Chapter 17
Molly
"Hey, little bee," he croons. "Hey. Daddy's here. What's all this fussing about?"
I sink back against the headboard, heart still hammering.
Right. He's on night shift tonight. We agreed: Tuesdays and Fridays he takes the monitor, sleeps in the guest room down the hall, handles everything from midnight to six so I can actually get consecutive hours for once.
It took me a day to accept the offer, and I still jolt awake anyway, convinced I am failing some fundamental maternal test by letting someone else soothe her.
Through the monitor, I hear the familiar symphony: his footsteps, the creak of the nursery rocker, Clem's cries downshifting from furious to merely indignant.
"Tell me about it," he murmurs. "The audacity of being hungry at three in the morning. Truly unconscionable."
I smile into the dark despite myself. He's been reading to her from his old ranching journals, which she obviously can't understand, but she seems to like the steady rhythm of his voice.
Last week I walked in on him explaining the finer points of rotational grazing to our baby who was mostly interested in his thumb.
The crying stops. I should go back to sleep, that's the whole point, but my body is already moving, feet finding the cold floor, shuffling down the hall toward the warm glow leaking under the nursery door.
I push it open quietly.
Taz is in the rocker, Clem cradled in one arm, her bottle in his other hand. He's shirtless, apparently grabbed the baby before grabbing clothes, and his hair is sticking up on one side like a startled rooster. He looks ridiculous. He looks like home.
"She settled as soon as I sat down," he whispers. "Apparently the service was acceptable once I stopped pacing."
"She likes to know who's in charge," I whisper back. "Tonight it's a six-week-old with no pants."
"I respect a leader who states her needs clearly," he says solemnly.
I lean against the doorway. "I heard her stop crying and still had to come check. My body hasn't received the memo that I can stay in bed."
He tips his head at the footstool. "Want to sit for a minute?"
"If I sit, I'll fall asleep here," I tell him. "I just wanted to see her."
He finishes the bottle and eases Clem against his shoulder. "She's taken this much. I'll put it on the chart when she's down."
"You don't have to report every ounce to me," I say.
"It's for whoever has the next feed," he says. "I'm trying to spare you the three-in-the-morning investigation."
"Fair," I admit. "My interrogations have become unprofessional. Yesterday I asked the kettle when she'd last eaten."
His mouth twitches. "Did it give you anything useful?"
"Steam and an attitude," I say. "Basically the same response I get from everyone before coffee."
His laugh is quiet enough not to disturb her. I watch his hand against her back. He isn't looking toward his phone, isn't calculating how quickly this can be finished.
"Does she always do that with her fist?" he asks. "Right before she falls asleep?"
"Sometimes," I tell him. "She holds on until the last second. Then she forgets she's supposed to be furious with the world."
"Good to know," he says. "I was about to negotiate for my thumb."
I catch his eye and immediately regret looking. "Get it in writing. She's occupying some valuable real estate."
"She can have it," he murmurs. "I've got another hand."
Clem makes a satisfied little sound against his shoulder.
Her eyes are already closing again, milk-drunk and content.
I should go. I should absolutely go back to bed and take the sleep I've been offered and not stand here in my ratty oversized t-shirt cataloging the dark circles under his eyes and the new lines around his mouth and the way he holds our daughter, careful as a man carrying eggs across ice.
He rises carefully and carries her to the crib. I stay by the door while he lowers her onto her back, then waits with one hand hovering above the mattress until she's settled.
She settles, sighs, and goes still.
We both exhale.
"I'll keep the monitor," he whispers. "Try for another couple of hours. If she needs you, I'll come get you."
"Don't finish a ranching journal at her," I warn him. "I'd like her to learn my name before rotational grazing."
"We haven't reached the technical section," he says. "She's been very critical of the introduction."
I snort. But I go, padding back down the hall to my room, leaving him to the monitor and the rocker and the quiet dark.
I fall asleep faster than I have in weeks.
At six-fifteen, I wake to the smell of coffee and the sound of Carmen singing in Spanish downstairs. Sunlight through the curtains. No crying through the monitor.
When I come down, Taz is at the kitchen table, Clem in her bouncy seat beside him, both of them watching Carmen flip pancakes with the intensity of people studying a magic trick.
"Morning," he says. "She's been fed, changed, and complimented extensively on her neck strength."
"Does she give performance reviews back?" I ask.
"Loud ones. No opportunity to appeal." He slides a mug toward the empty chair. "Carmen made the good coffee. I know better than to compete."
I sit and drink. Across the table, I watch my daughter watch the ceiling fan like it contains the secrets of the universe.
Taz slides the sugar toward me without being asked. I let him.
We're still broken in a dozen places. This morning, at least, the pieces sit at the same table.
At the end of the first week, we need supplies. Clem's going through diapers faster than I anticipated, and I'm out of the good coffee, and there are a few things I want from the hardware store for my grandmother's porch rails.
"I'll go," Taz offers.
"I want to go," I tell him. "I've been cooped up in this house for days."
He frowns. "You're supposed to be resting."
"I've rested enough. I'm going to start climbing the walls if I don't get out of here." I grab my jacket. "You can come if you want. Hold the baby. Be useful."
"I'll bring the list too," he says. "You wrote coffee twice. Should I take that as emphasis?"
"Take it as a warning," I say, jabbing a finger at his chest. "Buy the wrong kind and you're living with the consequences."
"I'll photograph the bag," he says. "Evidence in my defense."
Town is exactly like I remembered it: small and dusty and full of people who know too much about everyone's business.
The main street is three blocks long, lined with the same stores that have been there since I was a kid holding my grandmother's hand.
Hardware store, grocery, feed shop, the diner with the red awning, the tiny post office that still has a hitching post out front even though nobody's tied a horse there in fifty years.
People stare when we get out of the truck.
They're staring at Taz, not me. He's carrying Clem in the baby carrier I bought, the one that straps to his chest and makes him look like a very large, very intimidating marsupial. She's awake for once, her green eyes taking in the world from the safety of his body.
"Mrs. Patterson just looked me up and down like she was choosing where to bury me," Taz mutters.
"She grows beautiful roses," I whisper back. "You'll be useful at last."
He glances down at Clem. "Your mother has plans for me."
"Try coming home with the right coffee," I tell him. "It might buy you a reprieve."
At the hardware store, Mr. Hernandez, bifocals on a cord and a pencil behind his ear the way he's worn it for thirty years, turns the wood-stain tin so I can read the label.
"For your grandmother's porch rails?" he asks me.
"For a little job at the farm first," I tell him. "I want to see the color before I commit."
"Sensible." He looks past Taz toward the window. "Anything else for you, Molly?"
"That's everything," I say. "Thank you."
Outside, Taz adjusts the carrier. "I could have offered to carry the whole display and he wouldn't have heard me."
"You could," I say. "He'd probably make you prove it."
The grocery cashier rings up the diapers and coffee, smiling down at Clem. "Look at those cheeks. You must be proud, Molly."
"Exhausted," I tell her. "The pride comes back after the caffeine."
She laughs and gives me the receipt. Taz receives the bags and a nod usually reserved for somebody blocking a driveway.
I wait until we're outside to look at him. "Small-town customer service. Comes with a complete moral evaluation."
"They care about you," Taz says.
"They could care with less eye contact," I grumble. "I've bought groceries here my whole life. Suddenly everybody wants to know if I'm coping near the frozen peas."
"Want me to go ahead next time?" he asks.
"No," I say. "You can survive one trip beside me. I've had weeks of it."
He takes the heavier bag. "I can do that."
We're almost back to the truck when I see him.
Boone is standing outside the diner, leaning against the brick wall like he owns it. His nose is still taped, the break I gave him four weeks ago clearly hasn't healed yet, and there's a bruise under his left eye that's faded to a sickly yellow.
He sees me at the same moment I see him.
"Well, well." His voice carries across the street, loud enough to make people turn and look. "If it isn't Molly Edward and her pet billionaire. Playing house again?"
I feel Taz go still beside me. His hand moves to Clem's back, protective.
"Keep walking," I murmur.
"Molly—" Taz starts.
"He's not worth it," I tell him, low. "Keep walking."
But Boone isn't done. He pushes off the wall and saunters toward us, that familiar swagger that used to make my skin crawl. Still does.
"Heard you got yourself knocked up," he calls out. "Guess the rich boy finally did something useful, huh? Though I hear he had some trouble keeping it in his pants. What was her name again? Your friend?"
"Walk away, Boone." My voice is steadier than I feel.
"Why? I'm just making conversation." He stops a few feet from us, eyes flicking from me to Taz to Clem and back again. "Nice baby. Shame about the daddy. What's it feel like, Williams, knowing everyone in this town thinks you're a cheating piece of shit?"
"What does it feel like," Taz says quietly, "having a broken nose?"
Boone's face darkens. "You think that was funny?"
"I think you should walk away," Taz says.
"And if I don't? You gonna call your lawyers?
Have your security guys rough me up?" Boone laughs, ugly and sharp.
"That's all you city boys know how to do.
Throw money at problems. Hide behind other people.
" He spits on the ground. "You wouldn't last a day doing real work. Borrowed hat on a borrowed ranch."
My temper snaps.
"Shut up," I say.
Both men turn to look at me. Boone's eyes narrow.
"What did you say?" Boone asks.
"You heard me." I step forward, putting myself between Taz and Boone.
"You want to talk about real work? Taz has been ranching since before he could walk.
He can rope, ride, brand, and break a horse.
He built our honey house with his own two hands.
He knows more about cattle than you'll learn in a lifetime.
" I can feel the heat rising in my face, but I don't stop.
"He's more cowboy than you'll ever be, and you know it.
That's why you hate him. That's why you've always hated him.
Because he's everything you pretend to be, and everyone can see the difference. "
The silence that follows is absolute. Boone's face has gone an ugly shade of red.
"You always were a mouthy little—" Boone starts.
"Don't." Taz's voice is flat and cold in a way I've never heard before. He steps up beside me, and suddenly the sidewalk feels smaller, like the whole street is waiting to see what he'll do. "Don't finish that sentence."
Boone sneers. "Or what?"
"Or I'll break something else," Taz says.
Boone's eyes flick to Clem, still strapped to Taz's chest. "You gonna fight me with a baby on you?"
"I don't need to fight you." Taz stays beside me, and his posture shifts.
He looks bigger somehow. More solid. "I just need you to walk away.
Right now. And then I need you to keep walking.
Every time you see her. Every time you think about her.
You turn around and you go the other direction.
Because if you don't, if you ever come near her again, ever say another word to her, ever so much as look at her wrong, I will make sure you regret it for the rest of your life. "
The words are quiet, almost conversational. That's what makes them terrifying.
Boone stares at him. Then his eyes drop, and he takes a step back.
"This isn't over," he mutters.
Taz keeps his hand against Clem's back. "Keep walking."
Boone turns and walks away. His shoulders are hunched, and he doesn't look back.
Taz drives us home with both hands on the wheel. Clem falls asleep before we're out of town, and I watch the road unspool in front of us, trying to process what just happened.
"You frightened him," I say at last. "And I need you to hear me before you decide that solved it."
Taz glances at me. "I'm listening."
"Boone doesn't stop because somebody tells him to," I say. "He's been doing this since we were young. He waits until I'm alone, or he finds a way to make it look like I started it."
Taz's jaw flexes. "Then I won't assume he's finished."
"And you're not going to arrange a single thing behind my back," I tell him. "No mysterious phone calls. I have had enough of men deciding what I need without letting me in the room."
His hands settle lower on the wheel. "I'll tell you what I'm doing. We can keep a record of what happened today, who saw it. Take it to the sheriff together if you want."
"I want to get Clem home first," I say.
"Okay," he says.
The baby sleeps in her car seat, unaware of the ugliness we left on the sidewalk.
"You believed me," I say. "You didn't ask what I'd said to set him off."
"You don't have to earn the right to be left alone, Molly," he says.
I watch the road. My chest feels tight, but the fear has stopped filling every inch of it.
"Don't forget that when I'm angry with you," I tell him.
"I won't," he says.
"He'll never leave me alone," I say quietly. "Boone. Not really."
"We'll take this seriously." He glances over, then back at the road. "With you. Out loud. Every step of it where you can see."
I look at his hands on the wheel and realize I believe him.
When we reach the farm, we sit in his truck, engine off, and work through it like a checklist. Report the threat to the deputy tonight. Licensed security guard for overnight shifts—I can choose the agency myself.
"You can take approved shifts outside the nights you're here for feeds," I say. "Park by the barn gate. Text when you arrive, text when you leave."
"And if you want to change the plan—"
"Then I change it. No extra nights in the guest room, no showing up unannounced."
He nods once. "Whatever you need, Molly."
I stare out the windshield at the barn gate. I can change this arrangement. That matters more than any promise that he can make Boone disappear.
"Okay," I say finally. "We start tomorrow."