Silence.
Bandit yowled from the passenger seat like he was filing a formal complaint with God.
Sienna stayed behind the wheel, both hands wrapped around it. Her face had gone still. Too still. All that sharpness tucked away behind a blank look I didn’t like.
I knew that look.
That was someone doing math and finding out every answer hurt.
She climbed out slowly. “Okay.”
Regan came closer. “Sienna?—”
“No, it’s fine.” She nodded once, too quick. “It started. Sort of. That’s something.”
I shut the hood carefully.
She watched my hands.
I hated this part.
“Don’t,” she said.
I looked at her. “Don’t what?”
“Make the face.”
“What face?”
“The mechanic face. The man face. The this poor idiot woman is about to receive bad news face.”
I leaned back against the front of the truck and crossed my arms. “It ain’t gonna make Santa Fe.”
Her mouth tightened.
No joke this time. No comeback ready in the chamber.
“How not make it?” she asked.
“There are levels?”
“Yes. There’s expensive but possible, catastrophic but negotiable, and tow-it-into-a-ravine-for-emotional-closure.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
“Closer to the ravine.”
She looked away.
The wind moved through the carport, lifting loose strands of her hair, pressing that damn T-shirt against her chest again. This time, I didn’t notice it the same way. Or I did, but it got tangled with the way her shoulders dropped half an inch before she caught herself and forced them straight again.
She was trying not to crack.
Right there in front of all of us.
Over a truck most people would’ve junked two states ago.
