Chapter 9 #2
There's no sign on her face of the woman who walked across the gravel yesterday with a voicemail in her hand and her stomach in her boots.
The woman in front of me right now is a woman who slept well, having her morning cup of Joe, and is watching her son eat cereal next to a man she's chosen to be in their lives.
The look she gives me from across the kitchen hits me right in the chest.
Nash finishes his Cheerios and puts his bowl in the sink himself.
He tells Hadley he's going to go get dressed and then he and Diesel are going to go check the kennel because Diesel likes to say hi to the other dogs in the mornings.
This kid cracks me up.
Diesel is supposed to be with the other dogs, not in Hadley’s cabin begging for scraps.
He disappears down the hall.
Diesel follows him with the slow dignity of an old shepherd who is humoring a child.
The kitchen goes quiet.
I set my coffee down and Hadley does the same.
Neither of us moves toward the other right away.
We just stare.
She's the one who speaks first. "You sleep okay?"
"Some."
"Same."
I smile a little, so does she.
I stand up, cross the kitchen and stop in front of her with the counter at her back, and put my hand on her hip—not pulling, just resting.
Her hand comes up and settles on my chest, flat against the shirt, fingers spread.
I look down at her. "You're wearin' my shirt."
"I am."
"Don't take it off. It looks too damn good on ya."
"Sweetheart, I have to wash it eventually."
Sweetheart.
"Mine. You're keepin' it. Wash it when it needs it. It comes back to you."
She laughs—soft, breathless, surprised. The sound is the best thing I've heard out of her since she got here.
I bend down and kiss her forehead, her temple, then I straighten up and put both hands on her hips and hold her there for a moment. "I need to tell you two things."
"Okay."
"Todd is gonna be handled within the week."
She doesn't react beyond a slow blink. "How?"
"You said you didn't want to know."
"I don't."
"Good."
She nods once.
Her thumb moves a small circle on my shirt, but her eyes don't leave mine.
"What's the second thing?"
"Phantom and Marlena leave for College Station tomorrow mornin'. They'll be gone for about five days for Presley's graduation."
"Okay?"
"While they're gone, things get more careful around here. You don't go to your cabin alone after dark. You don't take Nash off the property without one of us. You stay close to the bunkhouse, the main house, or me. Most likely me."
She studies my face. "Is this Todd?"
"This isn't Todd."
"Somethin' else."
"Somethin' else." I confirm.
She doesn't push. The fact that she doesn't push is the thing that keeps surprising me about her.
She accepts being kept the way another woman might accept being argued with.
She trusts what I'm not telling her, and she trusts it because she has decided to, not because I've told her she has to.
"I'll tell you when I can, Hadley."
"All right."
I bend down and kiss her properly this time. Slow, brief, my hand under her jaw the way I had it the first night on her porch.
She rises up to meet me.
I taste coffee and the soft warm sleep still on her mouth, and my body wants me to keep going.
I don't.
I step back.
"I gotta go see Phantom."
"All right."
"I'll be back this afternoon."
"Okay, see you later."
I touch the edge of her jaw with my thumb one more time, pick up my hat off the kitchen table, and let myself out.
* * *
Marlena lets me into the main house with Cal on her hip and a kitchen towel over her shoulder.
She's already packed. Two duffels by the door, a small cooler with road snacks, her hair up the way she wears it when she's running around trying to make sure they have everything. "He's in the office. Coffee's already poured."
"Thank you, Marlena."
"You take care of my husband's ranch while we're gone, Rogue."
"Yes, ma'am."
She kisses Cal on the head and waves me through.
Phantom's at his cypress desk in the office, his back to the window, two coffee cups on the desk.
He pushes one across to me without looking up. I sit in the leather chair across from him and pick it up.
"Five days I’ll be gone," he says.
"Enjoy them. You hardly ever get away from here."
He looks at me then.
The blue Lyle eyes, the sandy-red beard, the lines at the corners of his eyes that he didn't have the first time I met him a decade ago.
"Blaze runs church if church needs to happen. Spur takes the ranch operations. Banshee's got the gate. Thunder has protection."
"Yes, Prez."
"But… you run security operations. I need your eyes, Rogue. Anybody walks up to my fence, you handle it. Hartley pings, you handle it. Todd does somethin' stupid, you handle it. You don't wait on me. You don't wait on Blaze. You don't wait on a vote."
"Understood."
"You handle it the way you handle it. I won't ask the question."
"Yes, Prez."
He's quiet for a moment as he takes a sip of coffee. "Grace told me about your woman."
"Nothing ever stays quiet around here."
"No, it sure doesn’t."
"Yeah."
He almost smiles. "She's been worth waitin' for, brother."
My throat tightens before I can stop it. "Yes, sir."
Phantom stands up and so do I.
He comes around the cypress desk and clasps my forearm—the Lyle-brother grip, his hand wrapping the Shotgun Saints patch tattooed on the inside of my left forearm, the patch he gave me years ago in this same office.
He holds it a second longer than usual. "Take care of my ranch, Rogue."
"You know I will, Prez."
"And take care of your woman."
"Yes, Prez."
He lets go, steps back and turns to the window like the conversation is done.
* * *
I walk back across the gravel to my cabin.
The sun's up high now. All of the dogs are awake.
Banshee's truck is pulled up by the gate and he's standing in the bed of it looking down the access road with his hat low.
I lift a hand and he lifts one back.
I let myself into my cabin, hang the hat on the hook and sit down at the desk.
All the monitors come alive.
Todd's still in his room at the Hampton. He'll come down to the bar at sundown.
He'll order whiskey and I already know he'll drink it.
In about four days, the email I sent this morning is going to land on a compliance officer's desk in Houston, and the world Todd built for himself in Garrison is going to start coming apart from the inside while he's still drinking at a Hampton bar two hours away.
He won't see it coming.
Hartley's phone is south of Llano. Stationary now, parked off a county road.
He'll move again in an hour. Tomorrow he'll move even closer. The day after, closer again.
I sit at the desk with both screens live and the want for Hadley still quiet and heavy in my chest, and I do the math.
Phantom is on the road by sunup. Five days before he's back.
Todd will start coming apart at Bell inside that window.
Hartley will move on his timeline inside that window too.
Whatever the firm decided in that forty-seven-minute call, it's going to happen on my watch, not Phantom's.
My job for the next five days is to keep her safe, keep Nash safe, keep the ranch standing.
That's the deal.
That's the only deal that matters.