Chapter 22 Jennie
The driveway at the main Maddox house was jammed when I pulled in Monday afternoon, three dusty trucks, two ancient ranch SUVs, and a station wagon that had no business still being on the road. I parked on the grass rather than block anyone in.
Midge was on the porch smoking a cigar. “Come on in, sugar,” she said, but then led me around the house. We went in the back door, through the mudroom, and into the kitchen.
Inside, the cool hit first, a shock of AC perfumed with bread, onions, and the slow-cooked rapture of something involving a pork shoulder.
Midge had been at it since before dawn, judging by the line of dirty mixing bowls and the industrial stand mixer hogging the counter.
The kitchen was the color of faded sunshine.
It was chaotic, but every moving piece had its orbit.
Sloane was at the sink, slicing jalapenos into coins with a speed that said she’d done it many times before.
Tess was at the stove, stirring a pot and looking and determined.
Ash leaned against the fridge, chewing a piece of celery and loading everyone’s glass with something that smelled aggressively citrus.
“Don’t just stand there, city mouse,” Midge barked. “You drink whiskey, or are you one of them closet IPA people?”
I said, “Both,” and made my way to the island.
Ash beamed. “Love a girl with standards.” She splashed two fingers of brown into a jelly jar, added a rock of ice, and shoved it down the counter hard enough to catch me square in the palm.
Sloane flicked a glance my way, knife never stopping. “You’re late.”
“Fashionably,” I said, and she snorted.
Tess didn’t speak, but she gave me a nervous smile.
Midge slammed a tray of bread onto the stovetop and wiped her hands on her apron. “Dinner in ten. Cards after.” She leaned in, voice dropping. “But I hear the only game you’re good at is poker, Ms. Cardin.”
That caught Ash’s attention. “Oh, is that true? I could get behind that.”
Sloane finished the jalapenos, tossed the knife into the sink, and began herding everyone to the big table in the dining room.
. The Maddoxes didn’t have a dining room so much as a repurposed hayloft, ringed with shelves holding jars of preserves, old taxidermy, and a collection of Texas Tech memorabilia that had to be ironic.
They set the table family style, Calder at the end, Sloane and Ash at his right, Midge and Tess across, me on the near side with a view of the door.
Reid came in from the yard just as Midge was setting the last dish down. He washed his hands at the mudroom sink, then took the seat to my left without ceremony, and didn't say anything, which I was starting to understand was his version of a greeting.
They’d gone to work on the food. Pork roast, two kinds of beans, four kinds of bread, three things that might have once been vegetables but were now mostly cheese and breadcrumbs. The air was thick with steam and spice.
Calder raised a glass. “To old friends and new ones,” he said, eyes on me.
Reid drank without ceremony. His eyes found mine for exactly one second, then moved off somewhere to the middle distance. I took that as a good sign.
Everyone drank. Ash let out a war whoop. Midge tore a roll in half and started debating the correct way to build a sandwich from the table’s offerings. I got a scoop of every side and dug in.
It wasn’t formal in any way. Everyone talked at the same time. No one waited for seconds. Sloane fielded two calls while finishing her plate, Ash shotgunned the whiskey and switched to sweet tea, Tess hovered at the edge of the conversation, eating fast.
Midge finished her second sandwich and said, “So, Jennie. You ever two-step, or are you a free-range type?”
I wiped my hands. “If I say yes, do I have to prove it?”
“That depends,” Ash said, “on whether you’re any good.”
Sloane rolled her eyes. “It’s not a contest.”
“Says you,” Ash fired back.
Tess drained her water. “I bet she is.”
Midge grinned. “That’s it, then. Showdown tonight. Girls’ night.” Midge had decided.
Calder groaned. Sloane looked pained but resigned. Ash high-fived Midge, then reached over and high-fived me before I had time to dodge.
Reid went very still in the particular way that meant he was deciding whether to say something. He looked at Calder. Calder looked at his plate.
Tess set her fork down and said, “I’m in,” with a little more steel than I expected.
I caught Sloane’s eye, waiting for her to beg off. She didn’t. “Fine,” she said. “But we take my truck.”
Midge tapped the table for attention. “That’s four to zero, city mouse. You’re coming whether you like it or not.”
I grinned, shrugged, and said, “I can’t refuse the democratic process.”
Ash wiped her mouth and pointed at me. “This is going to be legendary.”
It was Reid who finally said what he'd been not saying for the past two minutes. "You know the Colemans drink at the Showdown." Not a question.
"So does half the county," Ash said. "That's what makes it a bar."
He looked at me. "You don't have to go."
"She voted," Midge said, without looking up from the leftovers she was wrapping. "Four to zero. The democratic process is closed."
"There are three men on that ranch right now who'd use any excuse—"
Sloane set her napkin on the table. "Reid." Just his name, flat and even, but it covered the whole argument.
Ash leaned across the table. "She survived two weeks at the Coleman place without backup. I think she can manage a Monday night in Hollow Ridge."
He wasn't happy about it. I could see it in the set of his jaw, the way his hands had gone still on the table. He was running the math on some version of this conversation where he came out ahead. He didn't find one.
Calder stood, pushed his chair back, and set a hand on Reid's shoulder. "Come on," he said. "These ladies can take care of themselves. Let's go get a beer in the bunkhouse."
Reid looked at me. There was a whole argument in it he'd already lost.
"I'll text you," I said.
He held my gaze for one more beat, then went.
Midge watched the door close. "Well," she said, with the satisfaction of someone who has managed difficult animals her whole life. "He's going to be fun to break in."
"Give him time," Ash said.
"I always do," Midge said. "Now go change your boots, Navarro. You smell like fence work."
We spent the next hour clearing the table, sorting leftovers, and getting the kitchen back into fighting shape.
Midge packed up a whole pan of the casserole for Buck, muttering under her breath about “men who don’t know how to text.
” Tess re-braided her hair at the sink. Sloane did the dishes with tight-jawed focus and avoided everyone’s eyes.
Ash sang along to a playlist on her phone, getting all the words wrong on purpose.
I went to the bathroom, washed my hands, and gave myself a second in the mirror. My hair had come undone in the heat, there was a smudge of something on my shirt. My eyes were red, not from tears but from three days of chasing leads and not enough sleep. I looked… normal, maybe.
When I came back out, Ash was already waiting by the door, boots tied tight, hat on and tilted just so.
Tess and Midge had done the impossible and convinced Sloane to wear jeans instead of her usual all-black.
Sloane looked annoyed, but she’d also changed her lipstick to a shade a hair more daring than her usual.
We loaded into Sloane’s truck. She drove, of course, with Tess up front. Midge, Ash, and I climbed in the back.
The drive into Hollow Ridge was nothing special, a strip of highway lit by dying sodium lights, roadkill armadillos every quarter mile, the shadows of fences stretching long over the dust. Sloane didn’t play music. Instead, she drove fast and straight, focused hard on the road.
Ash filled the silence. “So, what’s your poison, Cardin? You strike me as a gin and tonic type, but maybe you’re more of a beer snob?”
“Depends,” I said. “How bad is the beer?”
She laughed. “You’ll love the Showdown. They serve three things, cold beer, warm beer, and whatever Midge brings in her purse.”
Tess leaned back, voice soft but audible. “They make a decent margarita. If you tip the bartender enough, he’ll use actual tequila.”
“Noted,” I said.
Sloane said nothing, but I caught her glancing at me in the rearview. She had a look I recognized, weighing, judging, looking for any cracks in the armor.
We hit town in under fifteen minutes. Hollow Ridge wasn’t much, two main streets, the diner I’d been to a few times, a gas station, and a feed store.
The Showdown sat on the edge of town, where the land dropped off toward the creek, and customers could park three rows deep without blocking anyone in.
The bar was exactly as advertised, a double-wide trailer with a plywood porch and a false front tacked on to fool no one.
The Christmas lights ran year-round, flashing in time with a beat no one could hear.
The music was loud enough to rattle the glass in the doors, and the air outside pulsed with the fug of cigarette smoke and spilled Shiner Bock.
Sloane found a parking spot near the entrance, locked up, and led the charge to the porch. Ash was right behind her, arm slung over my shoulder. Tess lagged, clutching her phone, tapping out a message before catching up.
We claimed seats near the dance floor, dropped bags on the empty chairs, and set to work. Ash flagged a waitress, ordered “a round of the usuals,” and looked to me for backup.
I said, “Whatever’s cold.”
The drinks arrived, beers, margaritas, and a whiskey neat for Midge. The noise was deafening, the air alive with the sound of boots on wood, laughter, and the cackle of an ancient karaoke machine on its last leg.
I’d never been a bar person, but this felt different. Nobody was trying to impress or seduce or hustle anyone. The regulars eyed us, sure, but there was no edge to it. Just curiosity, the way people watch a lightning storm.
Midge raised her glass. “To surviving another Monday,” she said.
We all drank.