There are two options here: stay or go. As she paces back and forth in the parking lot for the second time that night, she weighs them carefully. She looks up at the stars, wishing she knew anything about constellations and what wisdom they might hold.
But then, from behind the door of the neighboring duplex, she hears Hutch yodel in ecstasy, and her decision is made.
She fishes her phone out of her pocket, dials the number on the card, and Renata Caldwell answers on the second ring.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
A fraying bright orange duffelbag with a sticky zipper is packed to the gills with all of Grace’s belongings. She doesn’t dwell on how sad it is that everything important in the world to her can fit in a ratty old gym bag—traveling light means it isn’t hard for her to be ready to go in thirty-six hours. Three hard, booming knocks sound at her apartment door around 6a.m., and she jolts slightly from her place at the edge of her unmade bed.
With the bag slung over her shoulder, she opens the door and finds a man who takes up most of the doorway with his imposing figure; if he weren’t hunched over with his elbow leaning against the doorframe, he’d knock his black cattleman hat off his head just by walking through.
“Hey,” Grace says softly, offering a hesitant half smile. “Good mornin’.”
Renata had mentioned she’d be unable to fetch Grace from Minetta herself but she’d be sending the ranch’s foreman, and “not to worry about” any sort of unfriendliness, because “grumpy is sort of his default setting.”
His voice is raspy and thick with sleep when he says, simply, “Are you Grace Underwood?”
“Yeah,” Grace says, and then follows quickly with: “Are you the foreman?”
The man lets out a little huff. “Among other things,” he says. “Let’s go.” He jerks his chin in the direction of her bag, beckoning with his hand for her to give it to him. She does, and thenwatches him toss it into the bed of a pristine, gigantic F-350 as though it’s stuffed with feathers.
Some trucks this size have the little step stool to assist the vertically challenged, but this one doesn’t. Grace opens the passenger-side door and is sort of silently amping herself to jump up when a hulking figure appears at her side. He looks younger in the dark, less severe under the softness of dawn, and there’s a slightly amused shine to his eyes that has her cheeks starting to pink. She looks down to find his hand held out for her, and the fact that it looks proportionate in size to this behemoth of a truck he drives around, well—
“I can do it,” she argues, brow knitting together.
“I’m not gonna let you break your neck before we even get out of the parking lot,” he counters, his hand stretching farther in her direction. “C’mon. Up you go.”
She holds his stare, challenging him. When he doesn’t relent, she sighs and grabs on, unwilling to admit to herself or him that it’s much easier to climb while using him as leverage. He holds on until she’s fully in, and when she looks back at him standing with his arm outstretched, their gazes lock for a brief moment. Grace nods her thanks to him with a small smile, one he returns not with his mouth but with his eyes. They’re dark, much like the rest of him, but they’re soft, somehow. Almost sparkling.
The truck smells clean and leathery, like it just rolled off the lot. The seat squeaks as she slides into it, and she’s suddenly very aware of the permanent film of dirt that clings to her jeans no matter how many times she washes them. The burly chauffeur slides into the driver’s seat without much effort, his long limbslending to a swift, graceful movement. As he gets himself situated, Grace takes a moment to survey him. Before, she’d been so caught off guard by the sheer size of him—easily six foot three, maybe taller, and built like a damn linebacker—that she hadn’t noticed much else. Now, she sees the black waves that stick out under his hat, the freckles and moles dotted across his cheeks and neck, and the way his jaw never seems to settle. It works and works, and she wonders whether it’s a tic. Or—more plausibly—something he does when he’s annoyed.
He starts the truck, then places a hand on the back of her headrest as he reverses out of the parking lot and onto the empty road that will lead them out of town. Filling up silence with empty conversation has never been a compulsion of hers, but something about this man—the stern look on his face contrasting with the ease of his hands as he drives the truck, the way his black button-down hangs on his body like it was created specifically for him—she can’t help herself.
“So, you’re the foreman,” she repeats, then awkwardly clears her throat when he doesn’t acknowledge her. “Renata didn’t give me your name.”
His lips twitch. A subtle movement she would’ve missed had she not been staring directly at him. Grace blinks, waiting for him to say something.Anything. He glances at her quickly, then looks back at the road and says, “Crew. Crew Caldwell.”
Grace’s mouth drops open.Wait.“Caldwell, like—”
“Like Renata Caldwell is my mother.”
“Oh,” Grace says, a bit dumbstruck. She’d considered going to the library to google the Caldwells and Halcyon Ranch the day before, but decided any research would only make her morenervous. She’s regretting that decision with every bone in her body right now. “I didn’t realize.”
He looks at her again, more appraising this time. “Where’re you coming from?”
Leaning back a bit farther into her seat, Grace clasps her hands together in her lap, gripping her fingers a little too hard. “Braxton Ranch, out near Hopeland.”
Crew’s brows pull together, and whatever semblance of a smile he’d worn moments ago starts to sour. “Braxton Ranch, as in Bellamy Whitlock’s Braxton Ranch?”
Looking away, Grace looks out into the endless, open road ahead. “Did your mother not tell you how she found me?”
“I didn’t ask,” he admits. A beat of quiet, and then, “But I’m askin’ now.”
Grace’s lips press into a line, and she starts to wring her hands together, tugging at the scarred skin on her palms. In a quieter voice, she says, “Bellamy’s my uncle.”
Silence hangs between them for a long moment. Grace wishes the radio was on—a droning AM station would be better than this tense, unrelenting silence. Eventually, he asks, “He do that to you?”
She looks up and notices him staring at her hands, which are unfortunately illuminated in the dim blue light of the truck cab. The keloid scars are thick, pink, and obvious to anyone with eyes. She immediately turns her hands over, pressing them into her jeans.
