His skin is gray.
His hands are trembling around his coffee.
But his eyes are the same—clear, blue, furious.
“I told you no.”
“You did. And I respect that. But I’d be failing as a neighbor if I didn’t point out the reality of your situation. Medical bills. Property taxes. Maintenance costs on a property this size. You’re a practical man, Earl. The numbers don’t lie.”
I step onto the porch. “He said no, Lockhart.”
Wade turns to me.
The smile stays but his eyes change. Cooler. Appraising.
The neighborly veneer thinning to show what’s underneath—a man who is used to getting what he wants and is recalculating now that he’s encountering resistance from an unexpected direction.
“This is a family matter, Bexley.” My full name. Deliberate. A power play so subtle you’d miss it if you weren’t raised by a man who used your name like a leash. “I’m sure Earl appreciates your help, but decisions about the property should be made by?—”
“By who?” I step closer. My voice is level. My hands are not. “By family? Is that what you were going to say?”
Lockhart holds my gaze. And then he says it.
“You’re not family, sweetheart. You don’t have a say in this.”
The words land like a blade in the one place I have no armor.
Not family.
The thing I’ve been afraid of my whole life, said out loud, on this porch, by a man who saw exactly where to cut and did it with a smile.
Not family.
The kid from the bad home.
The tagalong.
The girl who got a chair at someone else’s table because a dead woman loved her, not because she had any right to be there.
Behind me, Earl’s rocker creaks.
“Wade.” Earl’s voice is thin but it carries. The voice of a man who has spent seventy years on this land and will not be contradicted on his own porch. “That girl is more family to me than you will ever understand. And if I hear you speak to her that way again, on my property or anywhere else, we’re going to have a different kind of conversation.”
Lockhart’s smile doesn’t waver. But something behind his eyes recalculates. He tips his hat.
“No offense intended. Just stating facts.” He looks at Earl. “The offer stands. But it won’t stand forever.”
He walks to his truck, tips the hat again through the window and drives away slow.
I stand on the porch and hold my body very still and do not let the shaking start until his dust has settled.
Earl’s hand finds mine. Bony. Trembling. But sure.
“You are my family,” he says. Quiet. Fierce. “You have been since you were eight years old and Rose dragged you home like a stray cat. Blood doesn’t make family, Bexley. Love does. And don’t you let any slick son of a bitch in a clean hat tell you otherwise.”
I squeeze his hand because honestly, I don’t trust my voice.
He squeezes back, pats it once and lets go.
