“And you’ll stay out of it?”
I smiled at Trey through the screen door. “Come on, cowboy. We got places to be.”
A chair scraped. Dawson loomed over me. “I mean it. There are plenty of other things to keep you busy without messing in my business.”
“Like what?” If he suggested joining a quilting club, I’d club him.
“Like have you made a decision on whether you’re selling this ranch?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Gee, Sheriff, the way you keep bringing it up makes me think you might have designs on it yourself.”
“I don’t. But some folks around here do.” He dropped his guarded expression for a second. “That knot on your neck wasn’t an accident.”
His words sent goose bumps across my flesh. I looked at Trey. He had the oddest expression on his face. Probably he was as confused by this cryptic conversation as I was.
We left, and I didn’t look to see if Dawson followed.
Hope’s Honda was parked out front when I returned home. She and Sophie looked up when I dragged ass into the kitchen.
My sister smirked. “Hear you got yourself a new beau. Or was he hanging around because you were babysitting him?”
I should’ve let it slide. Instead, I spun the chair around and straddled it. “Tell you what. If you dish the dirt on the guy Theo, who’s been warming your bed, I’ll return the favor.”
Her face went as milky white as the tea in her cup.
“Didn’t think I knew, did you? How long before you planned to tell me?”
“Mercy, be nice,” Sophie warned.
I ignored her. “When you bringing him by so I can meet this great new love of your life?”
“See? That’s why I didn’t tell you. Because you’d get all sarcastic and mean.”
Sophie patted Hope’s hand and murmured to her, her shiny black eyes shot deadly daggers at me.
My focus shifted to a bottle of pills in the middle of the table. Thank God. A jumbo container of aspirin. Just what I needed to stop the throbbing pain in my head.
“Hey! Gimme that! It’s mine!” Hope said, trying to snatch the bottle from me.
“Relax. I’m just gonna borrow a couple.”
“You can’t. It’s private!”
Private aspirin? I turned the bottle in my hands to the read the contents. A prescription. In the name Hope Arpel. For prenatal vitamins. Prescribed by Doc Canaday.
Two months ago.
My mouth dropped open. “You’re pregnant?”
She wouldn’t look at me. Sophie suddenly seemed mighty interested in the cow and chicken wallpaper border above the refrigerator.
Stay calm. “That is why you’ve been so sick? And you didn’t think I deserved to know? Instead, you let me worry because no one could figure out what was wrong with you?”
“It’s not your job to worry about me. I’ve been doing just fine without you.” Her self-righteousness vanished, and her chin wobbled. “I knew you’d come back and take over everything.”
“Someone had to.”
“This baby’s got nothing to do with you and is none of your business.”
“Wrong. As Dad made me executor of his estate, everything that happens within this family or on this ranch is my business.”
No smart answer from Hope.
“How far along are you?”
She and Sophie exchanged another look.
“Tell me, goddammit.”
“Stop swearing at her,” Sophie said sharply.
“I will when she answers the question.”
“Three months or so.”
My mind whirled. “Did Dad know?”
Hope shook her head.
“This Theo guy is the father?”
She glared at me.
“Am I the only person who doesn’t know?”
“No. She didn’t bother to tell me neither.” Levi was sagged against the doorjamb separating the kitchen from the living room.
My anger escalated at the hurt look on his face. Damn my selfish sister.
“Levi, honey, I can explain-”
“Save it, Ma. Aunt Mercy is right. She ain’t the only one who’s been worried about you. But like usual, you don’t care about nobody but yourself.”
“That’s not fair!”
“You know what ain’t fair? If you think I’m gonna be your built-in babysitter once that brat is born. I won’t stick around. You can’t make me. You probably wouldn’t notice if I was gone anyway. But I can guarantee you Theo ain’t gonna be changing diapers. He’ll expect you to do it since he follows the ‘traditional’ ways of the Indian, the separation of men’s and women’s duties within the tribe and home.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do. I take his culture class; you don’t. And he’s a different person around me than he is around you.”
Sophie tried mediating. “Why don’t we all just calm down and talk about this, eh?”
“Screw that. I’m outta here.” Levi stormed out before anyone could stop him.
Hope jumped to her feet. I blocked the door. “Let him go.”
“No. I have to explain.”
“You should’ve explained long before now.”
She blinked back tears.
I hated it when she cried, but I steeled my resolve not to let her off the hook this time. “Give him some time to sort through this. He’s hurt, and he has a right to be upset.”
“But I need to talk to him!”
“No, you need time to figure out why you kept something this important from him. He is your family. I am your family. What were you thinking, shutting us out?”
Her eyes thinned to malicious slits. “You don’t have kids and you haven’t been around him, so what makes you think you know anything about how he’s feeling, huh?”
“It’s obvious he’s pissed off at you. And how do I know that? Because you’ve pissed me off more times than I can count, sis. So leave him alone. You’d better figure out a way to make this right with him, because he sure as hell deserves better than you’ve given him lately. And so do I.”
I slammed the door with enough force the screen popped out and bounced off the porch slats. I didn’t care. It would still be there when I returned, just another damn thing in my life I’d have to fix.
Levi peeled out across the pasture on an ATV, Shoonga racing alongside him, and he headed south toward Old Woman Creek. I could’ve let him go. But I suspected he’s spent more time alone than he’d let on. I hopped on an older four-wheeler, trailing behind him. If he noticed me following and it made him mad, so be it. He could take his anger and frustration out on me.
He killed the engine beneath a cluster of cottonwood trees. Thin puffs of dust kicked up as he shuffled to the ledge of the steep bluff.
I doubted he’d do anything stupid, like pitch himself over, but I wondered how many teenagers’ last thoughts before suicide were ones of remorse.
Levi backed away and dropped to the ground. He huddled into a ball and shouldered Shoonga aside until the dog flopped beside him. It reminded me that Levi might act tough and grown-up, but he was still young and vulnerable.
Shoonga panted heavily, too tired to bark at me as I climbed off the machine and ambled across the hard-packed soil.
“I ain’t gonna kill myself, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Levi said.
“I’m not.”
“Then why’d you follow me?”
To see if you needed me. “To see your secret brooding place.”
Levi straightened up. “How’d you know I had one?”
“All teenagers have them.”
“Even you?”
“Especially me.”
“Where was yours?”
“Which one?” I plopped beside him and narrowly missed jabbing my ass on a tiny barrel cactus.
“You had more than one?”
“Don’t you?”
His cheeky smile was there and gone. “Yeah.”
“I liked to keep people guessing. I thought they’d gnash their teeth and weep and wail, distraught with guilt if they couldn’t find me in my usual spot.”