Hadley
The bunkhouse kitchen is warm and full of women, and my hand keeps going to my left ring finger because I can't stop touching the band.
I sit at the long pine table.
Marlena is on my left with Cal on her shoulder.
Bex is across from me with her hand on the curve of her belly under her t-shirt.
Grace is at the counter pouring coffee, her dark hair tied up off her neck, her vet clinic scrubs still on from the shift she came off of when Phantom called her home.
Dakota is on the floor with Nash and Waylon and a pile of plastic horses Waylon brought in his diaper bag, making the buckskin one buck off the floorboards in a way that has both boys howling.
Marlena sets a mug in front of me, sees my hand. "Hadley."
The kitchen quiets. Nash looks up, Dakota's hand stops moving the buckskin.
Marlena's hands come up to mine. Her fingers turn my hand in the light. Her thumb brushes the gold band and the green stones and the diamond at the center.
Her eyes go wet. "That's Cora's ring, isn't it?"
I can't speak.
Grace crosses the kitchen with the coffee pot still in her hand and forgets to set it down. Her eyes are wet too. "Oh my goodness, Hadley!"
"He told me about his mother last night," I say. "He told me everything."
Dakota stands up from the floor. She comes to the table. She looks at the ring. Her jaw works once and her mouth pulls at the corner the way it does when she's about to cry, which Dakota doesn't do. "Goddamn it, Rogue."
Bex laughs through her own tears and her hand stays on her belly. "I called it. Two months ago. I told Banshee that man had gone over the cliff and didn't know it yet. Banshee owes me twenty bucks."
The women fold around me at the table.
Marlena's hands stay on mine. Dakota wraps her arms around my shoulders from behind and presses her cheek against the top of my head. Grace's hand lands on my forearm. Bex reaches across the table and squeezes my wrist.
Nash comes up off the floor in the middle of it and tugs on my elbow.
I look down at him.
He looks at my hand and at the women and back at my hand. "Mama? What's happening?"
I pull him onto my lap and show him the ring. My voice goes thick. "Rogue asked me to marry him this morning, baby."
Nash thinks about it. His eyes find Waylon on the floor and then Marlena. "Does that mean Waylon's my cousin?"
Grace makes a sound that's half a laugh and half a sob. She crouches down next to my chair and puts her hand on Nash's back. "Kind of, sweetheart. We're all family here, remember?"
Waylon, on the floor, says, "Cousin," because Waylon will repeat any word he hears, and then he goes back to making the horse buck.
Cal pats Marlena's collarbone with a fat hand and says, "Da-da," at nobody in particular, and Marlena laughs into the top of his head and her tears go into his hair.
Nash looks at me for a long moment with the seriousness only kids can manage. "Is Rogue going to be my dad?"
The kitchen waits for my answer.
I cup the back of his head and pull him in until his forehead is against mine. "Pretty soon, baby. Pretty soon."
Marlena's hand stays on mine on the table.