Page 32 of His Texas Claim

“And if Arlo tries something before that goes through?” Adam asked.

“We’re working with the attorney to freeze the process for his claim,” Gage said, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Damn thorn in my side…”

Millie reached up to squeeze his hand with a hapless smile. “It’ll be okay, baby.”

“Better be,” Gage muttered, but he squeezed her hand back, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Peggy stood, gathering coffee mugs off the table to top folks off. “I’ll talk to Cooper myself tomorrow. Boy needs somebody in his corner who isn’t after something from him.”

“He won’t testify against Arlo,” I said. “Never has.”

“Asshole has a stranglehold on that poor boy,” Mom murmured. “His mother…she never did enough to protect him.”

The conversation kept moving without me—timelines, lawyers, who’d walk the fence line at first light to check for any sign that my father had been trespassing. I answered when asked, kept it short, mostly just watched Bryn field question after question with the same steady competence she’d had from day one. Mud dried to her knees, explaining to a room full of strangers why a frog the size of a fingernail was worth fighting a man like Arlo.

She was good at this. Probably an amazing teacher.

She would be a great mom, too.

Didn’t change the thing sitting cold in my chest since that cave, telling me I had no business wanting what I’d asked her for out there in the rain.

No business being anybody’s father.

The table broke up close to ten. Kids needed beds, cattle needed checking come morning, everybody peeling off toward their own houses one by one. Bryn caught my eye across the kitchen, but I ignored her—not because I didn’t want to look at her, but because I didn’t want to have the conversation I knew I needed to have.

Almost tried not to…tried to sneak out the front door, but Buck wouldn’t leave her side.

Damn dog.

I heard her come out along with the tap of Buck’s toenails on the porch, the heavy footfalls of her hiking boots. She cleared her throat more loudly than she needed to. I didn’t look back.

“You need somethin’?” I asked.

She let out a shocked laugh. “For you to look at me.”

I finally turned around, looking at her over my shoulder…dying to be back in the truck and alone.

Alone, like I was supposed to be.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked, direct as ever. “You’ve barely looked at me all night.”

“Been a lot goin’ on.”

“That’s not an answer, Stetson.”

I looked past her, at the fresh-painted wood planks on the front of the house. My place…it was nothing like this. Wasn’t decorated, badly needed a coat of paint. It wasn’t clean. Wasn’t homey.

I was Arlo’s son, not Adam’s, not Austin’s. Out of all the three brothers…my blood was poison.

“I need some space tonight,” I said. “That’s all.”

Her brows raised. I caught it out of the corner of her eye—how she set her shoulders, put her hands on her hips.

“No.”

Now I looked at her. “...no?”

“You heard me,” she said. “No.”