He looked at her with complete innocence. “What?”
“It’s getting late.”
“You just said that.”
“I’m saying it again because the first time didn’t seem to land.”
He tilted his head toward the sky. “Becca, it’s a clear night. The stars are out. I’ve got good company and in a minute I’m going to have a cold beer.” He folded his hands over his stomach. He was a man who had nowhere to be now and no demands he get up early in the morning.
Becca looked at me with an apology in her eyes.
“There’s no rush,” she said in a tight voice. “I just thought you might be tired.”
“I’m not tired.”
Summer came back out with three bottles and handed one to her father, one to me. She reclaimed her chair. She looked over at Becca with an expression that said very clearly,let it go.
Becca yawned loudly. “Well, I for one am absolutely beat. I think I might fall asleep standing here.” She looked at her father one more time.
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” Gideon said, without looking up from his beer.
Becca had lost the battle. The sooner she accepted that, the less awkward for all of us. I wasn’t going to run the man off. I wasn’t going to tell him I’d really like to be alone with his daughter. So we were hanging out.
Gideon took a long pull from his bottle and watched the fire. I did the same. Summer was quiet on my other side.
He asked me about Texas. He asked about the land and what it looked like in January when everything was dead and brown. Whether the blue bonnets really came back as thick as people said. What it smelled like after a hard rain in the hill country. I got the feeling Gideon was considering a trip to Texas.
I told him about the ranch and how quiet it truly was first thing in the morning before the heat rolled in and everything went still. I talked about the cattle and the general ranching business. Gideon listened the way people used to listen. Without his phone in his hand. He just took it in.
Summer was quiet between us. I glanced over and saw her legs pulled up under her, her head tipped slightly to one side, her eyes closed. She still had her beer bottle loosely in her fingers. I watched it tilt and reached over and gently took it before it could slip.
She didn’t stir.
I set the bottle down beside my chair and looked back at the fire. Gideon noticed and said nothing, just took a slow drink from his own bottle. I didn’t get the impression he was standing guard. He wasn’t trying to keep me from being alone with his daughter. Gideon was a smart man. He knew damn well there had been plenty of alone time between us.
I got up quietly, went inside, and retrieved the blanket I’d seen draped over the back of the sofa. I came back out and settled it over Summer’s shoulders, tucking the edge up around her. She made a small sound and turned her face further into the chair back, her breathing going deep and even.
I sat back down.
Gideon was watching me.
We sat in comfortable silence for a while. It was the kind of thing I did with my own dad and brothers back home. We didn’t have to fill the quiet. A cold beer, low fire, and good company could make any night perfect. Didn’t need to mess it up with a bunch of needless conversation.
“I owe you an apology,” I said after a while.
He looked over at me.
“The house,” I said, gesturing loosely in the direction of the Anderson property. I shook my head. “It sits right in your southern sightline. I noticed it the first night I was back. I don’t know how you’ve put up with it.”
Gideon looked toward the dark mass of shrubbery that separated the two properties. He was quiet for a moment.
“It’s a big house,” he said finally. “Been there a long time.” He looked back at the fire. “It’s part of home, at this point.” He lifted one shoulder. “Nothing to apologize for.”
I sipped my beer.
“The town is the thing I worry about,” he said, his tone solemn. I sat up a little straighter knowing I needed to listen.“Not the houses. Not the families that come and go. The town itself.” He looked out toward the dark. “I’ve watched it change in small ways for thirty years. Every time, people said it wasn’t going to amount to much. And every time, they were mostly right.” He paused. “But every so often something comes along that’s got real teeth. And you have to know which fight is worth fighting and which one’s just noise.”
“How do you tell the difference?” I asked.