Chapter 16 #2
She walked across the floorboards and stopped in the open doorway. The night air lifted her hair as she looked out at the dark mountains.
“My apartment in Chicago is in a high-rise. You’d think that means a great view, but mostly I look into a hundred other people’s living rooms. Crack a window and it’s just sirens and traffic. Here, you’ve got the breeze, the privacy, the mountains…”
She leaned against the doorframe, hugging herself. “This is the best view in the house.”
I watched the wind play with the hem of her shirt. I should have just agreed with her. I should have pulled her away from the door and straight into my bed.
“It’s not the best,” I said before I could stop myself. “Knox had the best one. Biggest window. Older brother perks.”
She came back across the room and sat on the edge of the mattress, then lay back against me slowly, resting her head carefully on my good shoulder.
“So is his room empty now? Or…” she trailed off.
I wrapped my arm around her and rested my cheek against the top of her head. She smelled like vanilla shampoo.
“Empty. Nobody wants to be reminded of him.”
She was quiet for a second. Then, softly: “Why did he leave?”
“He said he had a job out of state, and that was it. Gone.” She went still against me. “Didn’t come back when things got bad with Mom. Didn’t even come to her funeral.”
Her hand found mine under the blanket and held it. “I’m sorry.”
“It's okay. It's been eight years.”
We lay there in the dark with the wind moving through the open door. It was easier to talk like this—her weight against my chest and the mountains black in the doorway.
“You and Knox don’t talk at all?”
“No.”
"You're angry."
"Of course I'm angry. He left her and dumped the ranch on us." I swallowed hard. "I don't want to see him again, ever."
Sienna didn't push. She just held my hand tight. I stared at the ceiling while the pines moved in the wind outside.
"We used to do everything together,” I said. “I’d just like to know why. Just... how you do that. How could you walk away."
Sienna shifted, wrapping her arm across my chest and holding me tighter. "I don't know, but he’s the one missing out. Look at what you guys built without him."
I let out a slow breath in the dark, my hand smoothing down her back. "We didn't build much, mostly just kept it from falling apart. But we're still here."
The tension bled out of me, leaving nothing but the steady rise and fall of her chest against mine.
"Thank you for telling me," she said.
We lay there in the quiet until the faint crunch of gravel drifted through the open porch door.
A second later, Wren's voice floated up from the yard below, low and muffled as she talked on the phone.
She was pacing the driveway, completely oblivious to us, but the sound was enough to break the bubble we were in.
Sienna went still, listening to the footsteps fade toward the barn.
"I shouldn't be in here," she whispered after a minute, though she didn't move an inch.
"Probably not."
"I mean it. The rules were mine.” She settled back down against me with a soft sigh. "Five minutes, then I'll go."
She didn't go in five minutes, and I didn't remind her. I just lay there with her breathing slow against my chest and the mountains black in the doorway.
She slipped out before daylight, when the sky was just starting to turn gray.
The mattress shifted, cold air filling the space she left behind, but I kept my eyes shut.
Opening them would’ve meant reaching for her and pulling her back under the covers.
Neither of us would’ve been quiet enough to keep the rest of the house asleep.
So I stayed perfectly still, letting her sneak back down the hall, and spent the next hour just breathing in the vanilla scent she left on my pillow.
I made it through the entire day without slipping, right up until dinner.
I walked into the kitchen just as Sienna set a massive, steaming bowl of chicken pasta and a platter of garlic bread on the table. She was wearing a sundress tonight, pale yellow with little flowers on it, the kind of thing you'd wear to a farmer's market back east.
It hit me right in the chest.
She took a seat near the middle of the long wooden table. My usual chair was directly across from hers—the same one I'd sat in every night of my life. I pulled out the one beside her instead and sat down.
Dad started serving the pasta. Colt didn't even break stride in his story.
"—so anyway, she takes one look at my palm and says I've got a long lifeline," Colt said. "Real long. Says I'm gonna live past ninety."
"How much did that cost you?" Dad asked.
"Forty bucks."
Dad shook his head. "Forty dollars. For a woman to hold your hand and lie to you."
"It wasn't a lie, Dad, it's a reading."
Wren came in with the water pitcher and stopped dead halfway to the table. She looked at me, then down at the chair I was in, and scowled.
"That's my spot," she said.
"Sit anywhere." I reached for the garlic bread. "Half the table's open."
Wyatt's place sat clean, no plate, Maisie's booster gone from the seat beside it. I tipped my chin at the empty spots. "Wyatt not coming?"
"A mare went down colicking," Dad said. "He won't leave till she's standing."
"He's foreman at a ranch outside Sheridan," Wren explained, glancing at Sienna. "Last spring he spent his birthday in a frozen barn nursing a sick foal back to health. We brought out a cake and everything, and he ate one slice and went back to it."
Sienna rested her chin in her hand. "Stubborn to the point of self-destruction—is that a family thing, or does Wyoming just do that to people?"
"Some worse than others," Wren said.
I looked up from the garlic bread. Wren and Sienna were watching me with the exact same expression. I ignored my sister, glancing sideways at Sienna as she reached for her water glass.
She hadn't worn a dress since the day she'd arrived, her heels sinking into the dirt, looking at me like I was something she wanted to scrape off her shoe. Back then I'd been half-hoping she'd quit and go home. Now, I couldn't get close enough.
Under the table, I shifted my leg until my knee pressed against hers.
She went perfectly still. She turned her head slow, her dark eyes sliding up to mine with that warning look already there.
"What are you doing?" she muttered under her breath.