Chapter 23
twenty-three
The last time Logan had been in this kitchen, it had been chaotic, but not like this.
Johanna had three burners going and a pot of chili big enough to drown in, and she was delegating as she cooked.
Oliver’s mom, Nessie, also worked in the kitchen while other women he didn’t know passed out dry clothes and blankets to every new person who wandered in from the flood.
He’d been at it, helping where he could, since Bear had dropped him off on the porch.
“Stay where Walker can see you,” Bear had said, “and do what Johanna says. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Why do you have to go?” He hated that his voice came out so whiny, but the thought of Dad going back out into the dark and sheeting rain terrified him. That was how Mom had died—a rainstorm, a slick road, someone not paying attention, and plowing through a red light.
Bear had met Walker’s gaze over his shoulder, then bent down so that they were eye-to-eye. “Because I have medical skills people are going to need out there.”
Logan had stood there in his hoodie with the rain ticking on the porch roof and watched the taillights of his dad’s truck go until Walker had said, “Kid, come inside.”
That was six hours ago.
He hadn’t heard from Dad since.
“Here.” Nessie shoved a plate of cornbread into his arms, bringing him back to the present. “Take that out and let me know if anything is running low.”
He carried the cornbread into the dining room.
The big table had been pushed against the wall and stacked with folded wool blankets and grocery bags from Nessie’s Place — bread, jars of jam, an absurd number of muffins.
There were people in the great room he didn’t recognize.
An older woman from town in a wet pink robe and slippers.
A young couple with a baby asleep against the father’s chest. A man Walker called Pete, who’d lost his roof.
He set the cornbread on the buffet between the chili and the soup and surveyed the other plates. Everything looked topped off, for now, but he doubted it’d stop Johanna and Nessie from cooking more.
“Hermanito.” X appeared at his elbow and held out a pair of work gloves. “Sandbags. Come on.”
He took the gloves and followed.
The line ran from the south wall of the barn to the lower fence, forty feet of people passing bags hand to hand in the rain, and Logan dropped into the line beside X.
River was at his other side, soaked to the bone and grinning like a crazy man. “When they write the history of this flood, I want a footnote. River Beckett: he showed up, he complained, he passed bags. A hero.”
“River,” Jonah called from further down the line, “less talking, more lifting.”
“Jonah, buddy, I can multitask.” River caught another bag and heaved it sideways with a grunt to Logan.
He caught the bag and passed it left. It was heavier than it looked. His shoulders were already burning. “Why are we doing this?”
“Keeping the lower barn dry,” X said. “Creek’s coming up fast on the south side. We lose the barn, we lose the horses.”
He looked at the barn, then caught the next bag and passed it without complaint.
The rain came down in cold, driving sheets that found every gap in his hood and ran down the back of his neck.
His jeans were soaked through to the skin.
He’d stopped being able to feel his feet about twenty minutes ago, but every time he thought about stopping, he looked down the line and saw Jonah, Anson, Hatch, and Ghost working without a word about it, so he kept going.
Ghost was the one who surprised him. He’d expected Ghost to be somewhere in the shadows doing something tactical and silent, not standing in the mud in the rain passing sandbags like everyone else.
He worked the line for two hours, and nobody treated him like a guest or even a kid. River started calling him Little Bear, and he didn’t want to admit he liked it.
Around the second hour, hoofbeats came up the road and everyone paused.
The horse coming up the road was dark as a shadow in the gray morning, the rain running off her coat in streams. She was rangy and lean, her head up, her movement fluid in a way that made other horses look like they were working harder than they needed to.
The rider on her back was somewhere in his thirties — lean, weathered, long dark hair slicked back by the rain, a full beard.
He wore a canvas coat that had gone dark with water.
A terrifying-looking dog moved at the horse’s left shoulder, huge and quiet, her gaze ranging across the yard without urgency.
“Who’s that?” Logan asked.
X glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes went wide. “Huh.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” X agreed, and passed another bag without elaborating.
The man stopped his horse at the edge of the yard and looked at Walker.
Walker looked back at him.
After a beat, the man swung down from the saddle, and it seemed to Logan that every person in a five-mile radius was suddenly holding their breath.
“Why is everyone all tensed up?”
X was quiet for a second, watching.
“X?”
“Every man who comes here has a hard first week,” he said finally. “Almost every single one tries to leave at some point. Including me. But Boone always goes out and talks them back.” He paused and nodded to the man. “Evander Cole was the only one Boone couldn’t talk into staying.”
“So he left?”
“He left. Bought land in the backcountry. Built a cabin and usually avoids the ranch like it’s full of lepers.”
“His land’s flooded,” Ghost said, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, making both Logan and X jump.
X swore in a long string of Spanish, ending with, “Don’t do that, cabrón. Scared a decade off my life.”
The faintest smile twisted Ghost’s lips. “Public service.”
X harruphed and crossed his arms, then nodded toward Walker and Cole again. “How do you know about his land?”
“Because I know everything.” A beat. “And because Naomi just called and told me.”
Logan glanced back at the man and his terrifying dog. “Will Walker let him stay?”
Across the yard, Walker stopped in front of Cole and held out his hand. Cole looked at it for a long time, then he reached out and accepted the handshake.
X picked up his next sandbag. “Walker never turns anyone away.”