25. Lo
— ? —
Lo
The cabin feels different at night.
After the rodeo, after the song, after the buckle and the tears and the long drive home, I’m tired in a way that goes beyond physical. Thirty-six weeks of pregnancy, plus the emotional weight of the day, plus the nagging image of that woman watching me from the edge of the bleachers.
I told Peter about the woman before we left, dark hair shorter than the circulated photo, sunglasses despite the fading light, the way she watched me like she was memorizing something. He added a deputy check of the farm tonight, random pass before midnight.
The porch light stays on. That’s our agreement: light on means I’m okay, light off means call. Jesse checks it when he leaves, I check it before bed.
He walks me to the door.
“You sure you don’t want me to stay?”
“I’m sure I want ten minutes of quiet. Then I might want you back.” I put my hand on his chest. “Go wait at the bend by Bree’s - you can still see the cabin from there. Peter’s supposed to call you when the deputy clears the perimeter.”
“And after that?”
“After that, go to the inn. Get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He hesitates. I can see him wanting to argue.
“The couch is four feet,” I remind him.
“I’d fold myself.”
“I know you would. That’s why I’m asking for ten minutes instead of sending you away.” I kiss him, soft, slow, a promise. “Go. I’ll be fine until the deputy comes.”
He kisses me back, then walks to his truck. I watch his taillights stop at the bend, the cabin still visible in his mirrors. He’ll wait there. He’ll respect the space I asked for.
I go inside.
The cabin is quiet. The lamp by the bed is on, casting soft shadows across the walls. I set the buckle on the nightstand, Hattie’s first gift from her father, and sit down heavily on the mattress.
Hattie kicks. Restless tonight, like she can feel the tension in my body. She’s been more active since July, when Jesse first felt her move, like she’s been performing for an audience ever since.
“Settle down,” I murmur, rubbing the spot where her foot is pressing against my ribs. “We’re home. We’re safe.”
I get up to get water. The kitchen is dark. I didn’t turn on the light when I came in, and I’m reaching for the switch when I see her.
She’s sitting at my table.
The woman from the rodeo. Without the sunglasses, I can finally see her whole face.
And now the recognition clicks into place.
The shape of her jaw, the set of her mouth.
It’s the woman from Brandi’s license photo, but wrong.
Changed. The dark hair’s been cut into something sharper, more angular.
She’s lost weight, or gained angles, something that shifts the proportions just enough that the old photo doesn’t quite match anymore.
There’s a knife on the table in front of her.
“Hello, Lo,” she says.
My hand finds the switch panel: porch light on the left, kitchen on the right. I flip the porch light off. The signal. Then I reach for my phone.
“Don’t.” Brandi’s voice is calm. The knife catches what little light remains. “Hands where I can see them.”
“Brandi.” I say her name before she can play games about it. I’ve been carrying that name since Peter showed me the photo, since I started looking for her face in every crowd.
“See?” She smiles. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “You do know me. Though I’m a little hurt it took you so long to recognize me at the rodeo. I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time. The famous Lo. The wife who wouldn’t go away.”
“How did you get in here?” I’m already cataloging what Bree taught me. Distance. Barriers. Don’t let her get behind you.
“The window latch on the back.” She picks up the knife, casually, like it’s a pen or a coffee cup, and turns it over in her hands.
“I forced it while everyone was at the rodeo - whole place was empty for hours. Your deputy friends were watching the main road. They weren’t watching the creek bed that runs behind the property.
” She sounds proud of herself. “Sit down. We should talk.”
“I’d rather stand.”
“I’d rather you sit.” The knife catches the dim light from the bedroom. “Please.”
I sit. Not at the table, at the counter, the island between us. Putting distance. Putting a barrier. My heart is hammering, but I keep my face calm. Keep my voice even. The baby kicks again, hard, and I press my hand against my belly.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“What I’ve always wanted. Jesse.” She says his name like it’s a prayer. Like it’s something sacred. “We were supposed to be together, you know. Before you. Before all of this.”
“Jesse doesn’t know you.”
“Jesse doesn’t remember me. But he will.” Her smile turns bitter. “We met at a show in Austin. Last year. He signed my arm, right here-” She pushes up her sleeve, shows me a tattoo. Jesse’s signature, inked permanently into her skin. “He looked at me. Really looked. And I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That we were meant to be. That everything in my life had been leading to that moment.” Her eyes are bright, too bright, the particular shine of someone who’s built an entire reality out of nothing.
“But then there was you. His wife. Hidden away like a dirty secret, and I thought - I thought maybe it didn’t matter.
Maybe he’d leave you. The letters were supposed to make him afraid.
Supposed to make him hide you better, push you away, so there’d be room for me. ”
The letters. She wrote the letters. All of them.
“You’ve been threatening me for months.”
“I’ve been clearing the path.” She stands up. The knife is still in her hand. “But it didn’t work, did it? He didn’t push you away. He came back. He chose you, over and over, no matter what I did.”
“Because he loves me.”
“He doesn’t love you.” The words come out vicious. “He thinks he does. But that’s just habit. Comfort. You’re familiar, that’s all. You don’t understand him like I do. You don’t see him.”
“I’ve been married to him for five years.”
“Five years of holding him back. Five years of keeping him small.” She takes a step toward me.
I shift along the counter, maintaining distance.
“Do you know what he could be without you? What he could have? He’s meant for stadiums, for millions, for a life you can’t even imagine. And you’re dragging him down to… this.”
She gestures at the cabin. At my life. At everything I’ve built in the months since I left.
“He chose this,” I say. “He chose to be here.”
“Because you tricked him. Got yourself pregnant, trapped him-”
“I didn’t trap anyone.”
“That baby isn’t even his.”
The accusation lands somewhere under my ribs. I feel my hands curl into fists at my sides.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve done the research. The timing doesn’t work. You were with someone else, and now you’re passing off another man’s child as Jesse’s, and he’s too blind to see it-”
“That’s insane.”
“It’s the truth!” She’s getting louder, the careful composure cracking. “He was on tour. He wasn’t home. The math doesn’t add up-”
“The math adds up fine. He was home in February. I found out the night before he arrived.”
“You’re lying.”
“I have medical records. Ultrasound dates. A doctor who can confirm-”
“LYING.” She’s close now, too close, the knife raised. “You’re a liar and a trap and you’re going to ruin him, and I won’t let you. I won’t let you take what’s mine.”
I move.
The counter is between us, but she’s faster than I expected. She comes around it, knife slashing air, and I grab the first thing my hand finds, a heavy ceramic bowl, one of Bree’s, and throw it. It hits her shoulder, not her hand, but it’s enough to make her stumble.
I use the moment. Bree’s classes. The adapted techniques for pregnancy. Keep your weight centered. Don’t let them get behind you. If you can’t run, control the distance.
I grab a chair, put it between us. Not a weapon, a barrier. She swings the knife, hits the chair back, and the blade catches in the wood.
“Let go,” I say. “Brandi. Let go of the knife.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.” She’s yanking at it, trying to free it. “You don’t get to-”
The knife comes loose. She stumbles backward, off balance, and the blade clatters to the floor.
But she doesn’t stop.
She comes at me without it, hands reaching for my throat, my belly, anything she can grab. I turn, protect Hattie, feel my back hit the counter. Her fingers find my arm, nails digging in, and I shove her, hard, both hands against her chest, and she falls back against the table.
“Stay down,” I say. My voice is shaking. Everything is shaking. “Just stay down.”
She doesn’t stay down. She’s getting up, chair scraping, and I know I can’t keep doing this. Can’t keep fighting at thirty-six weeks, with my center of gravity off and my breath coming short and my body screaming at me to protect the baby.
The front door crashes open.
Jesse.
He’s standing in the doorway, outlined against the dark porch, and behind him, the porch light is out. The one I flipped off. The signal.
“I was at the bend waiting for Peter’s callback,” he says, voice raw. “The porch light went out. You didn’t answer your phone. I called 911, called Bree, and came back-”
His face is a mask of horror as he takes in the scene. Me against the counter, arm bleeding. Brandi on the floor. The knife nowhere visible because I kicked it under the refrigerator.
“Lo-”
Brandi sees him. Her face transforms, rage to hope, desperation to longing.
“Jesse,” she breathes. “You came back. You came back for me.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“It’s Brandi. Don’t you remember? Austin. Last year. You signed my arm, you looked at me-”
“I don’t know you.”
“You do. You do know me. We’re supposed to be together. She’s been keeping us apart, but now we can-”
Sirens. Distant but getting closer, coming up the county road.
Jesse takes a step into the cabin. Brandi scrambles backward. Her eyes are wild now, darting between him and me and the window behind her, calculating her exit.
“Don’t come any closer,” she says. “I just need to explain-”
“You need to stay exactly where you are. The sheriff’s on his way.”
“You don’t understand. She’s lying to you. The baby isn’t yours. She’s trapped you-”
“The baby is mine.” Jesse’s voice is hard. Cold. “I was there in February when she was conceived. I was there about a month later when she told me. I’ve seen every ultrasound since July. I’ve felt her kick.”
“She’s tricking you-”
“The only person who’s been tricking anyone is you. The letters. The threats. Changing your appearance so nobody would recognize you from the photo Peter’s been circulating for months.” He takes another step. “It’s over, Brandi. Whatever you thought was going to happen here, it’s over.”
Something breaks in her face. The hope drains out, replaced by something emptier. Something more dangerous.
“No,” she says. “No, you don’t get to do this. You don’t get to choose her-”
She runs.
Not toward the door. Toward the window. The one she came in through, the one with the broken lock. She’s through it before Jesse can move, disappearing into the dark toward the creek bed.
He starts to go after her.
“Don’t.” My voice stops him. “Jesse. Don’t.”
“She could come back-”
“I need you here. Let the deputies chase her. That’s their job tonight, not yours.”
He turns. Looks at me. Sees what I’m feeling, the fear, the aftermath, the adrenaline that’s starting to crash. He crosses the room in three strides and pulls me against him.
“Are you okay? Did she hurt you?”
“She grabbed my arm. My back hit the counter.” I hear my own voice, flat and strange. “But I shoved her off. She went down.”
“Lo-”
“I’m fine. I’m-”
Pain.
It hits like a wave, starting low in my back and rolling around to the front. I gasp, double over, and Jesse’s arms tighten around me.
“Lo? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t-” Another wave. Sharper this time. “Something’s wrong. Something’s-”
Wetness. On my legs. I look down and see red.
“Jesse.” My voice sounds far away. “I’m bleeding.”
“Oh God. Okay. Okay, help’s almost here, you can hear them, they’re coming up the drive. Stay with me.”
The sirens are right on top of us now.
“The porch light,” I say. “It was on when you left.”
“It was off when I looked back from the bend. The system worked.” His voice cracks. “Lo, stay with me.”
The ambulance pulls up, lights washing the yard red and white. Paramedics are out as soon as the vehicle stops, a woman with a medical bag and a man pulling a stretcher.
“Thirty-six weeks, bleeding, hurt in a struggle,” Jesse tells them, and I realize he’s been tracking everything, holding it together for this exact moment.
“Ma’am, we’re going to get you on the stretcher. Can you tell me where the pain is?”
“Low. And my back.” I grip Jesse’s arm through another contraction. “She hit my back against the counter.”
“There was an intruder,” Jesse says. “Physical altercation. She shoved her off but took impact to her lower back.”
The paramedics exchange a look. They move faster.
“We’re transporting now,” the woman says. “Sir, you can ride with us or follow-”
“I’m riding with her.”
They don’t argue.
The ambulance rocks as we pull onto the main road. The paramedic is starting an IV, monitoring something on a tablet, talking into a radio about trauma and weeks and blood loss.
“It’s going to be okay,” Jesse says. He’s holding my hand so tight it hurts. “We’re almost there. You’re going to be fine. Hattie’s going to be fine.”
“It’s too early.” My voice is a whisper. “Jesse, it’s too early.”