31. Chapter 31
thirty-one
Locking up for the day, I notice Darla at the register, shoulders tight, head bent over the ledger, and Laurel’s words from earlier come back like a pebble skipping over still water. Darla has been quieter than normal this afternoon. Sullen.
I tug the keys from the door and pocket them. “Did we get the shipment of cedar posts from San Marcos?”
“Came in hours ago.” She doesn’t look up, flipping a page with a sharp flick. “It’s in the warehouse. I put the invoice on your desk—not that you’ve looked.”
My jaw ticks. “What does that mean?”
Her head snaps up. “Means you’re preoccupied.”
“No, I’m not.” I plant a hand on the counter. “I’ve been here all afternoon. There’s no invoice on my desk.”
“Maybe I forgot.”
“What’s your problem, Darla?”
Her eyes flick over me. “You really want to know?”
“Wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
“She’s Grant Prescott’s wife. One of the most powerful men in music and you think she’s going to trade that in for you?”
Well fuck me if Laurel didn’t read that right.
I straighten, my jaw flexing. “I can take care of myself.”
“Not when it comes to her.”
What the fuck?
“You don’t even know her.” Darla only moved here about four years ago.
“I know enough.”
A muscle jumps in my cheek. Darla and I had a go at it when she first moved here. Ancient history. Nothing lasting.
Maybe she’s heard around town what Laurel leaving did to me.
Maybe she’s guessing. I don’t know.
I swallow it down. She’s a good business manager. I don’t want to lose her. “I’ll walk you out.” I always do.
She keeps a step ahead of me, her fists balled at her sides. When she drives off, gravel spits under her tires.
I never expected this.
I head for the Dust Devil. It’s on the way home.
Sliding a beer at me, Tanner leans close, forearms braced on the bar. “I take it you two…”
I lift a hand, palm out. “One day at a time.”
He snorts, shaking his head. “Right.”
Not in the mood, I throw it back at him. “You ever going to tell me what’s going on with you and Mercy?”
Tanner just shakes his head, looking past me at the front door. “Waddy, take a load off!”
Waddy takes the stool beside me, smelling like the sale barn. Piss and manure. I chuckle to myself. Maybe that’s why he’s so full of bullshit.
He elbows me as Tanner slides him a beer before heading to another customer. “I hear you’re back to square one.”
“What does that mean?”
“Means it’s all over town. You and Laurel in the Red Wagon two days in a row. You acting like baby Daddy. The girl who broke your heart comes back into town and you’re like a beagle trailing a rabbit.”
It’s all I can do not to pull him off that stool. I set the beer down—too hard. “Fuck off, asshat.”
He lifts his hands defensively. “Just sayin’. Once bitten twice shy. You should, at least, tread lightly.”
“Why is it that every fucking body thinks they know what’s best for me?” I fist my beer, knuckles white, taking a long swill.
“Who’s everybody besides Waddy?” Tanner’s back.
He gets a side-eye. “Darla. She’s acting like something bit her on the ass.”
Waddy tips his head back, letting a chuckle roll out. “You’re kidding me. Are you blind? That woman’s been salivating over you for years.”
“Darla?”
“Jesus, Calder. You really are blind,” he mutters into his beer.
My cellphone trills and I see it’s Truitt. Thank fuck. Anything to change this subject.
“I’m meeting the fire marshal and a representative of Lone Star Wind at Bender Ridge in the morning,” he says. “Thought you might want to meet me.”
“I’ll be there.” Give me a chance to avoid Darla.
Feeding the stock later, my mind won’t stop.
Waddy—at least tread lightly.
Truitt—she’s as unpredictable as a grassfire.
Darla—a rich woman who lives in a place like Nashville will never come back and stay here.
Then Laurel. I need you.
That drowns everything else out. No use listening to the naysayers.
I know there’s no turning back. Not now.
Texting Darla I’d be in late, I head for Bender Ridge first thing in the morning, my mind on Laurel and her trip for the paternity test, knowing how that knocked her to her knees.
I text her. “I’m with you in spirit.”
A breath slips out when her heart emoji lights the screen.
“See you after?” I text back.
The ding and double-heart punches straight through my damn ribs, waking something low inside me. I drive the rest of the way to Bender Ridge planning what we can do ‘after.’
On top the ridge for the first time since the fire, I see the damage done.
It looks like the world’s been scraped down to charred bone with wind still ripping across it, carrying the bite of scorched cedar.
Skeletal clusters stand in twisted shapes, needles burned to black curls.
Some trunks split open where the heat boiled the sap and blew them apart.
Others lean like drunks, roots half-exposed where the fire ate the soil out from under them.
The ground is nothing but black. Char. Ash. Cracked earth where the heat was worst. Every step kicks up a gray puff that the wind steals before it settles. Footprints don’t last more than a second up here.
Little threads of smoke still whisper out of the dirt here and there. I stomp the ones I see. Stubborn. Waiting for the wrong gust to wake them up again.
The turbines loom overhead, blades turning slow in the wind. Slow my ass. They only look slow.
At the tips, they’re slicing the air faster than a damn race car, indifferent to the ruin they cause.
The burn scar stretches across the flat ridge in a wide teardrop, edges feathered where the flames licked outward before we drowned them. Grass burned so hot it left nothing but brittle stubble. Cedar posts charred to pointed stumps, barbed wire sagging. The metal T-posts charred black.
A couple of old beer cans someone tossed years ago melted into silver puddles.
Sound? The mechanical hum of the generator, the whooshing of the blades—and the wind. Always the wind. Up here it kicks up dust that stings—my denim shirt the only thing protecting me from it.
I feel it in my bones—the ridge stripped bare, the land laid open, the air still tasting like smoke. Bender Ridge was changed by that fire—the same way I was years ago.
Making my way to Truitt—the fire marshal, Evan Rios, squats on the heels of his boots beside him, staring up at a turbine.
“All right, Evan. Tell me what I’m lookin’ at,” Truitt says.
Rios taps a patch of dirt with his glove. “Your point of origin’s right here. Everything burns outward from this spot.” He holds up a small, twisted piece of metal. “This is from the gearbox. Bearing fragment.”
Truitt frowns. “What happened?”
“I’d say the gearbox overheated. When those bearings fail, they spit flaming lubricant. Oil sprays out the bottom of the nacelle, drips down the tower, and hits dry grass. That’s your ignition source.”
“So, it rained fire,” I mutter, my gaze sweeping the charred ridge.
“Pretty much,” Rios says. “No accelerants. No human activity. No lightning. No machinery on the ground. This is a straight mechanical failure.”
Truitt’s jaw tightens. “You’ll put that in writing.”
Rios nods. “Report will read, cause of ignition—accidental mechanical failure of wind turbine gearbox, resulting in discharge of burning lubricant.”
Truitt lets out a slow breath. “Good. The last one was inconclusive, but this one will get us a new truck.”
Rios gives him a sympathetic look. “Engine 2, right? I heard.”
“County can’t replace it,” Truitt says. “But the wind company can.”
Rios smirks. “With this report? They’re liable. It may take a while. They won’t like it, but eventually, they’ll pay.”
That’s one victory.