Page 10 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
“Caden Wesley Hayes,” I growl. “Is that Shelly Marie I hear?”
“Wyatt,” he says, drawing my name out into several beats. “Calm down.”
Fallon was right. She’s always right.
“If you’ve got the energy to fuck Roadhouse tail,” I growl, “you’ve got energy to come get your own damn food and mail. I’m sure as shit not bringing it to you.”
There’s a long pause. “I can’t, Wyatt. You know that.”
“You should see Fallon’s face, Caden. She walking worse than ever because some shit from Sunnyvale wouldn’t let things alone. Shelly tell you that?”
Another long pause. “I didn’t ask Fallon to get involved.”
If I could reach through the phone and shake him silly, I would. As though anyone’s ever had to ask Fallon to protect us, to stand up for us. Caden doesn’t remember what Mama andPa were like. He doesn’t remember the ways we got by before Blackbird Hollow. He doesn’t get it. He never has.
“You’ll come get your groceries today before sundown, and you’ll be at the house on time for Sunday dinner.” Caden tries to break in, but I don’t let him. “I’m not fucking around. I’m not gonna push you too hard, but you can come here, and you can come home. We’ll start there and see how it goes.”
I can hear the gears in his head turning all the way across town. He’s always been a wheedler, and the kid’s such a looker that he nearly always gets his way. “I mean it, Cade. It’s time. This isn’t a request.”
“Fallon says jump and you say?—”
“I say how damn high.Just. Like. You.”I slam the phone down before Caden pokes me into saying something I’ll regret.
Fern whines, leaning against me harder than ever. “Never get born the middle child,” I advise her. “Or you’ll spend your whole life navigating between tyrants.”
She chortles a little in response, stretches, then wags her tail at me. The coffee maker beeps, and I pour myself a full cuppa. My mug for the day has pastel bears from the 1980s on it. When I moved in here, Fallon gave me a third of her massive collection of mugs.
I pad out to the back porch and sink into one of the four Adirondack chairs I built last year, right after moving in. The sun’ll be up soon. I pull a quilt from the basket over my legs and sip my coffee in silence as Fern flops onto her side with a dull thump. I smile at her, and her big tail pounds the wood porch.
It’s tempting to ruminate over my conversation with Caden, but, rough as she can be about things, Fallon’s usually right. Our sister sees things sharper than just about anyone I know. Caden acts like I follow her without question, but the kid doesn’t see us fight. We’ve always kept it like that, more his parents than his siblings in so many ways.
To him, she’s just the hard-ass who never lets him get away with shit, and because the kid barely remembers what it was like to be out there before Blackbird Hollow, he can’t appreciate the magnitude of what she’s done for us, but especially for him. Caden is a good man, and someday, if he can get this wolf thing under control, he might be a great one. It’s time for him to stop sulking and get back to life. I’m not willing to rush him on the how, but he’s gotta take a few steps forward, or he’s bound to get stuck.
The sun peeks up over Big Hill and hits the river, setting it ablaze with the golden fire of morning’s first light. Three deep breaths, and I’ve got the family drama settled to a dull roar inside my head. Each of us is hardheaded in our own way, and I learned long ago not to let being in the middle fuck me up too hard. The light sinks into me as it creeps across town.
This view is the reason I took this house on. It’s needed a lot of work, but I’ve been more than happy to do it to have a place of my own in the world. I’m proud of how things have turned out so far, and there’s nothing more satisfying than spending a quiet morning on the porch with my dog. But even without delivery duty on the docket, today’s going to be full.
I may not need to make the trip to Cade’s, but I need to get up the hill before I do anything else. If I know my sister, she’s going to spend the day scouring the woods for clues about the missing leafers. She can more than handle things alone, but Fern’ll be better off with her than me today.
“C’mon, girl,” I say to my pup as I push out of my chair. “Let’s get you to Auntie Fallon’s Doggy Daycare.”
Marion Roanhorse glancesup from her copy ofMiniatures Monthlyas I walk in. NotbecauseI walked into the front office of the Stardust Motel, but just as a matter of coincidence. Nothing but whatever goes on inside her brilliant mind can interrupt Marion when she’s focused on something.
The woman’s a certified mathematical genius, but this year she’s committed to miniatures, and there is a massive village of dollhouses behind the desk that she’s tending to for an art installation. She pushes back her reading glasses, her long black hair swishing around her shoulders. Her eyes crinkle as she smiles.
Marion and I have been friends since high school, but we don’t get together enough these days. When things are sorted with Caden, I’ll invite her and Betty up for Sunday dinners again. Everything in my life got smaller when Caden turned, but if I’m going to force him into moving forward, I should do the same.
“You here for the salt?” she asks. “Or a decent cuppa and a bit of gossip?”
I laugh. “I’ll take all three, if you’re offering.”
She pours me a cup of coffee, and I lean against the counter. “What’s shaking?”
Marion snorts. “Who says ‘what’s shaking’ anymore?”
I shrug. “Just giving it a try.”
“You sound like a fogey,” she says through a peal of laughter.
