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I looked at Cash.

He held my gaze.

Then he nodded.

Not permission to be something I wasn’t.

Permission to stop correcting the truth.

I looked back at Josie.

“Thank you,” I said, smiling.

Outside, late-August wind moved through the cottonwoods. The creek ran thin over stone. Somewhere beyond the wall, a gate knocked once and settled. The ranch had hay to cut, water to count, a mortgage to meet, and a winter coming down from the mountains whether we planned for it or not.

Inside, the sunlight crossed the floor by inches.

No one hurried it.

***

Wyatt arrived while Boone was trying to draw a second horse and failing in a way that threatened the structural integrity of the entire species.

His truck stopped outside.

Cash tipped his head back against the wall. “That’ll be joy.”

“Could be work,” I said.

“With Wyatt, those are legally indistinguishable.”

Boone put the pen down before his older brother could witness the drawing.

Josie caught his wrist. “No.”

He looked at her.

“Finish.”

Boone looked toward the front door.

Then at the paper.

He added an ear.

The front door opened.

Wyatt did not knock on family property. He entered with the expectation that whatever was happening would immediately become his concern, whether or not it wanted to.

His steps crossed the living room.

Stopped outside the playroom.

The doorway was already occupied by Boone’s shoulder, Cash’s long legs, two open lunch boxes, Butterbean’s rear half, and several sheets of paper that had migrated past the threshold. Wyatt stood on the other side of all of it in his clean hat and a blue work shirt buttoned properly at the wrists despite the heat.

His pale gray eyes moved across the room.

Boone on the floor.