Phantom's brothers come in just before the sun starts to drop, each with two of their patched members.
The sound of bikes comes through the cottonwoods at the edge of the property first. Then more bikes. Then more.
Eight riders pull through the front gate. Banshee waves them through without dismounting from his lean on his own bike. The bikes fill the gravel turnaround.
Holt and his boys come from Abilene—three bikes. Roan's from Lubbock—another three bikes.
The brothers I've never met dismount and pull off their helmets and the gravel turnaround fills up with men.
Holt and Roan walk straight to Phantom, who has come down off the bunkhouse porch.
Three Lyle brothers in the gravel. Three men with the same jaw.
They both go up to greet Phantom, and then they walk to Rogue. Holt claps him on the shoulder and Roan does the same. I'm too far away to hear what they say. But Rogue's shoulders settle in a way I haven't seen all week.
*Family.*
Marlena comes to stand next to me on the porch. Cal has fallen asleep against her shoulder. She watches the men in the gravel. "That's the family, baby. You're lookin' at it."
* * *
The light is going long across the gravel when I walk back to Rogue's cabin to grab a sweater I left on the back of his couch.
I let myself in through the front door quietly. The cabin is empty in the front room. The cypress desk has two coffee cups on it and a yellow legal pad and Rogue's reading glasses, which he never wears unless he's looking at something close up.
I walk down the short hall toward his bedroom and stop in the doorway.
He's sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to me.
Something small is in his hand. His shoulders are curved around it the way a man's shoulders curve around a thing he is holding carefully.
His thumb moves once across whatever is in his hand.
He doesn't see me.
I don't breathe.
I step back into the hall without a sound, walk back to the front room, and let myself out through the front door without grabbing the sweater.
I cross the gravel back to the bunkhouse with my heart going harder than it has all day.
The brothers don't ask why I'm back. Bex comes through with a stack of clean towels and doesn't read my face. The kitchen swallows me back up.
I get back to my work in the kitchen and my hands move without me telling them to and the biscuits I make come out slightly uneven and I don't care.
* * *
Supper is sixteen men eating in shifts. The Lyle brothers integrate. Phantom is at the head of the table for the first timein five days. Marlena is at his side. Cal is in a new high chair I haven't seen before but that has apparently been waiting in the bunkhouse pantry for him.
Nash sits next to Roan. Roan is teaching him something with his hands about how to throw a rope.
Nash is in love with Roan by the end of supper.
After dinner, the men disperse to tactical work and perimeter checks and sleep shifts. Phantom and Marlena take the main house. Holt and Roan take rooms there with them.
I take Nash back to Rogue's cabin. I get him in pajamas, brush his teeth, and tuck him into the spare room with Diesel at the foot of the bed.
He's asleep before I finish the song.