Page 123 of The Lonely Road

No accusation. No finger pointed at me for putting her way of life at risk.

I hold her gaze. “That’s it? No comment about what happened with Mason?”

Her expression softens. “Hon, you trusted your man, and he screwed you over. He screwed me over after he played with my kids at Mav’s barbecue.” She shakes her head. “It’s his failure of honor. Not yours. And you’re already in enough pain without me adding to it.”

My lungs forget how to work for a moment.

“No way you take the blame for his lack of integrity,” she says, with a fierceness that catches me off guard. “What he did is on him. And if he’s any kind of man at all, he’ll have to look himself in the mirror and make it right—for himself, for you, for the universe. But you have nothing to make right. Not with me. Not with my babies. No one.”

I straighten. I know she’s going to protest, but I have to do this for my own peace of mind. “Clara, there’s one more thing.”

She waits.

“I’m not billing you anymore. Not for the hours already worked and not for what’s coming, either.” I hold her gaze. “I trusted someone I shouldn’t have, and it damaged the case. You’re not paying for that.”

She opens her mouth.

I level her with a look. “Don’t argue with me. I’m your lawyer. This is my decision.”

She closes her mouth.

“I owe you a win,” I state. “I intend to deliver it.”

Clara smiles the smile of a woman who has just had a bet confirmed. “Hunt told me not to worry about paying you—said you wouldn’t charge me, and if you did, Duke would take care of it.”

I put a hand to my heart because the pressure of it—the faith of these people, the weight of being claimed by a place—is more than I can hold without acknowledging it.

“They shouldn’t⁠—”

“They want to.” She stands to refill the coffee. “That’s the other thing I didn’t understand until I needed it. People here don’t help because they’re keeping a tab. They help because that’s just what you do.”

The kitchen settles around us—the coffee smell, the late afternoon light through the curtains, the sound of Luis’s tractor somewhere behind the barn.

I’m putting my files back in my bag when Eli appears in the kitchen doorway.

He’s in his school clothes still, one sock half off, his wooden pinto horse—Ranger—held against his chest with both arms the way he holds it when something is bothering him.

“Taya.”

“Hey, bud.”

He crosses the kitchen to me with the purposefulness of a four-year-old who has decided something. He stops in front of me and holds Ranger out. “You should have him.”

I look at the horse. The careful braided mane. The painted pinto coat. The slight wear at the ears where Eli holds him.

“Eli, that’s your horse.”

“I know.” He pushes it toward me more firmly. “But you’re trying to keep our water, and Ranger is for when you need help. That’s what Dad said. He said you give something important to someone when they need help more than you do.”

The kitchen is very quiet.

Clara has gone still at the counter.

“Your dad said that?” I ask, my voice careful.

“When I was little.” He nods seriously. “I was scared of the dark, and he gave me his flashlight. He said some things are too important to keep when someone else needs them more.”

I look at the horse in his small hands.