Page 105 of The Cowboy and the Stray

Noah looked at his fingers, frowned, then darted off toward the sink.

Sloane entered next, eyeing the countertop like she might catch a disease. She sniffed, then said, “I thought dinner was at seven. It’s not even six-thirty.”

“We’re ahead of schedule,” Tess shot back without missing a beat.

Sloane’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t argue. Instead, she sidled up to Tess and hesitated. For a second, I thought she was going to critique the knife skills or order her out of the way. But she just stood there, looking at the back of Tess’s head, jaw clenched. Then, before anyone could process it, she put a hand on Tess’s shoulder and gave it a brief, awkward squeeze.

Tess froze, then blinked three times like her software needed a reboot. Midge, who saw the whole thing, grinned so wide I thought her face might crack.

Sloane immediately stepped back, face blank. “Good job on the carrots,” she said, then grabbed a beer and retreated to the dining room.

Noah finished at the sink, then sprinted after Sloane. That left the three of us and a kitchen full of food that wasn’t going to serve itself.

Tess put the vegetables in the oven, set a timer, and turned to face me. “That was weird, right?”

I nodded. “You get used to it.”

Midge snorted. “You get used to nothing around here. You just survive it.”

The mood was good. The best it’d been in months. The kind of night where you could pretend the world outside didn’t exist. When the timer went off, Tess opened the oven and pulled out a tray of vegetables so perfectly roasted they could have been on a magazine cover. Midge eyed them like a jeweler appraising a diamond.

“I’ll be damned,” she said. “They’re not burned.”

Tess beamed. “High praise, coming from you.”

Midge’s approval was a rare thing. She didn’t pass it out unless you earned it. Tess had earned it.

I loaded up the stew, Tess took the salad, and together we brought it all to the big dining table. The room was already full. Eli and Noah were setting out plates, Ash had somehow procured a bottle of tequila, and Buck was holding court at the far end, telling a story about a horse so dumb it walked into a tornado.

Sloane had taken up position at the center, quietly slicing bread. She made eye contact with Tess, then gestured to the empty chair beside her. It was the closest thing to a declaration of affection she’d ever make.

Once Jace and Gray came in and everyone was at the table, the noise dropped just a notch. Midge raised her glass, bourbon, neat, and banged the rim on the table three times. “All right, listen up. This is not a normal dinner. We got things to celebrate, and people to thank. So shut your pie holes and let me finish before you start stuffing your faces.”

Everyone held still. Midge had that effect.

She looked around the table, her gaze lingering on each of us. “This family has been through more in the last year than most do in a lifetime. We lost, we fought, we damn near burned the place down, but we made it. And we’re still standing.” She nodded to Ash, who raised her flask. “Some of us more gracefully than others.”

Ash grinned. “Speak for yourself, Matriarch.”

Midge continued. “We also got new blood. And I mean that literally,” she jerked her chin at Tess, “but also in spirit. Not everyone gets to be Maddox by blood. Some of you have to work for it.”

Ash cut in, “Is this about the time I set the hay barn on fire? Because that was an accident.”

Midge shushed her with a look. “Tonight, we eat like kings. Because tomorrow, the world keeps on spinning, and we go back to being a bunch of cranky old misfits. But tonight, we celebrate.”

She raised her glass. “To family, and to surviving what should have killed us.”

We all drank. Even Sloane.

Food started flying then, plates passed with abandon, laughter breaking out every other second.

“Okay, but who made these?” he said, pointing at the bowl of roasted carrots with a fork. “Because I could eat about twelve pounds.”

Ash leaned in, stage-whispered, “Tess is leveling up. I’m uncomfortable.”

Tess colored a little, but she looked happy. Happier than I’d ever seen her.

Every five minutes, Ash made a new toast, each one less appropriate than the last. “To Buck, who once dug a hole so deep he hit the water table and then peed in it.” Buck raised his hands in victory. “To Gray, who can’t read a map but never once got us lost.” Gray made a face, but he was clearly pleased.