Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hadley
The bunkhouse kitchen is warm and full of women, and my hand keeps going to my left ring finger because I can't stop touching the band.
I sit at the long pine table.
Marlena is on my left with Cal on her shoulder.
Bex is across from me with her hand on the curve of her belly under her t-shirt.
Grace is at the counter pouring coffee, her dark hair tied up off her neck, her vet clinic scrubs still on from the shift she came off of when Phantom called her home.
Dakota is on the floor with Nash and Waylon and a pile of plastic horses Waylon brought in his diaper bag, making the buckskin one buck off the floorboards in a way that has both boys howling.
Marlena sets a mug in front of me, sees my hand. "Hadley."
The kitchen quiets. Nash looks up, Dakota's hand stops moving the buckskin.
Marlena's hands come up to mine. Her fingers turn my hand in the light. Her thumb brushes the gold band and the green stones and the diamond at the center.
Her eyes go wet. "That's Cora's ring, isn't it?"
I can't speak.
Grace crosses the kitchen with the coffee pot still in her hand and forgets to set it down. Her eyes are wet too. "Oh my goodness, Hadley!"
"He told me about his mother last night," I say. "He told me everything."
Dakota stands up from the floor. She comes to the table. She looks at the ring. Her jaw works once and her mouth pulls at the corner the way it does when she's about to cry, which Dakota doesn't do. "Goddamn it, Rogue."
Bex laughs through her own tears and her hand stays on her belly. "I called it. Two months ago. I told Banshee that man had gone over the cliff and didn't know it yet. Banshee owes me twenty bucks."
The women fold around me at the table.
Marlena's hands stay on mine. Dakota wraps her arms around my shoulders from behind and presses her cheek against the top of my head. Grace's hand lands on my forearm. Bex reaches across the table and squeezes my wrist.
Nash comes up off the floor in the middle of it and tugs on my elbow.
I look down at him.
He looks at my hand and at the women and back at my hand. "Mama? What's happening?"
I pull him onto my lap and show him the ring. My voice goes thick. "Rogue asked me to marry him this morning, baby."
Nash thinks about it. His eyes find Waylon on the floor and then Marlena. "Does that mean Waylon's my cousin?"
Grace makes a sound that's half a laugh and half a sob. She crouches down next to my chair and puts her hand on Nash's back. "Kind of, sweetheart. We're all family here, remember?"
Waylon, on the floor, says, "Cousin," because Waylon will repeat any word he hears, and then he goes back to making the horse buck.
Cal pats Marlena's collarbone with a fat hand and says, "Da-da," at nobody in particular, and Marlena laughs into the top of his head and her tears go into his hair.
Nash looks at me for a long moment with the seriousness only kids can manage. "Is Rogue going to be my dad?"
The kitchen waits for my answer.
I cup the back of his head and pull him in until his forehead is against mine. "Pretty soon, baby. Pretty soon."
Marlena's hand stays on mine on the table.
The mug of coffee in front of me has gone lukewarm and I haven't drunk any of it.
The kitchen is the warmest place I've ever been in my life.
Through the kitchen window the sound of bikes carries up to the south end of the property.
Multiple sets of pipes. The brothers ride out toward the south access where Miller radioed them about something.
The sound fades down the gravel.
Then one set of pipes comes back. Just one. Coming up toward the bunkhouse.
Marlena's hand goes still on Cal's back.
The radio on her hip crackles. Phantom's voice. "Babe. Banshee's comin' to you. Stay in the bunkhouse. Lock the door."
Marlena thumbs the radio. "Copy. We're locked in."
She stands up with Cal still on her hip and crosses to the bunkhouse door. Slides the deadbolt. Comes back to the table without sitting, then walks to the back kitchen window that faces the north fence.
Dakota stands up from the floor without anyone telling her to. She crosses to the front window facing the south gate. Her eyes go to the gravel.
Grace moves toward the boys on the floor. She picks Waylon up off the floorboards and holds him on her hip and bends to scoop up the plastic horses with her free hand.
Three Lyle women in formation without a word.
Their movements tell my body what to do without my brain catching up. I pull Nash off the floor and set him on the bench next to me at the table. My hand stays on his shoulder.
Bex doesn't move from the table. Her hand stays on her belly. Her face is the steadiest I've ever seen it.
Diesel comes up off the rug by the stove. His hackles go up across his shoulders. He pads to the front door and stands there with his ears back.
I haven't asked anyone what's happening yet.
My eyes stay on Marlena's face.
A boot lands on the porch boards outside.
Two knocks. "It's me."
Marlena nods at Dakota. Dakota unbolts the door.
Banshee comes through with his cut open and his sidearm at his hip. His face is the careful face he wears when something is happening that he doesn't want to put words on yet.
Bex stands up. "Honey."
He crosses to her and puts his hand on the side of her face. His thumb moves once across her cheekbone. He doesn't speak.
Bex's hand comes up to cover his on her face. "Tell me."
Banshee looks past her at the rest of us.
"Todd's at the south access. Drunk. Drove from Houston in the night.
Yellin' for Hadley. He's got somethin' in his right hand, can't tell from where I was if it's a bottle or a gun.
Brothers are handlin' him. Rogue's down there.
Phantom, Holt, Roan, Blaze. The whole brass. "
My hand tightens on Nash's shoulder.
Banshee turns to Marlena. "Prez wanted me up here. I'm on the porch. Eyes on the north."
Dakota's mouth pulls flat. "Just you?"
"Just me. Everybody else is at the south gate."
She crosses her arms over her chest. "That's not enough. Todd isn't as much of a threat as anyone from the Firm."
"I know, Kota."
"You told Phantom?"
"I told him."
"And?"
Banshee's jaw works. "He wants Todd handled clean. Wants them at the gate."
Dakota looks at her mother. Marlena's face doesn't change.
Bex's hand stays on Banshee's. "Get on the porch, baby. Eyes north."
He bends and presses his mouth against her forehead, stays there a moment with his hand at the back of her neck, then straightens. His eyes go across Grace, me, the kids on the floor.
He goes. The door clicks shut behind him. Dakota slides the deadbolt.
The kitchen is silent except for the small wet sounds Cal makes against Marlena's collarbone and the click of a plastic horse hitting the floorboards because Waylon dropped it.
I look at Marlena. My voice comes out small. "Marlena."
She turns from the north window. Her face is the face of a woman who has been through this exact morning more than once in her time at this ranch.
"It's gonna be okay, sweetheart." She doesn't quite meet my eyes when she says it.
The dogs at the kennel start going.
The wrong dogs. The northeast kennel—the ones on the back fence line.
Marlena's hand finds the kitchen drawer next to the stove. She pulls a sidearm out of it that I didn't know was there, checks the chamber. Her hand is steady.
I've never seen her hold a gun before.
She's done this before.
The radio crackles. Banshee from the porch, "Three at the back fence. Comin' over. Phantom— Lubbock. Lubbock. Three operators at the back fence."
The code word.
Rogue's voice through the radio—distorted, far, the south gate behind him— "Comin' back. Hold—"
Phantom's voice, "Banshee, fall back inside. Lock down. Do not engage—"
Banshee's voice, "Too late, Prez."
Gunshots outside.
Two. Then three more. Then a longer string that doesn't stop for a count I lose track of.
Then silence.
Then a heavy sound against the bunkhouse front door from the porch.
Bex makes a sound at the back of her throat I'll hear in my dreams for the rest of my life.
Marlena hollers at Grace, "Grace get the kids. Now."
Grace already has Waylon on her hip. She moves to scoop Cal off Marlena's shoulder. Marlena hands the baby to her without looking. Grace has both little boys now.
"Nash," I say, and my voice cracks. "Nash, baby, you go with Aunt Grace—"
A boot kicks the front door.
The deadbolt holds.
A second kick.
The frame cracks.
Marlena, low and fast, "Grace. Safe room. Now. Stay quiet."
The safe room is off the back hall behind the laundry. Reinforced door, deadbolt from the inside, no windows. Phantom built it the year he took the gavel.
Grace runs for the safe room with Waylon under one arm and Cal on her hip. Her vet hands are full of babies and she's moving the way a woman moves when the only thing in her head is her children.
A third kick gives the frame and there's no time for Nash to run with her.
Marlena raises her sidearm at the front door and stands with her feet planted. "Hadley. Get behind the table with the boy."
I grab Nash off the bench and drop to the floor on the kitchen side of the pine table.
Nash in my arms. My back against the table leg. My hand over his mouth because his sound is coming up out of him and I can't have him making noise right now.
Dakota is at the front window with her own pistol out. I don't know when she pulled it.
Bex moves toward the safe room behind Grace, slower because of the baby, both hands on the curve of her belly.
The front door explodes inward.
A boot lands on the kitchen floor.
The voice. Calm. The kind of calm that doesn't belong in a kitchen. "Mrs. Cross. I know you're in here."
Hartley.
From where I'm pressed against the table leg with Nash, Hartley's outside my line of sight. Marlena's boots are planted on the kitchen tile. Dakota's boots cross to the side of the front window with her pistol up.
Marlena, calm as still water. "Get off my ranch, son."