He's looking at the ceiling too.
I almost get up, but I don't.
I don’t know what comes over me.
I just feel like my mother left, but this man won't.
I close my eyes and I don't sleep.
* * *
It's just before dawn when I get up.
I'm thirsty. I want water. I tell myself that'sallI want.
I cross the bedroom in my tank top and sleep shorts.
Don't bother with a robe. He's seen me in less from twenty feet across a fire pit.
Spur is awake on the couch.
Eyes open. Tracking me in the gray light coming through the window.
I stop in the doorway of the kitchen.
I look at him.
He looks back.
"Spur."
"Yeah."
"Thanks."
"For what?"
"Buckley. Pops. The note. Sleeping on the couch. All of it."
He's quiet for a long second.
The kind of quiet where I think he might not answer, or might answer something I'm not ready for, and either way I'm going to remember this morning for the rest of my life.
"Dakota."
"Yeah."
"I'd burn this ranch to the fucking ground before I let somebody put a hand on you."
He says it flat. Not a confession. Not a promise.
Just a fact, the way a man states something he's already decided.
I hold his eyes a moment longer than I should.
I don't smile. I don't even speak. I just walk back to my bedroom, and leave the door open behind me.
I don't sleep, but I rest.
