Page 44 of 11 Cowboys

***

The truck is heavier on the way home. Feed bags. Fence staples. A box Dylan’s going to owe me for hauling.

We pass the turnoff for Rudy’s Gas & Diner; its peeling red sign, half-burnt out “E” in “Diner,”the same as it’s been for years. I’m already past it when Grace says, “Pull in.”

I glance at her. “You need something?”

“Root beer,” she says. “Glass bottle kind.”

Something in her voice makes me turn the wheel and ease off the road like it was my idea.

“I didn’t peg you for a root beer lover,” I say as I kill the engine.

She shrugs. “It’s a nostalgia thing. My mom used to buy me one after doctor’s appointments. Always the same gas station, always the same bottle. It burned your fingers cold, then turned warm before you finished.”

I follow her inside, the blast of fryer grease and old sugar hitting like it always does. Familiar. Faintly sad. We don’t talk while we grab the glass bottles, pay in cash, and step back into the heat.

Outside, she leans against the hood and takes her first sip, eyes half-closed in pleasure, or maybe remembrance.

I crack mine open and let the fizz hit the back of my throat.

“You?” she asks, looking at me sideways. “What’s it remind you of?”

I almost saynothing. But I don’t.

“Dad used to bring us here sometimes, for root beer and deli sandwiches. Before the ranch got hard. Before…” I take another sip, swallowing the ache that comes with remembering anything before the accident.

She doesn’t fill the silence or fumble for a platitude asshe nods slowly.

“Funny how the little things stay,” I say.

She smiles, soft and easy. “Sometimes they’re the only things that do.”

We drink in silence after that, wrapped up in the sharp, familiar sweetness and the soft warmth of knowing someone elsegets it.

***

On our way back to the ranch, Grace shifts in the seat beside me, the new hat perched proudly on her lap like it’s too precious to wear. Beau is sprawled across her feet, chin resting possessively on her ankle, his tail thumping lazily with every bump in the road.

I glance sideways at her every so often, then back to the road. The sun slants low across the fields, turning the grass gold and the fences into sharp silhouettes.

Grace hums under her breath again. Something slow, wordless, and familiar, making the air around us feel comfortable.

“You didn’t have to buy the hat,” she says after a long stretch of silence. “It was too expensive.”

I keep my eyes forward. “I wanted to.”

Another pause follows until Beau lets out a long, satisfied dog sigh, and Grace bends automatically to rub his ears.

“He does love you.”

She smiles faintly. “Maybe I remind him of someone.”

I tap the steering wheel absently. “He doesn’t trust easily.”

“I know.” She glances at me, searching, thoughtful. “Neither do you.”

That hits somewhere low and unwelcome. I don’t answer because I don’t have to. She’s perceptive enough to know. We turn onto the long dirt drive toward the ranch house. The familiar outline comes into view: the barns, the fences, the house with its porch swing creaking faintly in the breeze. Beau lifts his head and wags, happy to be home.