Chapter 12: New Terms

Ward left my barn at midnight with his keys in his hand and nobody in front of him.

Kit took Lottie back to the bunk house, shaking, and I walked them to the door.

Then I went back and found Jesse sitting on the bucket where I had been, with his head in his hands.

"New terms," I said.

He looked up.

"One. You don't keep one more thing from me. Not to protect your mother, not to protect me, not for any reason."

"Done."

"Two. You say it out loud, in front of the people who watched you let them think it. Not later. Not when it's safe."

"Abby, the minute I say it, it gets back to Mom."

"Then she hears it from you. Not from him."

He was quiet for a while.

"Three," I said. "I'm staying on my land. I'm not coming home to the big house because you told me the truth in a barn."

"You earn that slowly. I get to say no at any point, and you don't get to be hurt about it."

"That's fair."

"It isn't fair. It's what you get."

"I'll take it."

I sat down on the hay next to him, not close.

"What are you going to do?"

"There are thirty-one men in that bunk house," he said. "They were at the barbecue."

"Every one of them has looked at me for ten days as a man who left his wife for a girl in Casper."

"And?"

"And I let them." His hands opened and closed. "I'm going in at five. I'll say it to them."

"I'm coming with you."

"You don't have to."

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