Chapter 23: The Oil Place

On Wednesday at four, Lottie's truck stopped at my gate, and Birdie climbed down alone.

Lottie did not get out.

She sat behind the wheel in dark glasses with the engine running.

She watched Birdie cross the yard, and she watched the house.

Dean was in the barn.

He had been there since three, in the shadow behind the hay, and Jesse had stood guard at the door until I sent him off to the porch.

"If she sees him," I'd said, "she takes Birdie to Wisconsin tonight."

"I know."

"Don't come out."

"I won't," Dean had said. His face was gray.

Daisy met Birdie halfway across the yard, and the two of them ran off together toward the barn with their braids flying.

My heart stopped.

I couldn't call them back without Lottie hearing.

The kitten lived in the barn.

The girls were after the kitten.

I stood on the porch and counted breaths.

Ten minutes went by.

Then I walked to the barn door and slid it open a hand's width, and I looked in.

Daisy was on the hay bale with the kitten in her lap.

Birdie stood three feet from my brother, holding her stuffed horse by the leg.

She was looking up at him, and he was looking down at her.

Neither of them said anything.

Dean had gone down on one knee in the straw.

His whole face was open.

"You're the oil place," Birdie said.

I stopped breathing.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, very low. "I guess I am."

"Did you chew your horse's ear?"

He laughed.

It came out of him in one cracked breath.

"I did. I was four."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Cowboy Husband Neglected Me Ignored Our Baby for Another Woman's from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.