The door of the clubhouse opens.
Spur comes out first. Pops behind him. Then Banshee, then Shadow, then a flow of brothers.
Half of them don't look at me as they pass the porch.
Half of them do—small nods, small set jaws.
The ones who look at me are the ones telling me without words that I'm a Lyle on this ranch and the men in that room just took my problem as their own.
Pops comes up the porch. "You're with Spur until I say otherwise. Twenty-four seven. He sleeps where you sleep. Heeats where you eat. He's not your boyfriend, baby girl. He's your shadow. Are we clear?"
"Yes, Pops."
He looks at Spur. "Don't disappoint me."
"I won’t, Prez."
That's the whole thing. Pops takes Cal off my lap, kisses my forehead again, and walks inside.
Spur is on the porch with me. Hands in his cut pockets. Hat down.
"Dinner?" I say.
"You eat. I'll be at the rail."
"Spur."
"Yeah."
"Sit at the table with me."
He looks at me a second too long. "Sure. Okay."
Marlena sets a sixth plate without comment.
Pops is at the head, Marlena to his right, Cal in his high chair, me on the long side, Spur is next to me, Presley across.
Presley's eyes go to Spur. Then to me. Then to her plate.
She doesn't say anything about it.
She just kicks me lightly under the table, which is twenty-one-year-old sister code forI see you and I have questions later, and I fight smiling.
We eat. Pops talks about a new colt. Marlena tells a story about Cal and a Tupperware lid.
Spur eats half his plate and watches the windows. Nobody mentions the note.
Nobody looks at me funny.
After dinner I walk to Grace's. Spur stays ten feet behind me the entire way.
Grace is on the porch with chamomile tea and her feet up on the railing.
Waylon is asleep in the bassinet beside her.
Shadow's still at the clubhouse, working through whatever Pops handed off to him after church.
Spur stops at the bottom of the porch steps. Doesn't come up. "Inside or out?"
