Page 27 of Chains and Vows

When I get to the last carousel, I slide it onto the projector with unsteady hands, expecting more of the same—more glimpses of this ghost story I never knew I was living inside.

But the wall fills instead with the harsh fluorescence of photographed documents. Pages of contracts. Legal forms. Financial statements. Bank records.

I press forward slowly, trying to make sense of what I'm seeing. The images are clinical and precise—Eleanor's documentary eye capturing evidence rather than emotion.

Loan agreements. Mineral rights transfers. Something labeled "contingent interest" that I don't understand. Terms like collateral assignment and secondary lien holder blur together.

Then a page with the White family crest at the top catches my eye.

It's some kind of contract, dated years before I was born.

Terms of an agreement between Eleanor Ashby and Senator White Sr., Marcus's father.

I let out a long breath and lean back in my chair just as a faint rumble from above hits my nervous system.

He's home.

Legion's here.

I descend the stairs of the mansion, the final wooden box of slides in my hands, when Legion opens the front door and walks in. Cash follows him.

They're in the middle of a conversation like this is normal. Like Legion has lived here forever. Like walking through my front door with my brother is something they do daily.

Cash takes his hat off and Legion looks up as I come down. Smiling at me. "I'm on time for dinner," he says.

"So I see," I reply. Then I look at Cash. "I think this might be what you're looking for. There's a machine in Eleanor's office. You can load them in and it will project them on the wall for you. I hope it helps."

Cash takes the box, lookin' at it with reverence for a moment. Then he looks at Legion, nodding.

Something transpires between them in this look.

Something I can't quite decipher. "What's goin' on between you two?"

Legion pulls me in, kissing me. Whisperin', "Nothin'. I'm hungry. Feed me."

Which makes me laugh and kiss him back. So by the time that's all over, Cash is gone. So there's nothin' left to do but feed my man.

"You wash up," I tell him. "And take this upstairs." I toe the large, heavy backpack he dropped on the floor when he took me in his arms. "You're movin' in, I take it?"

Legion just shrugs. "I go where you go, Savannah. And if you're here, this is where I'll be."

Then he picks up the pack and takes the stairs two at a time. "I'm gonna shower. I'll be down in ten."

"I'll check on dinner then." But I don't move. I watch him all the way up the stairs. I watch him until he disappears.

Then I miss him.

But know for sure now, he's mine.

Wyatt shows up for dinner again, which surprises everyone, and I mean everyone—including, I think, Wyatt himself, because he's got that look he gets when he's done something he hasn't quite decided to own yet, chin tucked, eyes moving around the table like he's doin' a threat assessment on his own family.

Cash doesn't say a word about whatever is quietly simmering between him and Legion, and Legion doesn't either.

On other nights when all people currently present were also present, there was a kind of negotiated silence. A truce, almost.

Tonight, at least between Cash and Legion, it's not a truce. It's an alignment. Whatever Cash was goin' on about earlier, Legion must be in on it.

It's not that I'm incapable of understandin' ranchin' business. I get it. I know what we do here. Insofar as it pertains to aesthetics. Meaning, I know what kind of cattle we run. And I know the property. Intimately. I might not know which way the wind blows in different seasons, but I know where all the water is.