Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35372 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35372 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Wyatt's the black sheep. Drunk before dinner, ridin' Eleanor's coattails without a job, sharp in the mouth, soft everywhere else. That was Eleanor too, underneath all the curation. Cruel when she wanted and sloppy when nobody was takin' her picture. Wyatt just inherited it without the polish.
Cash doesn't say much. Head of the table. Runs the whole damn operation and won't announce it. Quiet. Watchful. Lets people reveal themselves before he speaks.
That's me. That's exactly me.
Savannah sits at the foot of the table like Eleanor taught her to, back straight, smile ready, but I know what's under it now. I've had it under me. I've heard it scream my name.
Mercy and Destiny don't compare to her. They can't. Destiny's already a mother at eighteen and Mercy's nine and feral around the edges no matter how many ponies Cash buys her.
But Mercy's at Rimrock now, I remind myself. Same halls Savannah walked. She'll learn which fork. She'll learn which napkin. She'll learn what to say at tables like this one so she doesn't feel like an imposter every time she sits down.
Royal family shit.
Arrangements. Alliances. The kind of connections that come with the cost of tuition at Montana's most elite boardin' school.
Mercy's gonna have a chance I never got. And I don't know how to feel about that except grateful.
"I talked to Destiny today," Savannah says. Light, like it's nothin'.
Wyatt snorts and shakes his head and keeps eatin'. Doesn't even look up.
Cash's eyes come to mine across the table. Steady. Not askin' nothin', just checkin'. I know what he's lookin' for. He wants to know if I'm gonna put my fork down and say somethin' ugly about his brother. About the seventeen-year-old sister of mine Colt got pregnant while I was sittin' in Whitefall tryin' not to lose my mind.
I don't.
I just hold his eye and chew.
He holds mine and does the same.
Neither one of us says a fuckin' word.
"She sounds good," Savannah goes on, softer now, 'cause she can feel it even if she's pretendin' she can't. "The baby was cooin' in the background. She said Marigold looks like me."
I take a drink of water.
"I want them to come home," she says. And her voice does somethin' then, goes a little thin around the edges. "Colt and Destiny. Marigold. I want them here. At this table."
Wyatt snorts again. Cash and I both just keep chewin'.
"Legion." She turns to me. Puts her hand on my wrist. Her fingers are warm. "Would you ask Destiny to ask Colt to call me? Please? Just—a call. That's all."
Cash's eyes come back to mine.
I know what he's askin' without askin'. He wants to know if I've really made peace with it or if I'm just sayin' I have till the day I decide to put him under.
"Sure, baby," I say, and I turn my hand under hers so our palms meet. "I'll ask."
She lights up. I mean it too. Lights the fuck up. Like I handed her the sun on a plate. Her whole face goes soft, and her eyes get wet at the corners, and she squeezes my wrist and says thank you in a voice that isn't meant for anybody but me, even though her brothers are right there hearin' it.
And I think—god damn. This. Right here. This is what she wants.
Her family at a table. All of 'em. Alive and fed.
Cash still hasn't said nothin'. He just picks up his knife again and cuts into his chicken real neat, and I pick up mine and do the same.
He talks about cattle after that. Auctions and genetics. Breeding. A couple points about calving. Something about oil debt.
I think he's talkin' to me, too. Could be Savannah. But she just does that "mmmhmmm," thing. The I’m-not-really-listening murmur. Noddin' her head and smilin'.
So I know he's not really talkin' to Savannah.
And Wyatt is gulpin’ down a beer like it's water, already standin’ up as he drinks, so he's definitely not talkin’ to Wyatt.
Which means he is talkin' to me.
And that's weird. I'm not a cowboy. I can ride a horse, but not correctly. I learned by sittin’ on Savannah's many ponies growin’ up. She taught me how to steer a twelve-hundred-pound animal the same way I taught her how to kick a dirt bike.
Casually, and only for fun.
I got no idea about cows.
I know nothing about auctions, or breeding, calving, or oil debt.
But it occurs to me now, right here at dinner, that maybe that was the point of his brother-in-law talk.
Alliances or whatever.
Maybe I am useful to him. Since Wyatt clearly isn't.
Maybe, after all that bad blood between us, he's finally caught on that I am, at the very least, a serious person.
"All right then," Wyatt announces as he sets his empty beer bottle down. Then, as if on cue—like he's making the point in my head on purpose—he burps loudly. "That was good. See ya'll tomorrow at breakfast."