Page 72 of The Lonely Road

“Miss Morningstar.”

“Just Taya,” I say, for the fourth time.

She nods, for the fourth time, in a way that suggests this will never take. She’s been raised to address grown-ups in this way, and it’s how she intends to do it.

“Mom’s in the kitchen. You want coffee?” She says it with the dignity of a girl who has assumed the hospitality obligations of a household that needed her to do so before anyone asked.

I have to look away for a moment as my emotions catch. When Deke died, Dakota took on many of her mother’s responsibilities so Clara could step into his role.

“I’d love some.”

She nods and walks up to me, and then with me to the kitchen.

Clara is on the island with a folder of documents—her own, labeled in her neat schoolteacher hand. She looks up when I come in and offers a smile that is genuine and tired in equal measure.

“Dakota, baby, can you put on a fresh pot?”

Dakota goes about what she was intending to do when I said, “I’d love some coffee.” I feel guilty for adding to her burden.

Clara and I work through the discovery requests—what I need, what it means, what the timeline looks like. She listens carefully and asks good questions. It tells me that she’s been going through the materials at night after the kids are in bed. Learning the law the way you learn anything, when the alternative is losing.

When we’ve been through everything, and Dakota has left to get back to her work after she’s had a cup of coffee, I place my palms on the island and lean forward. “What’s bothering you?”

She looks at me. “How do you know⁠—”

“You’ve been holding something since I walked in. Tell me.”

Clara wraps her hands around her coffee cup—a gesture I recognize from my own hands, in certain conversations, when you need something solid to hold.

“Yesterday…ah…last night.” She shakes her head. “This man came by. He said he’s with High Mesa. Very polite.” Her eyes fill. “But he didn’t look like…. You know… a corporate type.”

The hairs on the back of my neck tingle. “What did he look like?”

She shrugs. “He had a scar on his left cheek. A small one. And…I don’t know, Taya, there was something about the way he talked.”

I put my hand over hers. “What did he say?”

She glances at our hands and then at me. “He said they…High Mesa wants to revisit their offer. That they understand the situation is difficult, and they want to be generous.”

“How much?”

She tells me.

I keep my face very still.

It’s a significant number. More than the ranch is worth on the current market. More than enough to buy Clara Whitman and her children a comfortable life somewhere that isn’t a fifteen-hundred-acre burden she’s carrying alone.

“Okay.”

“I said no,” she continues, without drama. “He said…he said he hoped I understood this was their best and final offer, and that litigation has a way of being hard on everyone. Especially families.” She looks away, her breathing ragged. “Especially the children.”

Son of a bitch.

“Taya, he was threatening me.”

I dip my chin in acknowledgment but say nothing.

It sounds like a threat and probably is one, but I don’t know if it’ll hold up in court. He was polite. He offered money—a lot of it—and then said something that’s technically true—trials and litigation are hard on people—especially children.