I bring out the platter of sandwiches, the bowl of pickles, and the pitcher of sweet tea.
I bring out the plate of sliced tomatoes from Mama Lou's garden—the beefsteak kind with the green shoulders and the deep red middles—and the brothers serve themselves the way they always do.
I bring Rogue his plate last.
Chicken salad on a homemade roll, a pickle from my jar, three thick slices of tomato, a glass of iced tea sweetened the way he takes it.
When I set the plate down, he says, "Thank you, Hadley."
Then, lower, just for me—"You doin' all right?"
It's the first time in two months he's ever asked me that.
I say, "I'm doin' all right, Rogue."
He looks up at me from his plate.
Pale blue-green eyes, the kind that have already finished thinking about a thing before they look at you.
Sun-flushed across the cheekbones from being outside this morning.
The white hat's on the back of his chair.
"Good," he says quietly.
That one word lands in my chest like a hand pressed against my sternum.
I go back to the kitchen and I don't look at the head of the table for the rest of lunch.
As everyone finishes up, I clean up lunch and the brothers disappear and head back to whatever jobs they have around the ranch today.
Thunder went home with a basket of peaches under his arm for Mama Lou.
The bunkhouse is quiet and the afternoon heat has settled in for real.
I'm wiping down the kitchen island when I glance through the window over the sink.
A black sedan has stopped on the county road just outside the ranch gate.
The driver doesn't get out. The sedan sits there for about three minutes, then it pulls back onto the road and drives away.
I wouldn't have noticed it, normally.
People stop at the gate all the time to take pictures of the cattle skull sign or to read the lettering, or to ask one of the brothers for directions to the Buc-ee's outside Sharp.
I've seen four of those people this week alone.
This one is different. This one didn't slow down to look. The driver sits there with his window cracked an inch, head tilted toward the bunkhouse, like the man inside was watching, not sightseeing.
I set the dishrag down on the counter.
I think about last night—about Banshee taking an envelope from somebody at the clubhouse porch in the dark, about the way I told myself I was tired and reading into things—and I think about Rogue not telling me what he wasn't telling me on his porch steps yesterday.
I'm not reading into things.
The cold feeling in my chest is the same one I had the day Garrett's doctor called to say the lump on his lung was malignant.
I untie my apron and hang it on the hook, then head out the screen door and across the gravel toward Rogue's cabin.