Page 124 of The Lonely Road

“I can’t take Ranger.” I push the words out through a choked throat. “He’s yours. Your dad gave him to you.”

Eli considers this with the gravity of someone working through a genuinely difficult problem. Then he holds the horse out one more time, deliberate.

“You can borrow him…until you win.”

I take the horse.

I hold it in both hands—solid, warm from his grip—and I think about Deke Whitman and a flashlight and a little boy scared of the dark, and about what it means that his son is standing in this kitchen holding out the most important thing he owns to a lawyer who is trying to keep his family’s water.

“Thank you, Eli.” I crouch and kiss his cheek. “I’ll take good care of him.”

He nods, satisfied. Then he turns and pads back down the hallway in his half-off sock, already thinking about something else entirely, the way four-year-olds do.

I watch the horse in my hand, as does Clara.

Neither of us says anything for a moment.

“He sounds like his dad.” She hugs herself, and the pain of losing her husband is etched on her face. “Every single day, he reminds me of Deke.”

I put Ranger carefully in the front pocket of my bag, where I can see him, and under his watchful eye, I drive home.

CHAPTER 32

taya

“So, if I had to guess, you’re working twenty-four seven to not deal with this?” Sienna comments over the phone.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I can’t keep the snark out of my voice.

“It means that when you are dealing with emotional fuckery, you ignore it and go to your favorite addiction—workaholism,” my best friend informs me cheerfully.

“I do not do that,” I protest. It’s a big fat lie. I do it all the time. “And I do not have emotional fuckery.”

“Honey, you have a whole mega emotional fuckery situation happening right now, and you know it.”

I sigh. “Look, I’m busy and⁠—”

“The man I saw was in love with you.”

I growl loudly into the phone. “We will not be talking about him ever again.”

“Yeah, we will.” Sienna’s tone is butter smooth.

“You know what, I don’t have time for this.”

“Emotional fuckery makes you bitchy,” she says in a sing-song manner.

“I’m hanging up.” And I do so, feeling tremendously better than I had before I talked to Sienna and told her about Mason’s fuckery.

After Griffin, I didn’t tell anyone anything—just went on with life.

This time, I’ve pretty much told everyone who is in my life, and it doesn’t feel like I’m oversharing—it feels like I’m asking for support and getting it.

For years, especially in Aspen, I stood on my own, carried everything alone, but now I have a community again just like I do in Ignacio, and it feels good.

Really good.

What doesn’t feel good is opposing counsel going batshit crazy, drowning me in filings.