“I mean—” I fumbled, searching for words. “I—I have about two hundred thousand dollars in savings. From—my mom. Before she—” I did a vague hand gesture, as if the actual cause of death was too complicated to mime out at this hour. “It’s in a trust, but it’s liquid. I could transfer it today.”
Nobody moved.
Ransom’s cigarette fell out from behind his ear, hit his lap, and he didn’t even notice. Harlow’s arms went slack, and for the first time in my life, I saw genuine shock on his face. Knox stared at me like I’d just told him I was secretly the Queen of England.
Pa grunted, deep and surprised, and said, “Son, this is not your problem to fix.”
I shook my head, which only made the inside-out shirt situation more obvious. “But it is. He—my father—he did this because of me. And because of you. If I can pay it off, it’s done. He can’t use it anymore.”
Aunt Georgia recovered first. She clamped my hand in both of hers and said, “You sweet child. You’d do that for us?”
I nodded, then realized that was probably the least articulate way to communicate the magnitude of what I was proposing. “Yes?” I said, voice squeaky. “Absolutely. I mean, you guys havedone more for me in two months than my own family did in twenty years. It’s not even a question.”
Harlow nodded, slowly, like this made perfect sense. Ransom looked at me with new respect, like he was debating whether to propose marriage or try to rob me.
Knox just kept staring, eyes unreadable. I could see him weighing something, and I wanted to say, It’s not a trap, I promise. I’m not going to run. But the words got stuck, so I just stared back.
For a second, I worried I’d said something wrong. That they’d reject my offer, that I’d overstepped, that I’d just ruined the one thing in my life that felt like home. The urge to bolt off the couch and out the door was so strong I actually started to rise.
Knox’s hand shot out and pinned me to the cushion. It was gentle, but absolute. His thumb pressed into the meat of my shoulder, grounding me in place. He said, “We’ll talk about it later,” in a tone that brooked no argument.
And that was that.
The room exhaled, as if on a shared cue, and the crisis shifted. Pa stood, his knees cracking like old timber, and said, “Well. I guess we best have breakfast and plan a war council.”
Everyone dispersed at once, like the tension had been holding them in orbit and now, released, they could go back to normal McKenzie priorities—food, strong coffee, and plotting elaborate acts of rural vengeance.
Only Knox stayed, hand on my shoulder, gaze fixed on my face.
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, quiet but intense, he said, “You didn’t have to do this.”
I shrugged. “I wanted to.”
He let go, finally, but not all the way. His hand slid down to mine, and he squeezed, hard enough to leave marks. Then he said, “Thank you,” so softly I barely heard it.
I grinned, teeth and all, and said, “Anytime.”
Even if I was still wearing my shirt backward.
If you think the worst possible way to start your day is with a family meeting at dawn, let me offer a pro tip: it gets even worse when the family in question is determined to protect you from yourself, even if it means letting the entire McKenzie operation go down in a blaze of noble, debt-fueled glory.
Case in point, the kitchen, thirty minutes after I’d thrown my inheritance onto the table like the world’s lamest hand grenade.
Harlow had made a “victory” stack of pancakes that was easily three feet high, with a scoop of butter on top so large it could have solved the energy crisis.
I tried to focus on the syrup, but my nerves were vibrating so fast I was pretty sure the spoon was in danger of achieving liftoff.
Knox had not said a word since his “We’ll talk about it later.” I kept waiting for the “later” part. It was like living with a time bomb where the only clue it’s going to explode is the fact that it’s still ticking, louder and louder, and sometimes it glares at you from across the table.
I made it halfway through a pancake before Knox finally snapped. He set his fork down, very deliberately, and said, “You’re not spending a dime of that money, Newt. Not on this.”
Every face at the table pivoted to me. The pressure was enough to force the half-chewed pancake down my esophagus without a swallow.
I tried to muster the same bravery that had led me to blurt out my net worth in the first place. “It’s not just for you,” I said, then immediately panicked that this sounded like I was trying to buy his affection, which, okay, a little, but not in a transactional way. “I mean, it’s for all of you. You’re my—” I stopped, knowingbetter than to say the F-word out loud in this context. “You’re my people.”
Knox’s jaw flexed. “That’s not how it works.”
I squinted at him, determined not to fold. “I thought I was a McKenzie now,” I said, aiming for confident and landing somewhere around “lost puppy.”
