Chapter 1 The Gravity of Bone #6
"My mom hates that guy," Leo whispered conspiratorially. "Whenever he comes on the TV at the diner, she makes Miller change the channel."
Ryder winced. "Yeah. Your mom sounds like a smart lady."
"She is. She's a doctor."
Ryder froze.
She's a doctor.
The pieces floated in the air. The brown eyes. The gold flecks. The red boots. Elena.
"Leo," Ryder said slowly, his heart starting to hammer a warning rhythm against his ribs. "What's your mom's name?"
"Elena," Leo said. "She's right there."
Leo pointed.
Ryder looked up.
Elena’s car had just pulled into the driveway. She was getting out. She was holding her medical bag.
She looked at the porch. She saw Ryder. She saw Leo standing next to him.
She dropped the bag.
It hit the gravel with a muffled thud.
And then, Elena Rosales started running.
III. The Abduction
Elena didn't run like a doctor. She ran like a mother whose child was standing on the edge of a cliff.
She covered the distance from the driveway to the porch in seconds, her white coat flying open. She charged up the steps, her breath coming in ragged, audible gasps.
"Leo!"
She reached the boy before Ryder could even register her speed. She didn't slow down. She scooped Leo up in one fluid, violent motion, snatching him away from Ryder as if he were radioactive.
Leo yelped, surprised by the sudden altitude change. He dropped the plastic bull. It clattered on the porch planks.
Elena held him tight to her chest, burying her face in his hair for a second before turning her blazing eyes on Ryder.
"What are you doing?" she hissed. It wasn't a question; it was an accusation.
Ryder blinked, stunned. He looked at his empty hands, then at the furious woman holding the bewildered child.
"We were... talking," Ryder said. "He was showing me his bull."
"You do not talk to him," Elena said, her voice shaking with an intensity that seemed wildly disproportionate to the situation. "You do not look at him. You do not exist in his world, Ryder. Do you understand?"
Ryder frowned. He shifted his leg, wincing as the cast scraped the cooler.
"Elena, what is wrong with you? He's just a kid. He walked up to me."
"Because you were sitting there!" she shouted, taking a step back, shielding Leo with her body. "Like a... like a trap."
"A trap? I'm a cripple sitting on a porch swing. I'm not exactly a danger to society."
"You are," she whispered, the fight suddenly draining out of her, replaced by a desperate, frantic fear. "You are the most dangerous thing in his life."
She looked down at Leo, who was watching the exchange with wide, frightened eyes.
"We're going," she said to the boy. "Now."
"But Mom," Leo protested, "my bull..."
"Leave it," Elena snapped.
She spun around and marched down the stairs, carrying the fifty-pound boy as if he weighed nothing. She walked to her car, wrestled the door open, and buckled him into the back seat with jerky, hurried movements.
Ryder watched them. He watched the way she checked the rearview mirror three times before backing out. He watched the dust cloud her car kicked up as she sped down the driveway, far faster than was necessary.
He looked down at the porch floor.
The plastic bull—Bodacious, with the broken horn—was lying by his boot.
Ryder picked it up. It was warm from the boy’s hand.
He looked at the driveway. He looked at the dust. He thought about the red boots. He thought about the eyes.
My mom hates that guy on the TV.
A strange, cold sensation started in the pit of Ryder’s stomach and began to spread. It wasn't pain. It was suspicion.
Why was she so terrified? Why had she acted like he was trying to kidnap the kid, when all he had done was teach him how a bull bucks?
You are the most dangerous thing in his life.
Ryder gripped the plastic toy. He squeezed it until the hard plastic dug into his palm.
Something didn't add up. The math was wrong. Elena Rosales wasn't a hysterical person. She was science and logic.
Unless the variable was something she couldn't control.
He looked at the bull again. A little cowboy, wanting to know how the ride worked. A little boy whose dad was "traveling."
The cold sensation reached his heart.
No, Ryder thought. That’s impossible. I would have known.
But would he? He had left. He had changed his number. He had spent six years dodging calls from everyone in Stone Creek.
He looked up at the horizon, where the sun was starting to dip below the mountains.
The boredom was gone. The pain in his leg was gone.
It was replaced by a single, burning question that he knew, with a sickening certainty, was going to change everything.
IV. The Sheriff
The dust from Elena’s car hadn’t even settled when Cole’s truck rolled into the yard.
He parked next to the porch. He got out slowly, removing his work gloves, his eyes scanning the scene. He saw the skid marks in the gravel where Elena had peeled out. He saw Ryder sitting on the swing, holding a small black object, looking like he had just seen a ghost.
Cole walked up the steps. His boots were heavy, authoritative. The boots of the owner.
"What did you do?" Cole asked. It was a flat, exhausted question.
Ryder looked up. He spun the plastic bull in his fingers.
"I didn't do anything," Ryder said. "I sat here. A kid walked up. We talked about bulls. Then Elena showed up and acted like I was trying to feed him to a coyote."
Cole stopped at the top of the stairs. He looked at the tire tracks. He let out a long sigh through his nose.
"She’s protective, Ryder. You know that."
"That wasn't protective," Ryder corrected. "That was panic. She looked at me like I was a disease."
Ryder leaned forward, the swing chains creaking.
"Who is the kid, Cole?"
Cole didn't flinch. He walked over to the railing and leaned against it, looking out at the new cabins on the ridge.
"His name is Leo," Cole said.
"I know his name. I want to know who he is. Elena isn't married. I checked her hand. So who’s the dad?"
"It’s a small town," Cole said, his voice evasive. "People talk, but nobody asks. Elena keeps her business tight. She showed up at the clinic five years ago with a baby in a carrier. That’s all anyone knows."
"Five years ago," Ryder repeated. He did the math. "So he's... six?"
"Something like that."
"And nobody knows the father?"
"It doesn't matter who the father is," Cole said, turning to face his brother. His gray eyes were hard. "What matters is who the mother is."
Cole pointed a finger at Ryder.
"Listen to me closely. Elena Rosales is the reason this ranch still has a workforce. She patches up the hands when they get kicked. She brings soup when the power goes out. She’s part of the fabric of this valley."
He stepped closer, looming over the swing.
"She is the only reason you aren't rotting in a state hospital right now.
She is doing us a favor. A massive favor.
And if you spook her—if you make her uncomfortable, or drag up ancient history, or do whatever it is you do that makes women drive away at sixty miles an hour—she walks.
And if she walks, your leg doesn't heal.
And if your leg doesn't heal, you end up in a wheelchair in my guest room for the rest of your life. "
Cole’s voice dropped to a growl.
"Do not break her, Ryder. I just put this family back together. I won't let you blow it up because you're bored."
Ryder looked at his brother. He saw the loyalty there. Cole had adopted Elena into the tribe. She was "Inside." Ryder, the blood relative, was currently "Outside."
"I'm not trying to break her," Ryder said quietly. "I just... the kid looked like me, Cole. He had the eyes."
Cole hesitated. A flicker of something—uncertainty? suspicion?—crossed his face. But he clamped it down instantly.
"He has brown eyes," Cole said dismissively. "Half the county has brown eyes. Don't flatter yourself. You think you left a legacy behind? You left a cloud of dust, Ryder. That’s it."
Cole pushed off the railing.
"Dinner is in ten minutes. Maya made lasagna. Wash your hands. And hide that damn toy before you trip over it."
Cole walked into the house. The screen door slammed.
Ryder sat alone on the porch. The sun had set, leaving the sky a bruised purple.
He looked down at the plastic bull. Bodacious.
He has the eyes, Ryder thought. And he has the boots. And he likes the bucking chutes.
Cole was right about one thing: Ryder had left a cloud of dust. But dust settles. And when it settles, it reveals the things that were there all along.
Ryder put the toy bull in his pocket. It pressed against his hip, a hard, uncomfortable lump.
"Five years ago," he whispered to the dark.
He wasn't a mathematician. He was a gambler. And he knew the odds of a coincidence like this.
He grabbed his crutches. He hauled himself up, his broken leg throbbing a warning beat.
He was going to eat the lasagna. He was going to take his pills. He was going to smile at Maya.
But tomorrow, when the doctor came back, the rules of engagement were going to change.
Because Ryder Stone had never walked away from a mystery in his life. Especially one that looked exactly like him.
CHAPTER 5: THE PHANTOM RHYTHM
I. The Craving
Friday night was a cage.
The wind was howling around the eaves of the farmhouse, rattling the windowpane in the guest room. Inside, the air was hot, stifling, and smelled of the sweat that had soaked through Ryder’s t-shirt.
Ryder lay on his back, staring at the amber bottle on the dresser.
It was 11:00 PM.
Rule Number Three: One pill every four hours.
He had taken his last dose at 6:00 PM. He wasn't due until 10:00 PM. But he had skipped the 10:00 PM dose because he was trying to be tough. He was trying to prove to Elena—and to himself—that he wasn't the junkie she thought he was.
Now, at 11:00, the bill for that hubris had arrived.