Chapter Nine
He could hardly recognize the woman riding shotgun in his truck right now, versus the woman he had first found in the woods
a month ago. This version of Bix was softer. At least in appearance. Her face had rounded after weeks of eating well, and
she seemed less edgy. Most of the time. Every so often something would get her hackles up and she would go right back to the
feral creature he’d first encountered, but it was less and less often.
Living with her was easy enough. She was like a roommate.
Or a cat.
Yes. Having Bix live with him was a lot like getting a cat. She came out of her room when she wanted food, and otherwise didn’t
have a lot to do with him.
But right now, wearing that floral dress, sitting next to him in the truck, he felt something shift inside of him.
Like he was seeing a new dimension in her. Even knowing that she was twenty-three, it was hard for him to see her as anything
other than a scrappy kid. She was wise in the ways of the world, mostly. But then there would be moments and things that made
her seem like a teenager.
But one thing he couldn’t forget was the way that she had told him all the things she might’ve done if she’d had a normal family. The way her eyes had gone bright when she’d talked about going to dances. Going to college. She could deny that she had dreams, but he knew that she did.
And it made him feel... an intense desire to fix it for her.
He’d found a place. He’d found a way to begin to atone for his own sins, for the way that he was raised, and the way that
he had participated in the life his father had constructed out of lies and a lack of basic human empathy. She was only twenty-three.
She could still start again.
He also knew if he said that she would bite his hand off.
“It’s up the road a spell, but this is where Landry and Fia live.”
“I figured that,” she said.
“It’s pretty.”
“It doesn’t surprise me that the place Fia lives is pretty.”
“Have you gotten to know her very well?”
Bix shifted beside him. “I don’t really know how to talk to women.”
“You don’t?”
“I just... I never had any friends. Not really. And I’m afraid I’m going to say something insensitive or mean. Because
women care about that more.”
“You don’t care about that more.”
“I think that’s a bug and not a feature.”
“Maybe. You don’t know. Fia is a spitfire. Believe me. She gave my brother hell for years. And rightfully. We all found out eventually.”
“What do you mean?”
It wasn’t really his story to tell. But it was public lore of Four Corners at this point. “When they were in high school,
Landry and Fia had a baby. They didn’t tell anybody, though. Fia put the little girl up for adoption, and Landry spent the
years after that pissed about it. As if they could have parented a baby when they were sixteen.”
“That sounds horrible. And you know, I can tell you in that situation what you’d get is my life.”
“Not always,” said Daughtry. “But given the state of the ranch at the time, I don’t blame Fia at all.” The truth was, he was
damned empathetic to his sister-in-law. Because he knew how it had been. The adults around them had been nonfunctional. He
understood not being able to imagine a scenario in which bringing a baby into that with a couple of toxic teenagers would
be anything but a disaster. “But the point is, things changed for them. Their daughter’s adoptive parents died. They ended
up taking her in, and they found a way to rebuild all the bridges between them. But when I tell you Fia can certainly handle
your brand of being a sticky wicket, I mean it.”
“What is a sticky wicket ?” she asked.
“I don’t know. It’s something my mom said sometimes.” He didn’t know where it had come from. Why it had come forward from
the recesses of his memory.
“It’s weird,” she said.
At that moment, they were pulling up to Sullivan’s Point. The farmhouse was as bright and cheerful as ever. Lila was running around in the front yard with a couple of other kids from the schoolhouse, and her dog, Sunday, was leaping about with them. He watched Bix’s expression as she looked at the children. At the dog.
“You like dogs?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I think so anyway. Never had one. If you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t go dragging another creature
into your problems.”
“Fair enough.”
But that was another thing that made him feel regret for her. Not that he had any pets. Other than all the cows that lived
on the ranch.
They went around the back of the farmhouse, and pulled up where there was a line of other trucks in front of the large barn
where they held their meeting every month. There was already a big bonfire going, and there were tables laden with food. Pies
and cakes, steak and potato salad. Sides provided by the ranch hands. A whole spread of great food. He saw Bix’s eyes get
bright.
She did still get very excited at the sight of food. Every time. It was almost charming.
Hell. That’s your problem. You’re charmed by her. In spite of yourself.
They got out of the truck, and she moved closer to him, which he thought was interesting. But then, she hadn’t spent much
time away from the ranch since she had showed up. In fact...
“Until earlier today had you actually left King’s Crest since you got there?”
“Unless it counts that we went to the van to get my stuff, no.”
“Oh. I don’t think I realized.”
“Well, we’re hardly in each other’s pockets. You go to work every day in a different place than I do.”
That was true. He realized he hadn’t asked her. It made him feel guilty. The same kind of guilt he’d felt when he’d realized
she only had the same clothes that she’d come with. That her room still didn’t have furniture. He had been waiting for her
to leave; that was the thing. He hadn’t gone out of his way to make things permanent, because he’d kept expecting to wake
up and find her gone. But she was still here. And when he had invited her to the town hall meeting, he’d realized that that
was a step toward things feeling more official. Really involving her in ranch business like this. It was common for the employees
to come to the town hall meetings. Expected, even. But she had held herself at a distance, and acted like she was going to
walk out at any moment, so he hadn’t really considered her part of the regular employee base.
He did now. But also, she was something different. Because every ranch hand didn’t eat dinner at their house most nights.
And she did. Every ranch hand didn’t get along with his brothers like a house on fire. And she did.
“Well, I’ll introduce you to everybody.”
“Oh,” she said.
That, he realized, was also a little bit out of the ordinary. She occupied a strange place. But... she was singular. He had never met anybody quite like her, and maybe that was at the heart of the issue. People just didn’t surprise him very often. But Bix surprised him daily.
He had seen her rap sheet now, of course. He had done a background check before putting her on payroll. Shoplifting, that
was the big one. But always under a certain dollar amount. Always food. Basic necessities. One time she had stolen a tube
of Neosporin and a box of Band-Aids. He had gone digging for the different reports so that he could see the details. To him,
her rap sheet didn’t paint a picture of a hardened criminal. It painted a picture of a life that was just regretfully sad.
Of a person trying her best to be resilient in the face of a whole lot of obstacles.
They walked past the tables of food, and into the barn. His siblings were already there, the large space jam-packed. Each
family had their own section, and the hands that worked their particular ranch usually sat in the chairs behind them.
Like a very strange wedding.
But he took Bix and marched her right over to the Garretts. “Sawyer, Evelyn, Wolf, Violet, this is Bix.”
Bix’s eyes widened. “Hi.”
“Bix, this is the Garrett family. They run Garrett’s Watch. This is one of our new ranch hands. She’s been with us about a
month, but she hasn’t really gotten out into the ranch yet.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Evelyn warmly. They made small talk for a few moments before he marched her over to the McClouds, where he made introductions to that whole group. They already had a concept of who she was because of Alaina, who was married to Gus, and was Fia’s younger sister.
After that, he took her to meet the rest of the Sullivans. They already knew who she was too. And it was clearly a relief
to her that he didn’t go saying he had found her in a van down by the river, and that she was making moonshine on the property.
Whatever anybody else knew about her, he couldn’t control that. Fia might’ve told her whole story, and he wouldn’t blame her.
But nobody had said anything. It was clear Bix was happy about that.
After that, they took their seats. She sat next to him, and he knew that there were people in the barn who would find that
somewhat remarkable, but he didn’t care.
He didn’t want Bix to feel uncomfortable. And yes, she could’ve sat with his brothers, but she hadn’t. She had sat with him.
She was his... project. Anyway.
She was his.
Not like that . It was just that he did feel a little bit possessive of her in this bigger environment, and clearly, she felt the need to
stay close to him.
So, who was he to deny her that?
Everybody got up to say a piece of their business. There was an update on McCloud’s Landing, and the work they were doing with horses there. An update on Sullivan’s Point, and their farm store. The Garretts were moving along as they ever had, much the same as King’s Crest. In many ways, they were set to have easier profitability. Beef was mainstream, and valuable. But he didn’t think that they could rest on it forever. And that was where the expansion was coming in. There were more of them; that was the thing.
While Sawyer and Evelyn now had two children and another on the way, and Wolf and Violet had two kids, Wolf and Sawyer’s youngest
sister, Elsie, had married into the McCloud clan, and was working there. The McClouds also had a lot of people to sustain.
Five brothers, their wives and their children. The Sullivan sisters were all married now too, and as Landry had married Fia,
his base was more Sullivan’s Point now than it was King’s Crest.
But Landry took very seriously that both ranches were a legacy for his daughter, Lila, and for the baby he had on the way.
And while the King family wasn’t as prolific as far as marriage and children as the rest of the ranches were, Arizona and
Micah were planning on having children, and they had their teenage son.
The fact was, they had to keep making money.
Keep making the place profitable.
It was Landry that got up to speak about the expansion work happening at King’s. Everybody seemed on board. They’d had everyone
go in on investing in the project pretty early. Much to Fia’s chagrin at the time. It had created a bit of conflict between
her and Landry, but then, at that point, what didn’t?
When the meeting was done, Bix leaned over. “That was interesting.”
“Really?”
“I think it’s fascinating the way you all run the ranch like a business. That was like a board meeting.”
He thought about her self-help books. He wondered if she had read about corporations and businesses and the way they ran.
“It’s not unlike that.”
“It’s kind of like a publicly traded company,” she said.
“Kind of,” he said. “Except of course, we don’t really have a stock market that we’re involved in. But everybody here is kind
of a shareholder.”
“It’s smart,” she said. “Because of course there’s always going to be dips in the market. And you can all cover each other.”
“That is the idea.”
She looked pleased that she understood it. And he realized how hungry she was for information. That was probably the root
of those kinds of books. Of nonfiction.
She wanted to learn things. She had been denied that.
“Have you ever thought about going back to school?”
“Yes. I have also thought about going to the moon.”
“There’s financial aid available,” he pointed out.
“Great. I know about as much about how to get that as I do about going to the moon.”
He hadn’t really thought about that before. But he supposed she was making an interesting point. That that sort of thing was only helpful if you knew how to navigate the system. And Bix made it very clear that she didn’t. That her dad had put her in a position where she knew nothing about the system, and was in fact barely in it.
“I could help get you some information on that if you want.”
She waved her hand. “It’s not necessary.”
“Okay.”
But he decided that he was going to anyway.
“And I would get to go eat,” he said.
She looked happy about that, and they walked out of the barn, and everybody was already making their way down the tables,
filling their plates.
Bix started with pie. He appreciated that about her. She was unorthodox, even when she was being human. “Dessert first?”
She shrugged. “I don’t play by the rules.”
“No. Of course you don’t.”
His family naturally gravitated together; he knew that they had a reputation for being insular. And maybe they were. Most
people would say that they were assholes. But he didn’t think that was true at all. Their dad had been an asshole. And they
understood each other in a very particular way. He thought it was one of the more amazing things about his family that they
had banded together and made something that looked functional in light of what they had grown up with. He supposed that was
true of everybody on the ranch.
The Garrett family patriarch had been weak more than anything else. A charming man who was able to get women to procreate with him, but couldn’t get them to stay, because he was just such a neglectful, unpleasant son of a bitch. Seamus McCloud was infamous. He had been cruel. He had beaten his wife; he had beaten his children. He had very nearly killed his oldest son, Gus. For years, the rumor had been that Gus had actually killed his father, and that was how they had finally taken control of McCloud’s Landing. But Daughtry knew that wasn’t the truth. They all did now. Because his wife, Alaina, had made it very clear that she didn’t want her husband being tarred with the same brush as his father.
Fia’s father had simply abandoned them. He had been like the light version of the Kings’ dad. He had scammed a neighboring
rancher when he’d been vulnerable, but luckily, that guy had been able to land on his feet. Some of the people that Daughtry’s
father had swindled hadn’t been so lucky. Like Dan Patrick, who had gotten embroiled in his shady practices, and had gotten
shot trying to go to collect a debt from someone else.
Denver, Fia, Sawyer and Gus had all banded together to make this when their parents had left. And if the Kings stuck a little
closer to one another, that was just because they were making the most out of what they had.
“What do you think, Bix?” Denver asked.
“Amazing,” she said, taking another piece of pie and eating a couple of bites.
She looked down the table longingly.
“Go off and get more food,” said Daughtry.
She did, a near hop in her step as she went back toward the tables.
“I’m surprised she’s still around,” said Justice.
“Me too,” said Daughtry honestly.
“She looks good,” said Denver. “Much better than she did when she got here.”
“She looked like a half-grown piglet,” said Landry.
“Mean,” Fia whispered.
“But true,” said Arizona. “It isn’t her fault. She was clearly going through a really hard time.”
“I think she’d like to get to know you better,” he said, directing that at Arizona and Fia. “She told me she’s never had friends
before.”
Even Arizona softened at that. “Oh. Poor thing.”
“Don’t look at her like that,” said Daughtry. “She’s liable to scratch your eyes out. She’s too prickly to want anybody’s
pity.” It was strange, because he pitied her more often than he didn’t, but he also wanted to protect her from that in some
regards. He couldn’t quite explain it.
Bix returned then, her plate piled high full of food—dinner food rather than pie—and they returned to talking about the running
of the ranch.
That was when the band started playing, and people began to circle the bonfire, dancing and laughing. This was when the alcohol started flowing. It was better than any bar in his opinion. He didn’t have much use for Smokey’s Tavern, since the hookup scene wasn’t really his thing, but this was where Daughtry let himself have a good time. Because it was exactly the opposite of anything his father would have ever been involved in. It was sharing. Sharing food, sharing success, sharing joy. The things that they had created at Four Corners, because they all worked together rather than working against each other. Because they engaged in honest labor, rather than trying to cheat anybody.
And so this was the one place that he let himself be a little bit more loose. Be a little bit more free.
He noticed that Bix was looking wistfully at the dancing. And he remembered what she’d said. About the prom she would have
gone to, and the boy she would have dated. The regular old teenage mistakes she wished that she had made.
“Care to dance, Bix?”
Her eyes went wide. He reached his hand out toward her, and she looked down, then back up. “Yes.”
Bix did want to dance. Because she had been so looking forward to being at a party. And this place was the best party she had ever
even imagined. It was filled with people, and everybody was happy. There was so much food, and the barn and the bonfire were
amazing. But the minute she reached out and her skin touched his she realized that she had made a very strange mistake. Because
her stomach flipped. Turned right over on its head, and damn near went inside out.
She hadn’t expected that. Because it had never happened to her before. She had felt hints of it, when she had seen Daughtry
wandering through the house without a shirt. She did her best to ignore it. To pretend that it hadn’t happened.
But then her hand touched his. It was rough. Surprisingly rough. And it was a strange time to realize she had never held hands with another person before in her life. Well, it was entirely possible that when she was a child one of her parents had taken her hand to keep her from running off. To keep her safe. But she almost doubted that. Because it showed a level of care that she certainly hadn’t experienced in her memory from those people.
And now Daughtry was holding her hand.
Leading her toward the bonfire. She knew that it was casual. A lot of different people were dancing with each other at the
bonfire, and it didn’t carry any significance. But it did to her, because she had never done it. It did to her, because she
couldn’t remember being skin to skin with another person before, even if it was just their palms touching.
It opened up the cavernous ache in her stomach, and it made her feel small. Ashamed, in a strange way, because couldn’t all
the people around her see that? Couldn’t he see it?
Oh, if he knew the truth about her, he would just think she was the saddest thing on record. Lonely. A virgin.
Having a strange moment of... was this lust?
Was that what the feeling inside of her was, this restless pounding of her heart, the twisting of her stomach. The awareness
of her breasts. Normally they were just there. She did not think about them that much. Right then, she was thinking a lot
about them. And her lips. Her lips felt strangely present. She could only blame him.
She couldn’t look at him. She was looking at his throat as they moved to the bonfire and he wrapped an arm around her waist.
And she nearly died then and there.
He was hot. It wasn’t the bonfire. It was him.
His hold was strong, and she shouldn’t be surprised by that. He was a very big man. Just broad, arms heavily muscled. She
knew that. She had observed all that. She had seen him without a shirt, after all.
And she was very aware just then of the condoms in the drawer of his bedside table.
She also knew there hadn’t been any women at the house since she had come to stay. So they weren’t something he used a lot.
He had come home every night since she had gotten there. And she supposed it was possible that he did things during the day
while she was gone, but she didn’t think so. Still, she knew they were there. She knew that he wasn’t just this benevolent
presence in her life. He was a man. A full man, with a life that was fuller than hers had ever been.
With family, friends and lovers.
This meant nothing to him. Asking her to dance, taking her hand, had seemed like nothing to him.
She could see that in the casual way he had approached it.
But her? It felt like everything.
It felt singular.
She was desperate to make sure he didn’t see that. Because how embarrassing.
They were moving, but she was only dimly aware of the movements. She was doing her best to follow him. But then, that hardly took any skill. He was just so strong. The way he held her was so secure. So...
Amazing.
She looked up, and she did look at his face this time, and her mouth went dry. Oh no. Oh shit. She could not afford to have
a crush on this man. She was way too cynical to have crushes. She knew better than that.
Bad boys had never appealed to her. Because they smelled like cigarettes and alcohol, and dead ends.
Because she was way too smart to hitch her wagon to a man who was only headed to prison. She hadn’t chosen to be associated
with her father, and had been. She didn’t see the point in expanding her convict network by choice.
But apparently, she was susceptible to this. To his innate goodness. Maybe that was the problem. He was a cop. And what could
be more forbidden to somebody like her? Everybody wanted that, right? Good girls wanted bad boys. Apparently she wanted him.
This man who stood in stark contrast to everything she’d ever known. This man who represented a system that she had been trained
to be afraid of.
That added up.
Because people were dumb like that.
And apparently so was she.
She didn’t want to stop dancing with him, though. Because it was fun. Because he spun her in a circle. Because her dress swirled up around her thighs, and it made her feel feminine and pretty. Because she felt small and protected when he held her in his arms, and she couldn’t think of a time that she’d ever felt that before.
Because it was different. And in that moment, so was she.
She didn’t want it to end. And she was desperate for it to. Because it felt like her body was waking up.
That made sense.
Normally she was cold. Normally she was hungry. Normally she was worried about survival, so how could she think about this?
But sometimes she did. Like when she had read The Wolf and the Dove and she had wondered what it would be like. To be forced to be comfortable. Chained to a bed. Vulnerable, but protected.
Warm. Safe. But the dangerous thing, the barbarian, would become your greatest ally because of love. Because of desire.
That had definitely stirred a lot of things inside of her. And this felt... like that. Except it was dangerous, because
he was real. And so was this moment.
The fire sparked, flecks of orange on a black sky.
Stardust .
And then finally, the song ended. She wanted to cry. And then she wanted to hide. Because it had to be obvious to everybody
around her what was going on. That her heart was threatening to burst through her chest, that she felt dizzy, and not just
from being spun.
How did anybody get anything done with him around? She supposed that his brothers were handsome too, and she spent a lot of time with them. But they weren’t him. How come nobody else seemed immobilized by that? By his magnetism.
She had never known anybody like this.
Nobody had ever made her want to throw caution to the wind.
But she couldn’t. She could imagine what might happen if she stretched up on her toes and kissed him. She could imagine those
strong arms taking her and pushing her back. Holding her away from him. Worst of all, she could imagine pity in his eyes.
That such a pathetic creature would think that a man like him would want to kiss her.
Because he wouldn’t. Of course he wouldn’t. It was... unthinkable.
So she moved away from him. “Thanks,” she said. “For the dance.”
“No problem,” he said, his eyes completely unreadable. And anyway, she couldn’t stand to look at them for another second.
She went back to the food table. She wasn’t hungry, but she ate another piece of pie, because she didn’t know what to do with
herself and she thought that might do something to quiet the blood in her veins. He felt loud. Hot.
She was worried that everybody could hear it.
And without his touch, without his hold, she suddenly felt cold. She shivered, and fought off a wave of irritation. She didn’t
want him to see her shivering.
But it was like there was an invisible string bonding them together, because in the next moment, he was there.
“You’re regretting that you didn’t bring a coat now, aren’t you?”
Her heart did a little shimmy in her chest. “I’m fine.”
“Are you?”
“Yeah. I’m not dying of hypothermia.”
Then he shrugged his jacket off his shoulders, and held it out toward her. “Put this on,” he said.
She could only stare at it.
“Won’t you get cold?”
“No. I’m a gentleman, anyway. Mainly, I only bring a coat in case a lady is in need.”
Dimly, she thought she should protest that characterization. Down way deep somewhere at the bottom of her soul she thought
maybe she should be offended. But nobody had ever called her a lady. And no one had ever had occasion to behave like a gentleman
around her. So she decided that she was going to accept it. She decided that she was going to hold it close to her chest.
Relish it.
Because next to the dance, this was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for her.
So dramatic. Nicer than actually giving you a job? Feeding you? Giving you shelter?
Well. Maybe this felt more personal.
It felt like something. She knew it wasn’t. It could never be. Not with a man like Daughtry. He was just very good.
Yeah. Very good.
So much so that it nearly hurt.
They only stayed for about twenty more minutes, and then he was ready to go, and she... wished they didn’t have to. But she wasn’t going to suggest they stay. Not after he had been so extra nice to her. They got into the truck and drove quietly back to the house.
“I need a shower. Then I’m going to head to bed. I have an early shift.” He nodded once. “Good night, Bix.”
“Good night, Daughtry.”
She stood there in his living room for a long moment, wearing his coat still. Trying to come to terms with the very strange
situation she found herself in. It had been a month, and it still didn’t feel real.
And it wasn’t going to feel real. Because it wasn’t real. It was temporary.
She repeated that to herself as she walked into her bedroom. And stopped there. The nightstand. Her books were on it in a
little stack. The bed looked so inviting. Made with matching sheets, and a bedspread over the top of it. Matching pillowcases.
She sat down on the bed and smoothed her hand over the blanket. Then she tightened the coat around her body and smelled it.
Woodsmoke, and pine. The earth. The way that he was, just him.
She curled her fingers into fists.
She was going to have to leave.