Page 102 of The Lonely Road

I should say no. I should leave now, tonight, while I still have something left to account for. I should not stay in her house with the photographs of her files in my phone and her trust across the kitchen counter between us.

“Yes.”

She goes down the hallway.

I stand at the kitchen counter for a little while after.

The creek runs outside.

The mountains are invisible in the dark but present—you can feel them, the mass of them, the quality of space that large things create.

Eventually, I turn off the kitchen light and go down the hallway.

I use her bathroom where she’s put a toothbrush for me.

I take a shower, a quick one, and then slide into bed where she’s reading a book.

She puts it on the bedside table. It’s a law book. Vranesh’s Colorado Water Law.

She turns off the light and turns to me just as I hold my arms out for her.

It’s how we sleep when we’re together.

A habit formed in such a short time of knowing one another.

The comfort of homecoming when she puts her head on my shoulder, and I wrap myself around her.

Her breathing slows.

She doesn’t move away.

I don’t let her go, either.

This is the last night we will spend together.

I know that because there are photographs on my phone, charging on the nightstand that I will send to Jessup’s lawyers in Texas tomorrow.

CHAPTER 26

mason

Ileave before it’s light.

I’ve gotten good at that.

She’s asleep when I get up.

I dress in the hallway, shoes in hand, like a man who has done this before and is aware of every sound a house makes when you’re trying not to make any.

I walk the two miles to the Ridgeline Inn. While I do, I send a text message because I need to deal with Trafton.

The response comes immediately, even though it’s the crack of dawn.

I don’t go into my room; I go straight to my truck.

I drive to the Broken Bit and find Kaz nursing coffee.

Miss Patsy is behind the bar and has the resigned patience of someone who has been opening this place before dawn since the previous century and finds the habit of it more comforting than the sleep she’s missing.