I barked out a laugh, loud enough to set the crows in the orchard squabbling. “Hell no. If anything, I regret waiting so damn long. I could’ve been using the phrase ‘my fiancé the sheriff’ for months.”
He snorted. “And I could’ve been writing you tickets for ‘public indecency: excessive displays of affection.’ Wasted opportunity.”
I twisted in his arms, planting both palms against the rough stubble of his cheeks. “You know, you’re not bad-looking, for a cop.”
His pupils blew wide, and I felt his pulse thrum under my fingers. “Careful,” he warned. “You’ll give people ideas.”
“That’s the plan.” I kissed him, hard enough to leave us both a little dizzy, then pulled back to smirk. “Besides, you think I’d let this family say no to you? They’d have to answer to me.”
His expression went soft, then dark, like he was thinking about the porch swing but in a way that had nothing to do with sitting. “Maybe I like the idea of you fighting for me.”
“Oh, I’ll fight for you. I’ll fight you, too, if you ever put pineapple on pizza again.”
He grinned. “Deal.”
The moment stretched, comfortable as a broken-in boot. We stayed like that, just breathing each other’s air and watching the sky go purple around the edges.
A sudden crash of footsteps rattled up the porch, breaking the spell. Levi skidded to a stop, dirt smudged from chin to knees, a ripped-out chunk of denim trailing from his right pant leg.
He didn’t look like a sullen teenager anymore. He looked like a kid who’d spent the afternoon building forts, falling out of trees, and laughing until his stomach hurt.
“Pa says dinner’s almost ready,” he announced, eyes on Floyd, like he still couldn’t believe the guy was sticking around.
I ruffled his hair, grinning at the indignation on his face. “You planning to eat your own weight, or just give the horses leftovers?”
“Both,” Levi said, not missing a beat. Then, to Floyd: “You sitting by us tonight, or are you doing old-people table?”
Floyd’s lips twitched. “Depends where you’re sitting, Levi.”
Levi beamed, a flash of kid under all the attitude. “By the pie.”
“Good call.” Floyd ruffled his head, too, and for a second it was impossible to tell who was more surprised—Levi, or the man himself.
“Go wash up, street rat,” I said. “You got half the garden on your face.”
Levi took the banter in stride. “So do you,” he shot back, and then vanished inside, slamming the screen door with enough force to shake the house.
I watched him go. Six months ago, he’d barely call my dad anything but “sir.” Now “Pa” rolled off his tongue like it’d always belonged to him. Maybe that’s what a real family does—tolerates the rough edges until they’re worn down to fit.
Floyd sidled up next to me, lacing his fingers with mine. We stood together in the last of the light, the quiet settling around us like a benediction.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, and for the first time in a long while, I meant it.
Inside, the kitchen was an explosion of noise and color.
Every McKenzie family dinner started with the illusion of order—Ma had a spreadsheet for seating assignments and a color-coded chart for the passing of side dishes—but it always devolved into a full-contact sport within three minutes of the first plate landing.
Knox and Harlow manned the carving station, which looked less like a culinary endeavor and more like a medieval siege.
Knox had brought out his military-issue field knife for the roast, and Harlow was muscling the bird with bare hands, arguing about the best way to dismember poultry.
Neither seemed remotely aware that they were spraying drippings across every available surface.
“Carve against the grain, you neanderthal,” Knox barked, elbow-deep in brisket.
“That’s not even a grain,” Harlow shot back, voice placid as always. “You’re just making up words.”
“Google it.”
“Don’t need to. I have taste buds.”
Newt, for reasons known only to him, had stationed himself at the end of the sideboard, eyes darting between Ma and the mountain of buttered rolls.
The second her back turned, he swiped two at once, palming them into the sleeve of his flannel.
I watched him eat both without ever moving his lips, which was honestly impressive.
Dan helped my dad bring in extra chairs, negotiating the labyrinth of sprawled legs and upended shoes like he’d been doing it his whole life. “Think we’ll need a bigger house soon,” Dan said to no one in particular. “Or maybe just a livestock prod.”
Pa grunted in agreement, setting a chair at the head of the table for Ma. “We get any bigger, we’ll have to knock down a wall. Or start feeding the kids outside like they used to.”
Ma heard him and shot a glare across the kitchen. “Don’t think I won’t, old man. I’ve got bibs and beach towels.”
Levi bounced from foot to foot, vibrating with the manic energy of a kid promised dessert if he finished dinner without incident.
His jeans were now held together with duct tape, and his shirt had a suspicious smear of what looked like axle grease.
He climbed into his seat at the table, shoving Harlow over half a place setting, then started stacking his plate in a precarious, geological formation.
Floyd and I slipped in near the far end, across from Newt and next to the rowdiest of the cousins’ table. He claimed a spot beside me, scooted his chair close enough that our knees brushed, and gave me a look that said he was both resigned and delighted to be here.
The food went around in a blur. It was all elbows and tongs, barely a word exchanged except the necessary threats of violence if anyone double-dipped.
It wasn’t until Ma banged her fork on the wineglass—yeah, tonight she’d brought out the good ones; the kind with actual stems and zero cartoon characters— that the chaos paused.