Chapter 17
CASSIE
The lot is already moving when I get there.
I hear Darla before I see her, the low murmur of thank-yous coming from somewhere near the trailers, and her voice answering each one the same way, like she means it fresh every time.
She's got a basket on her arm, brown bags stacked inside it, and she works her way down the line without hurrying.
"You take that for the road," she says to Finn. "There's a slice of pie in there. Don't let anybody talk you out of it."
Finn laughs, surprised. "Yes, ma'am."
She's already moving to the next rig. Macy holds hers to her chest. Cal tucks his under his arm without looking at it. Mandy's coming around behind her, refilling coffee mugs, saying her goodbyes.
Kade and Levi run the side-by-side between the cabins and the lot, Levi loading bags and tack from each porch while Sutton rides in the back and hands things down to clients at their trailers. Bingo runs every pass alongside them and never gets what he's looking for out of it.
I'm near the barn when Finn brings Dusk to his trailer.
The gelding loads forward, four feet on the ramp without hesitation, nothing like the horse that came off that same ramp five days ago.
Finn stands in the trailer with his hand on Dusk's neck for a long moment before he steps out and closes the door. He doesn't say anything.
Macy finds me before she finds her truck. She hugs me, pulls back, looks at me, and hugs me again.
"I'm coming back next year," she says. "Tell Sawyer I'm getting on the list."
"Tell her yourself," I say. "She's right there."
Macy laughs and goes to find her. Cal shakes my hand and grins.
"Best week I've had on a horse in six years," he says. "Don't tell my wife I cried at the bridge."
"I didn't see anything."
"Good woman." He points at me, smiling, and walks to his truck.
Grant works his way down the line, shaking hands as he goes. He gets to me and gives me a nod that carries more in it than most people put in a full sentence. I nod back. Sable and Vera load their horses and move through their goodbyes and head out.
Petra finds me near the barn. She stops and looks at me for a second.
"What I said the other day," she says. "I meant it. Stop acting as if it surprised you."
She walks to her truck before I can answer.
Macy is still in the lot, leaning against her door.
"Jo's always last," she calls out. "Every single time."
Jo stops in front of me on her way past.
"It was a hell of a week," she says. "Thanks for making it one."
"You’re welcome. Come back next year."
She grins. "Already planning on it."
She goes and loads Rascal, latches the trailer door, and gets in. Macy gets in after her, and they pull out together.
Rhea walks up beside me, and we watch the dust settle on the ranch road.
"That was a good group," Rhea says.
"Yeah," I say. "They were."
***
The dining hall is the way it gets between clinics, quieter, slower.
The work is still there, but the pace is more relaxed.
Londyn is at the counter with her coffee when I come in, her cart loaded and ready by the door.
Mandy is wiping down the counter. Darla's on a stool at the counter with her own cup, the griddle cold for the first time all week.
I pull out the stool next to Londyn and sit down.
"Was it a good send-off?" Londyn asks.
"Yeah. Finn cried," I say. "Well, close to it."
"I heard him talking about the bridge. Was that why?"
"Yep."
Londyn smiles at her coffee cup. Mandy comes around with the pot and tops off her own cup.
"You want one?" she asks.
"Yeah," I say. "Thanks."
Rhea comes in a few minutes later and drops into the stool beside me. Darla gets up, goes to the griddle, and comes back with a basket of biscuits and a jar of jam, setting them on the counter between us.
We sit there in the quiet, the five of us, passing the biscuits around. Nobody needing to fill the space. It's the kind of easy that builds without you noticing it's building.
Londyn sets down her cup.
"I heard Levi's leaving for a few days."
She says it flat, same tone she'd use to say the cabins are done.
I wrap both hands around my coffee cup. On a ranch this size, nothing stays quiet for long.
"He is," I say.
"Is he going to Sadler?" Mandy asks.
"Yeah, his brother's there."
Nobody pushes it. Darla sets down her cloth, refills her own cup, and comes around to the end of the counter. She doesn't look at me directly. She drops onto the stool at the end and takes a long drink of her coffee.
"Man's got loose ends," Darla says. "Nothing wrong with closing them."
"I know," I say.
She looks at me then, just for a second. Then she looks back at her coffee.
Sawyer comes through the dining hall door and slows when she sees all of us at the counter. She grabs a cup from the end of the counter, pours herself a coffee, and pulls up a stool beside Darla.
"How's everybody?" Sawyer asks.
"Fed," Rhea says, grinning.
She looks at me across the counter.
"You okay?" she asks.
"I'm good," I say.
She looks at me one beat longer than a yes or no needs. Then she wraps both hands around her cup and stays right where she is.
I finish my coffee. The conversation moves around me.
***
I find Levi at the side of the barn around four o'clock, his back to me, running a brush over Copper's back. I stop a few feet back.
"You want to go into town?"
He turns around. His eyes move over my face.
"Yeah," he says. "Give me ten minutes."
He drives, and I ride with my arm up on the window frame, the evening light coming through the truck in long strips.
The road winds down out of the timber for twenty minutes, pine on both sides, the valley opening up slowly before Silver Creek appears at the bottom of it, the storefronts sitting along the main street with the creek running beside them.
The Rusted Spur is two doors down from the hardware store, set back from the street a little.
Dim inside, the long wooden counter runs most of the length of the room.
A woman behind the bar looks up when we push through the door.
She takes us both in before she says a word.
She has dark hair, sharp eyes. The kind of woman who sees everything and decides later what to do with it.
"Levi Walker, as I live and breathe." She sets down her cloth. "It's been a few weeks."
"Busy weeks," he says.
"I can see that." Her eyes move to me.
"This is Cassie Holt," he says. "She's working at Whispering Creek."
"Holt. Are you Reid Holt's daughter?" she asks.
"Yeah," I say.
"Your father dated Sawyer for a while." She pulls two Coors without being asked and sets them on the bar. "Good man. Terrible tipper."
Levi laughs.
The bar's half full. A small town bar, everybody knows everybody.
We take our beers to a table near the wall. I set mine down and look at it for a second.
"You think she knows I'm nineteen?"
Levi picks up his beer. "I think Clara's been pouring drinks in this town for thirty years and makes her own calls about it."
I look around the room for a second. Then I look at him. Then I pick up my beer and take a drink.
Donnie Keller stops at our table.
"Your posts came in," Donnie says.
Levi shakes his head. "That was not a week, Donnie."
Donnie grins. "Nope. Sure wasn't." He looks at me. "Cassie. Good to see you again."
"You too, Donnie," I say.
He claps Levi on the shoulder and heads for the door.
A man calls something across the room from the far end of the bar that I don't fully catch, but Levi throws his head back and laughs.
"Not even close, Terry," Levi calls back.
Terry waves him off and goes back to his beer.
I notice Erin sitting two stools down, a woman beside her I don't recognize, bright-eyed, her hair in a loose braid.
"Who's that with Erin?" I ask.
"That's Jess Caldwell. She runs Morning Run Coffee on Main Street." He takes a pull from his beer. "They went to high school together. Erin moved back about four years ago, and they've been attached at the hip ever since."
I watch Erin say something to Jess that makes Jess throw her head back laughing. Old friends. You can always tell.
It's the most normal evening I've had in weeks, and it feels good. Cold beer, bar noise, Levi across the table, laughing. I let myself relax into it.
"I'm gonna go talk to Rick for a second," Levi says. "I'll be right back."
"Go ahead," I say.
I watch him cross the room. Rick grins when he sees him coming.
That's when I see Garrett.
He comes from the back of the bar and slides into Levi's empty chair like he's been watching for exactly this window.
He's younger than Levi. Same build, same jaw, but where Levi carries everything lightly, Garrett carries it in his shoulders.
"You're with Levi," he says.
"Maybe."
"Sure, you are."
He puts his elbows on the table and looks at me.
"He's good at this," Garrett says. "Levi. Finding somewhere that feels right. Someone who feels right." He pauses. "Staying until it gets complicated."
I don't say anything.
"I'm not saying that to be mean about it.
I'm saying it because I've watched him do it.
" He turns the bottle in his hand. "He grew up in Sadler.
Loved that town the way you love a place that raised you.
Loved it and left anyway because things got hard.
" He sets the bottle down. "The land's gone.
The house is gone. But that town is still there, and I'm still there. "
He looks across the bar at Levi, who is laughing at something Rick said, his hand on Rick's shoulder, completely at ease.
"I want my brother back," Garrett says. "I'm going to try to get him back. I just thought you should know that before he goes."
Then Levi's turning away from the bar. Garrett is up and moving. By the time Levi gets back to the table, Garrett's chair is empty, and I've got my beer in my hand and my smile in place.
Levi comes back to the table and drops into his chair. I pick up my beer.
"What'd I miss?" he says.
I look toward the door. "Nothing."
I take a drink of my beer.
***