Page 161 of Josephine and Clay

Making room.

As if there’s a Clay-shaped spot here they’ve been keeping open all this time, and I’m the only idiot refusing to stand in it.

“I’ll probably be gone by then,” I say.

Dallas is quiet. He’s watching me the way he watches numbers when they don’t add up. “Why?”

I shrug. “Because that’s what I do.”

“Leave?”

I pick up my glass and take a drink I don’t want. “Ride.”

“Same thing?”

My hand tightens around the glass.

Dallas sees it. He always was too damn observant for a man who spent most of childhood pretending he wasn’t listening.

“Don’t,” I say.

He nods once, but not in agreement.

After lunch, Nash finds me on the porch, because apparently today is scheduled.

I’m starting to suspect there really was a committee.

He’s got Hailey strapped to his chest in one of those baby wrap things, and she’s asleep with her tiny face smooshed sideways against him. He looks ridiculous. Also happy. Exhausted, but happy.

I don’t tell him that; he’d get emotional, and nobody needs that.

“You look like a kangaroo.”

He glances down at the baby. “She likes it.”

“She have a choice?”

“Nope.”

He drops into the chair beside me with a sigh so deep it might as well be his soul leaving. “Tessa’s sleeping. Mom’s making soup. I have six unanswered booking emails and a guest arriving next week who asked if we offer ‘authentic cowboy meditation.’”

I blink. “Do we?”

“We do now, apparently.”

“That just means sitting quietly on a fence, right?”

“Probably. You free to lead it?”

I snort. “I’m not exactly the picture of inner peace.”

“Could be part of the authenticity. Nash watches me, humor fading. “I could use you at the dude ranch.”

I look toward the yard. “You’ve got Boone and Dallas.”

“Yeah, and they’re great. But they’re not you.”

I stare at him.