"I'm missing a son, last I checked."
"Found him."
"I see that."
Thunder lets Nash go and Nash collapses dramatically against the porch rail like he's been mortally wounded.
Thunder picks up Stitch and hands him back to Nash with the seriousness of a man returning a treasured artifact, and Nash sits down cross-legged on the porch floor and starts telling Stitch about Diesel.
Thunder follows me into the bunkhouse kitchen. "Smells like trouble in here, Cross."
"Don't touch a damn thing."
"I never touchanything."
"You touched a biscuit on Tuesday."
"Tuesday was a special occasion."
"Tuesday was Tuesday."
He laughs, and I laugh, and I open the smoker. The smell of brisket and mesquite hits both of us, and Thunder makes a noise low in his throat that men only make about meat and women, which is a comparison I'm not gonna say out loud.
He's already pulled the kitchen towels off the rack and he's holding them out to me without being asked.
He's been here every evening I've cooked since the second week.
He carries the heavy stuff. He pulls the brisket out of the smoker for me because the pan is too heavy for one person to lift down by herself.
He's the only one who ever bothered to learn that I'm five-foot-six and the smoker is set at five-foot-nine.
He takes one end of the pan. I take the other. We carry it together to the kitchen island.
"How's Nash been sleepin'?" he asks while I pull the foil off the top.
"Through the night the last three days running."
"That a record?"
"For us? Yeah."
"Ranch agrees with the boy."
"Ranch agrees with both of us, Thunder."
He cuts his eyes at me sideways. Doesn't say anything for a second.
He's got those gray eyes that have seen a lot more than a man his age ought to have seen and he uses them sparingly.
"Yeah," he says finally. "I noticed."
* * *
The brothers come in at six o'clock the way they always do.
Banshee first. Then Spur, who's already washed up but still smells like horse.
Blaze, then Blight, dragging his feet like always.