Chapter 8
LEVI
Kade's already in the barn when I get there, two stalls ahead of me, muck fork moving at that steady pace that never seems to hurry and never seems to stop.
The barn smells like manure and hay and warm horse, that smell that hits you in the face when you slide the door open, and either bothers you or it doesn't. After nine years, it doesn't bother me at all.
I grab the second fork off the wall and start on the stall across the aisle.
"You're late," Kade says.
"I'm exactly on time."
"I've been here twenty minutes."
"Then you're early," I say. "That's a you problem."
Kade shakes his head and keeps working, and that's the thing about mornings in the barn with Kade. There's no ceremony to it. You show up, you grab a fork, you work down the aisle, and whatever conversation happens happens.
Logan comes in about ten minutes later with his coffee, which is how Logan arrives everywhere, coffee first, participation optional. He leans against the post at the end of the aisle and watches us work with the expression of a man who has nowhere to be.
"You gonna help?" I ask.
"I'm supervising."
"From what I can see, you're drinking."
"Supervision requires focus," Logan says. "Can't focus with a fork in my hand."
Kade moves to the next stall when he's done.
I finish mine and move to the next one, getting into the rhythm of it the way you do when the work is familiar.
The horses are settled, most of them pulling at their hay.
Sawyer's horse, Keeper, has his head over the stall door and watches me push the wheelbarrow past with his ears pricked forward like he's waiting for something interesting to happen.
"Piper's been watching you since she got here," Logan says, still on his coffee.
I keep working. "Piper watches everybody."
"She watches everybody the same way," Logan says. "She watches you like she's working something out."
I don't say anything.
Logan takes a drink of his coffee. "Just thought you'd want to know."
I go back to the stall. I spend the rest of the stall wondering what the difference looks like.
***
The dining hall is loud by the time I get there, which is how I like it.
Londyn's moving between the tables with the coffee pot, and Mandy's coming out of the kitchen with a basket of biscuits.
Darla's at the griddle. I can hear the sizzle of the bacon from the doorway, and it does what it always does, which is make me immediately hungry regardless of how hungry I actually was thirty seconds ago.
All of the barrel clients are here. Shelby has the corner table and is already talking loud enough for the whole room to hear.
Lynette has her coffee and her own table.
Kira's sitting with Brooke, the two of them close the way they've been close all week, Kira still carrying whatever she brought in from yesterday's session.
Del has her elbow on the table and her eyes on her plate, a woman who came to work and isn't interested in making conversation about it.
Cara and Wren have a table to themselves, heads together, talking the way people do when they've figured out they're going to be friends by day two.
Piper is at the far end, quiet, already watching.
I get in line at the griddle. Darla puts bacon on my plate, eggs, and hash browns, portions that suggest she has opinions about how much I should be eating.
"You're welcome," she says, before I open my mouth.
"I was going to say thank you."
"No, you weren't."
She's right. I take my plate and work my way to a table, taking my time, stopping at the far end where Shelby and Del are going at it about romal reins versus a single rein, the way people argue when they already know they're not going to agree.
"Romal," I say, pulling out a chair. "Every time."
"See," Shelby says, pointing at me. "Thank you."
"Don't thank him," Del says. "He doesn't even run barrels."
"I don't have to run barrels to know romal reins are correct," I say, pulling out a chair. "Popper's already in your hand when you need it. You're not reaching for anything."
I drop into a chair and reach for the biscuits before Mandy can set them fully down.
"Those just came out of the oven," Mandy says.
"Perfect timing."
"I was going to set them down first."
"Spiritually," I say, "I'm helping."
Mandy shakes her head like she's given up on me and goes back to the kitchen, but she's smiling when she turns away.
I pull apart the biscuit and get to work on my plate, and let the noise of the dining hall settle around me.
The barrel clients have the energy that comes in on day two of a clinic, still fresh but starting to relax into the property, starting to feel like they belong here for a minute.
I like that energy. I always have. It's the thing about clinics I never get tired of, the way people arrive guarded and leave a little lighter, like something about the horses and the property and the routine of it loosens a knot they didn't know they were carrying.
Piper is at the far end, quiet, already watching. Not the way she watches the room, that's something else. Her eyes find me before I've made it three steps through the door. I don't know what to do with that, so I don't do anything with it.
I finish my breakfast and reach for my coffee, and when there's a small lull in the conversation around me, Piper sets her mug down and looks at me.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Probably."
"Does it ever get tiring?"
"What?"
"I've been watching you make this whole room laugh for two days," she says. "You're good at it. I'm just wondering if anybody ever gets past it." She picks her mug back up. "Does that ever get lonely?"
Nobody else heard it. Her voice was low enough that it stayed between the two of us. I look at her for a beat, and then I grin, because that's what I do, and it's not even entirely a performance.
"Not yet," I say.
Piper goes back to her biscuit. I drink my coffee and look out the window at the arena and let the table noise fill back in around me. She asked me something real, and I didn't have a real answer for it. That doesn't happen often.
***
I'm crossing back from the dining hall toward the barn when I see the truck come through the gate.
I'd know that truck anywhere. It comes through the gate and pulls up next to the barn. I stop walking and watch it idle for a second before the engine cuts.
Garrett gets out.
He's not the kid I left. That's the first thing I register.
Taller than I expected, broader through the chest and shoulders, the kind of build that comes from fifteen years of hard work on a ranch that didn't have enough hands.
But he's got our dad's jaw and our mom's eyes that are still Garrett, still the fourteen-year-old standing in the yard, and when he finds me across the property, he just stops and waits.
I walk over to him.
We don't shake hands. That would be strange. We don't hug either. Garrett leans against the truck and crosses his arms. I stop a few feet away. Behind me, I can hear the clients coming out of the dining hall, the morning starting up around us.
"You didn't answer," Garrett says.
"I know."
"I called eleven times."
There's nothing to say to that, so I don't say anything. I turn toward the barn, and he follows.
We walk in through the door and stop just inside. Decker, in the first stall, puts his nose over the door. Garrett reaches up on instinct and runs a hand down his face. I catch movement at the far end of the aisle. Cricket's stall. Cassie, probably, but I don't look. I keep my eyes on my brother.
"The estate settled," he says.
"I know."
"There's still money owed to the bank. Dad took a second mortgage out three years before he died, and I've been making the minimum payments to keep it from going to collections, but I can't close it out without you.
Both names are on the note." He crosses his arms. "I can only cover half of what's left, and I can't get them to release the lien without both of us sitting across the table from them. "
"I've got the money. I'll write you a check today, cover whatever's left."
"I figured you've got the money. I've been leaving that on your voicemail for six months." His voice doesn't go hard. It just goes flat in a way that's worse. "A check doesn't fix it. Both names are on the note. They need us both in person to release the lien."
"I know that."
"So you're going back."
"No."
Garrett looks at me. "No."
I don't say anything.
"The estate's been settled for four months, Levi."
"I know that."
"Then what are you waiting for?"
I don't have an answer for that. Not one I'm willing to say out loud.
Garrett's jaw moves. He looks down the aisle and back. "It's not just the money."
"I know it's not just the money."
"You didn't stay," he says. "You weren't there for any of it.
The ranch going under, watching Dad drink himself to nothing, the funeral that twelve people showed up to.
" He stops. "I handled every piece of it alone, and then I drove eight hours because you won't pick up your fucking phone, and I need you to understand what you're asking me to accept. "
Garrett's quiet for a moment. Down at the far end of the barn, Cricket shifts again. Cassie's back there. I keep my eyes on my brother.
"You left," Garrett says, and his voice doesn't go hard the way I always expect it to. It just goes quiet. "When it was still bad. When he was still at his worst. You packed your bag. You left. I was fourteen years old, and you left me there with him."
I don't say anything.
"I'm not saying you were wrong," he says, which is the thing that makes it worse.
"I'm not even saying I blame you. I'm saying it happened, and it cost me something.
I've been carrying that for a long time.
You want to come in and write a check and call it even, and I need to know if you understand what you're actually asking me to accept. "
The barn's very quiet. One of the horses shifts in its stall. Through the open door, I can hear birds in the trees.
"I understand," I say.