Page 76 of Omega’s Fold

Wyatt turns his head to his window and watches a sparrow on the parking-lot fence, and I take my minute.

I take it with my eyes closed. I thought I was going to see Wyatt and that was a world of emotion on its own. I wasn’t expecting this.

Then I turn my head and I look at him.

He turns his head and he looks back.

“I need to do something,” I say. “When we get back to the ranch. I’m going to make some calls. From the kitchen, if that’s all right. I won’t be on long.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll explain. I want to. I just need to do it first.”

“Okay, Julian.”

I put the car in gear and we go to pick up the boys.

The road from Eastfield to Parish Ridge runs up through the back fields of three other ranches before it climbs the ridge. I have driven this road twice before. Once in summer, when it was green. Once in the dark, when it was a row of fence posts in headlights. It is brown now. The sun is down low enough that the light is coming flat and gold across the dry grass.

Wyatt is looking at his hands.

His hand is closer to me than it was earlier. He has moved it. The back of his wrist is maybe four inches from the gearshift. I could move my hand from the shift to his wrist and it would not be a long journey.

I want to. I don’t.

“I’m going to file a sworn statement,” I say, low, so the boys in the back do not hear.

He turns his head.

“Linden has screwed you over. You already knew it but I found proof. I’m not going to let them do it. I have the documentation. All I need to do is share it with the right people.”

“What happens then?”

“They’ll sue me. Fiduciary duty, breach of data policy. The accreditation board opens a review of my registration. That’ll take a year. I might end up unable to practice. I don’t know yet. But that lawyer that Donna and Roy got in should be able to make them halt the pumps until it’s all sorted out.”

“What about your partnership?”

I shrug.

He moves his hand from his thigh to the center console and he leaves it there, palm up.

My hand comes off the shift and into his and his fingers close on mine. We drive the rest of the way like that.

Caleb has his ear buds back in. He is looking out his window. He has either not seen or has decided not to see, and I do not care which.

We pull into the yard a little past five.

We stop off at the diner to get Wyatt’s truck. Wyatt does not pull his hand back when I put the car in park. I pull my hand back, eventually, because I have to.

“I’ll see you at the ranch.”

He nods and they transfer to the truck, and I’m left alone with my world changed from when I arrived.

I follow his tail lights back to the ranch. By the time we have arrived, the light has started to go. Donna’s truck is there, parked at an angle near the porch.

I watch the truck park beside hers and the Briggs men get out of the truck and go into the house.

I park beside them, but stand in the yard a moment. The pumps are running. They are always running. It is a sound I had stopped hearing during the time I lived here. I didn’t like it then. I hate it now.