Chapter 10 Maggie
Maggie
The Blackwood family dinner was a weekly tradition that had survived three generations, two economic recessions, and the year Clay decided he was going vegan for exactly eleven days.
Every Sunday, rain or shine, we gathered under the massive oak tree just outside the main house—the wedding tree, we called it.
Momma and Daddy had exchanged vows beneath its branches thirty-eight years ago, and before them, Clemmie and Harrison—Liam and Sophia's parents, our family's oldest and dearest friends—had done the same.
Two couples. Two promises. One tree that held them both.
Clemmie and Harrison were gone now. Murdered, in a violence so senseless it had nearly broken two families. But their children were ours—had been ours since the night Momma and Daddy brought them home and never once called it charity. The tree remembered what the world had tried to destroy.
The tree was sacred ground.
The dinner was mandatory.
And my mother was in charge.
"Maggie, get the brisket off the smoker. It's been resting twenty minutes, and if Clay gets near it before I've sliced it, I will end him."
"Got it."
"Ivy, the corn needs butter. Real butter, not that spread nonsense—second shelf, behind the pickles. Stephanie, honey, those napkins are the everyday ones. The linen ones are in the sideboard. This is Sunday dinner, not a barbecue."
"Yes, ma'am," Stephanie said, pivoting immediately.
Louisa Blackwood ran a family dinner the way a four-star general ran a campaign—with absolute authority, zero tolerance for improvisation, and the firm belief that if you weren't contributing, you were in the way.
She'd been cooking since five a.m. Brisket rubbed and smoking by six.
Cornbread in the oven by eight. Potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans, and three pies cooling on the kitchen counter by noon.
The woman was a machine, and she expected her kitchen staff to keep up.
I was her first lieutenant. Had been since I was twelve years old, standing on a step stool to reach the cutting board, learning to dice onions without crying because Momma said tears were for funerals and onions weren't worth the salt.
She'd taught me to run a kitchen before she'd taught me to ride, and every organizational instinct I had—the clipboard, the schedules, the compulsive need to make sure everything ran smoothly—came straight from her.
People thought I was bossy. I was an amateur. My mother was the professional.
"Clay!" Momma's voice cracked across the yard like a whip. "Step away from the brisket."
"I was just—"
"You were just nothing. Hands off until it's sliced. Maggie, keep your brother away from my meat."
"With pleasure." I hip-checked Clay away from the cutting board and picked up the carving knife. "You heard the woman."
"This is tyranny," Clay muttered, but he retreated, because nobody—nobody—defied Louisa Blackwood in her own kitchen. Not Daddy, not Wyatt, not the governor of Texas if he'd shown up hungry.
"Hunter, those folding tables aren't going to level themselves. There are shims in the shed." Momma didn't look up from the coleslaw she was finishing. "And someone check the string lights. The strand on the left was flickering last week."
"I'll get the lights," I said, already moving.
"And the citronella candles. Mosquitoes were terrible last Sunday."
"Already set them out."
She glanced at me over her shoulder. The briefest flash of approval—the Louisa Blackwood equivalent of a standing ovation. "That's my girl."
I moved through the setup with the practiced efficiency of twenty years of Sunday dinners, but today I was Momma's hands, not the brain.
She called the shots. I executed. The tables went where she wanted them.
The place settings followed her precise specifications—cloth napkins folded, real silverware, the good glasses because we're not animals, Magnolia.
The platters were arranged in her preferred order: brisket center, sides flanking, cornbread in the basket with the blue cloth.
Sophia arrived from her hospital shift still in scrubs, ponytail half-collapsed, looking like she'd fought a war and mostly won. She kissed Momma's cheek, stole a piece of cornbread, and immediately got redirected.
"Sophia Anne, if you're eating, you're helping. Grab the lemonade pitcher and fill it—the big one, not the small one. And change out of those scrubs before we sit down."
"Aunt Lou, I just worked twelve hours—"
"And you look beautiful, sweetheart. Go change."
Sophia went. Because nobody argued with my mother. Not even a woman who'd spent twelve hours in an emergency room.
I was carrying the baked beans to the table when the thing I'd been dreading all day happened.
"Jack!" Daddy's voice boomed across the yard. "Glad you could make it. Come on over, grab a plate."
My whole body went rigid.
I'd known he was coming. Daddy had mentioned it at breakfast—something about wanting the new hand to feel welcome, to integrate with the family, to understand that Blackwood Ranch was more than just a job.
I'd nodded and smiled and said something appropriate while internally constructing an escape route.
Jack at family dinner meant Jack ten feet from me for the next three hours, being charming and competent and fitting in with my family while I pretended I didn't know what his hands felt like on my skin.
I watched him cross the yard with Sully at his heels, shaking Daddy's hand, accepting the beer Wyatt offered, saying something that made Clay laugh and Hunter crack a rare smile.
He moved through my family like he belonged—easy, unhurried, none of the awkwardness you'd expect from a new employee crashing a private gathering.
He was good at this. Too good.
Momma watched him from the kitchen window. I could feel her assessing—the way she assessed everything, cataloging details, forming opinions she'd share on her own timeline. Then she turned to me.
"Maggie, we need another place setting. Use the good plate, not the everyday."
"Momma, he doesn't care if it’s a good plate."
"Everyone who eats at my table gets a good plate." Her tone left zero room for discussion. "Set it between Clay and your father. And bring out the extra cornbread—I made a double batch."
She'd made a double batch. She'd known he was coming, and she'd made extra.
I set the place without comment.
"Jack cleans up nice," Ivy murmured, appearing at my elbow as I smoothed the napkin.
"I hadn't noticed."
"Liar." She bumped my shoulder with hers. "If I weren't in love with your brother, I might notice those shoulders myself."
"Please stop talking."
She grinned and wandered off to help Stephanie with the glasses, leaving me alone with my plate-setting and my rapidly deteriorating composure.
Dinner was served when Momma said it was served, which was when the brisket had rested to her exact specifications, and the cornbread had cooled enough to slice without crumbling.
She directed the plating like a symphony conductor—this platter here, that bowl there, brisket sliced against the grain in quarter-inch pieces because anything thicker is a crime against cattle, Owen.
Sophia had changed into jeans and a clean shirt and claimed the seat next to Momma, already on her second glass of wine. I ended up wedged between Hunter and Stephanie, across from Momma, with Jack positioned at the far end between Clay and Daddy.
Far enough away that we wouldn't have to make conversation.
Close enough that I could see every expression that crossed his face.
"So, Jack," Clay said, loading his plate with enough brisket to feed three men. "Dad says you grew up on a ranch in Montana. What brought you all the way to Texas?"
I tensed.
But Jack just shrugged, easy and unbothered. "Work led me south. I have a buddy over in Wild Creek, Emmett Hayes, and he had good things about the operations over here. Seemed like the right time."
"Montana's gorgeous country, though." Daddy, who'd never met a geographical discussion he didn't want to have. "Spent some time up there in my younger days. Big sky, good people."
"It is," Jack agreed. Something shifted in his voice—subtle, a note I recognized from the truck, from the silence after the screen door story. "But sometimes you need distance from the places that shaped you."
I knew what lived underneath that sentence. The Bitterroot Valley. Clearwater Ranch. Sarah, who'd been the real horse person. A screen door that still banged in the wind because nobody was left to fix it.
I looked at my plate and said nothing.
"Well, Texas is lucky to have you," Momma said, and her voice had that warmth she reserved for people who'd passed some invisible test. "From what Owen tells me, you're quite the horseman."
"I do my best, ma'am."
"Ma'am." Clay snorted. "Listen to that. What's your secret, Remington? I've been trying to get Momma to like me for thirty-one years."
"Maybe try showing up on time instead of twenty minutes late with hay in your hair," Momma said mildly.
"That was one time—"
"It was last Sunday,” Liam pointed out.
The table erupted. Clay protesting, Sophia laughing, Ivy pointing out that Clay also had hay in his hair right now, which sent him into a frantic head-check while Hunter watched with the quiet amusement of a man who'd learned years ago that the best seat at a Blackwood dinner was the one where you just observed.
I smiled despite myself. This was what I loved about these dinners—the noise, the chaos, the way everyone talked over each other and gave each other grief and loved each other through all of it.
But I was watching from the outside again. Even sitting in the middle.
"So you've worked a few different operations," Wyatt said, steering the conversation back to ranch talk. "Cattle, horses, fencing, equipment—"
"Whatever needs doing," Jack agreed. "That's the job."