Chapter 11 #2
His voice is the careful, measured one. The one he uses when he's already deciding things he isn't saying. "Don't let her wander."
"I won't."
A short silence. The kind that says he heard the order and the order behind the order.
"Stay reachable."
"I'm always reachable."
I end the call, pull up Blaze's number and dial. He picks up on the second ring. The clubhouse office is quiet behind him. "What's happened?"
"Hartley's moved. We're an hour from him. Need you to put a brother on each of the property gates, not just the front. South pasture access, east, the access road back of the round pen."
The pause is Blaze running the names in his head. I can almost hear him assigning bodies to gates.
"Done. I'll move Miller and the other prospects to the south, Briggs to the east, the new prospect to the access road. I'll cover the gate rotation with Banshee."
I pick up my coffee. The mug is still warm. "Thank you, brother."
"You handling it the way you were trained to?"
The question is the kind of question Blaze asks when he's giving me room to say more if I want to. I don't. "Yes."
"All right."
He ends the call.
I sit at the desk with the phone in my hand and look at the screen. The dot is still where it was a minute ago. Stationary. Waiting.
Hadley appears at my shoulder. She didn't make a sound coming over. She's standing close enough that I can feel the warmth of her arm next to mine and she's looking at the monitor with the dot on it. "What is that?"
I don't lie to her. "You remember me sayin' there was somethin' else besides Todd?"
"Yeah."
"His name's Hartley. He's a man my old work sent to keep an eye on me. He moved closer this mornin'. He's within an hour of the ranch."
She is quiet for a long moment. She doesn't ask who Hartley is to me. She doesn't ask what my old work was. She knows I'll tell her when I can.
Her hand comes up and rests on my shoulder where my t-shirt meets my collarbone. She doesn't grip. She just rests it there. "Are we safe right now, or is this something I should be really concerned about?"
"Right now we're safe. Every gate has someone on it and Banshee's not leaving the front."
"For how long."
"Until I tell you otherwise."
She breathes out through her nose. Her hand stays on my shoulder. Her eyes are on the dot on the screen and I can see her face from the side. Her jaw is set the way Phantom's sets when he is making a decision and her eyes are steady.
This is a different woman than the one who walked into my cabin a few days ago with a voicemail in her hand. "Okay. What do you need me to do?"
My hand comes up off the desk and finds the back of hers where it rests on my shoulder.
I cover her hand with mine. "Stay close to me.
Stay close to Nash. Don't go to your cabin alone for anything.
If you need somethin' from over there, you tell me and I get it or one of the brothers goes with you. "
"Okay."
"You go to the bunkhouse to cook, you go with Bex if she's here or you wait till I can walk over."
"Okay."
"You and Nash sleep here every night this week."
"Okay."
She squeezes my shoulder once and lets go, walks back to the kitchen table. She sits down across from her son and asks to see what he's gotten through on the worksheet. Nash starts explaining to her that he doesn't understand carrying the one.
She doesn't look back at me. She doesn't have to.
My phone vibrates against the desk. Phantom's name on the screen. I step out onto the front porch and pull the door shut behind me. "Prez."
"Brother. How's my ranch?"
"Standing. Banshee's on the front gate, Blaze put bodies on the others. Spur's in the round pen with Thunder at his cabin."
"Why are bodies on the other gates? Somethin' goin' on?"
"Hartley moved closer this morning. He's within an hour."
Two seconds of silence on the line. "You handlin' it?"
"I'm handling it."
"You need backup, you call Holt. He'll roll out of Abilene with whoever he can spare. Don't be a hero."
"I won't be."
"And the woman?"
"At my cabin. Both of them at my cabin. Will be for the rest of the week."
A longer silence this time. "Good. That's good, brother."
I look out across the gravel at her cabin sitting empty in the afternoon sun. Her porch swing moving a little in the breeze. The wet boots from yesterday still on the rail. "How's College Station?"
He sighs. "Presley's nervous. Marlena's cried at every meal. Cal's cuttin' a tooth. I'd rather be on a horse."
I almost laugh. "Take care of your women, Prez."
"You too, brother."
The line goes dead. I stand on my porch for a minute longer with the phone in my hand. The wind is moving the cottonwoods at the edge of the property and the dogs at the kennel are quiet.
I let myself back into the cabin and Hadley is still at the table with Nash. Diesel's on the rug. She has put a fresh cup of coffee at my place at the desk.
I sit down in my office chair, all the monitors live. The Bell relay on the right. Hartley's dot on the left.
Within a few days the compliance officer in Houston will pick up the phone and Todd will lose his job for the first time in nine years.
Tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day, Hartley will get whatever final order he's waiting on and start moving closer to me.
I came out of that life ten years ago with a hole in my ribs and a debt to a man named Phantom.
But I'll go back into it tonight if I have to.
Going back into it different than I went in the first time. The first time I had nothing to lose and nothing to come home to.
This time, I have something worth living for.