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If I made it bigger on her behalf, I’d spoil the only clean thing about it.

I sat with that until the cold worked through my shirt.

Then I got up, went just inside the bunkhouse door, and listened.

Steady breathing from the back room.

I left the lamp on low and went out again.

***

“You planning to come in?”

Boone’s voice came through the kitchen screen.

I’d been standing below the main-house steps looking at the light. Close to midnight, and my brother sat at the table with a mug between his hands.

“Checking security.”

“Door’s unlocked.”

“Serious flaw.”

He waited.

I went in.

The kitchen smelled of old coffee and the soap Wyatt kept beside the sink. One light burned over the stove. The rest came from the table lamp, which Dad had hated because he said kitchens didn’t need table lamps.

We’d kept it anyway.

Boone wore a clean shirt and the tired expression of a man who’d finished one day and could already see the next waiting.

“Josie asleep?” I asked.

He nodded. “Everything all right?”

I pulled out a chair and sat opposite him.

The wood creaked under me. I rubbed my palms along my jeans.

Boone watched.

“I need to ask you something.”

“Ask.”

“It’s personal.”

His expression didn’t change. “Usually is when you use that voice.”

“What voice?”

“The one before you make a joke.”

I looked toward the sink. What was coming next definitely wasn’t a joke.

The refrigerator kicked on. Somewhere in the house, a board settled with a sound I’d known my whole life.