"This is child labor," Clay said.
"You're thirty-one,” Wyatt chuckled.
"It's adult labor. Which is arguably worse."
"Maggie." Momma caught my arm as I reached for the stack of serving platters. "Leave those. Walk with me."
It wasn't a request. Louisa Blackwood didn't make requests. She issued instructions that sounded like invitations but had the structural integrity of military orders.
We walked toward the wedding tree, just a few steps from the porch. The oak's branches spread wide overhead, silver-edged in the moonlight.
"Beautiful night," Momma said.
"It is.” I felt like I was holding a grenade with the pin pulled, waiting with bated breath for the explosion.
"Good dinner."
"Your brisket's never missed."
"Mmm." She was quiet for a moment, and I knew—the way you always knew with my mother—that the real conversation hadn't started yet. "I told you this morning I'm not asking questions. And I meant it."
She stopped walking. Turned to face me.
"But I'm telling you what I see." Her voice was gentle, which was somehow worse than sharp. "I see a man who watches you when you're not looking. The same way you watch him." She held up a hand before I could protest. "He's charming, your Jack. But not the way Clay's charming—all flash and no follow-through. Jack's charming like deep water. You don't realize how far down it goes until you're already swimming."
"He's notmyJack.” Even as I said it, it felt like a lie.
Her head tilted, eyes searching mine. “Isn’t he?"
The silence between us stretched. The wedding tree creaked overhead, branches shifting in the night wind.
"He fits well here," she said, softer now. "Your father's already talking about making him permanent. And I trust your father's judgment about men—God knows I married him, and that worked out." She squeezed my arm. "Whatever's happening, Maggie—or not happening, if that's what you needme to believe—just know that I see you. And I'm here when you're ready."
She walked back toward the house, her posture straight, her stride unhurried, the absolute certainty of a woman who'd said exactly what she meant and not a word more.
I stood under the wedding tree and tried to remember how to breathe.
The evening wound down in familiar patterns.
Wyatt and Ivy on the bench swing, talking low, their hands intertwined. They'd nearly lost each other over the years of silence and not knowing. Watching them now, careful and grateful, made something ache behind my ribs.
Liam and Stephanie at the tree line, his arm around her shoulders, her head against his chest. Two people who knew what loss looked like—his parents taken by violence, her sense of safety stripped from her—finding quiet in each other. That kind of closeness didn't come easy. It came from choosing it every day, despite everything that argued against it.
Momma and Daddy by the fire pit, her feet in his lap, his hand on her ankle. Forty years, and they still touched each other like it mattered.
I'd watched them all my life. Learned what love looked like by observing. Just never figured out how to have it for myself.
Jack was near the fire pit, talking to Daddy about something involving a lot of hand gestures—the Fort Worth stallion data, if I had to guess. Sully had made friends with Momma, who was scratching behind his ears while the dog gazed up at her with total devotion.
They looked like a family.
He looked like he belonged.
Clay dropped into the chair beside me, two beers in hand. Offered me one. I took it even though I hadn't finished my wine.
"No thoughts," I said preemptively. "Just tired."
"I wasn't going to ask."
