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and walked him over to the mirror on the wall between the living room and the kitchen. Cole had watched and learned, too,

as Doc did it for him twice and then guided him as he attempted it on his own. That attempt was a mess, but the girls were

heading toward them, so Doc tied it quickly and perfectly, and only he and Cole were any the wiser that Wes had committed

the faux pas.

By the time he took Addie to senior prom, he had spent hours practicing the reliable Windsor knot, and he felt so cool when,

at the end of the night, when things got a little less formal, he was able to release that baby with one simple tug. And he

felt even cooler when he was able to hastily tie it again before dropping Addie off, so that Doc didn’t suspect his tie was

undone for more salacious reasons.

And then, on his last evening in Adelaide Springs, just before their wedding rehearsal, he’d had the closest thing he’d ever

had to a panic attack as he tried on his rented suit one more time. He’d been in the back of his mom’s restaurant. The Bean

Franklin it was called now, Jo had told him. Then it had been Marietta’s, but really, it had been nothing. His mom was gone,

after all.

His hands had been trembling so much that the tie would slip through his fingers every time he tried to get a hold on it.

Exhaustion was piling on top of jitters and missing his mom and fears about the future and the anxiety he was feeling trying

to get to know the father he had searched for his entire life and who had finally shown up in a moment when he just couldn’t

handle one more thing.

“Doing okay, kid?” Doc had asked him, and Wes had jumped at the sound of someone else’s presence in his bubble of anxiety.

“Um... yeah. Sure. Thanks.” But his voice had been trembling even more than his hands, and Doc knew better.

“Big day tomorrow.” He’d stepped in front of him and slipped the tie from around Wes’s neck. He’d carefully straightened it

before reaching over and lifting the collar of Wes’s shirt and perfectly aligning the tie beneath it. “Big few days for you,

actually. You sure you’re alright? No one would blame you if you weren’t.”

How could he tell Doc the thoughts that were going through his head? He didn’t even want to acknowledge them to himself. “I’m

a little nervous, I guess.”

Doc nodded and brought the wider end of the tie through the loop. “That’s to be expected. I remember the night before I married

Addie’s mom, I threw up in a shrub in front of the church.” He chuckled and carried on tying. “I’d been so sure about everything,

and then, all of a sudden, I wasn’t sure about anything. Are you feeling some of that?” Wes nodded. “Yeah. Well, you can’t

always have it all figured out. That’s just the way it is.”

“What if...?” Wes cleared his throat and tried again. “What if you were right? What if everyone was right?”

“About you two being too young?” Doc pulled the end through the loop a final time and kept adjusting until it was perfect.

Although Wes had been pretty sure, even then, that it was perfect from the start. “Parents... older people... we always

have to state our thoughts. Especially when our kids are your age. We know that our time to help guide you is almost up, and

we want to teach you every single thing we can while we still have the chance. At the end of the day, do I wish you’d decided

to wait a little longer? Sure. Part of me wishes she’d never get married and she’d just stay home with me forever. I can’t

deny that. But you listen to me, kid.” He moved his hands to Wes’s shoulders and met him eye to eye. “My hesitation...

my worry... it’s never once been about you or about the two of you together. Knowing it’s going to be the two of you together

might actually be the only reason I’ll be able to sleep at night when she heads out into the world. I couldn’t be more proud

to have you as my son.”

“I think that’s my line now,” Governor McNeese had chortled as he came around the corner. And then Doc had stepped away to check on Addie, and the governor had untied Wes’s tie with a derisive, “A Windsor knot? Oh no, son. Let me show you the proper way to tie a tie.”

In twenty-two years away, he hadn’t once tied a Windsor knot. In twenty-four hours back, his fingers had forgotten they’d

ever known anything different.

“Hey, Phil, I need to run.”

“So can I tell Herbie to expect your call? And it wouldn’t completely break my heart if I woke up to a front page featuring

a picture of you shaking hands with Richardson, you know.”

“Who?” Why had he undone the perfect Windsor he had subconsciously tied? He once again couldn’t get his hands to stop shaking

long enough to grab the material, much less tie it into an intricate knot.

“I’m sorry, did you just say who ?”

Wes yanked the tie from around his neck, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it onto the bed. “Um, sorry. Yeah, just distracted.

Governor Richardson. Obviously. I’ll see what I can do.” Governor Richardson. Of California. Who worked in Sacramento. Where

Wes was supposed to be. Right.

He looked at his watch—six fifty-eight—and hurried over to the window. The sky was perfectly clear after the day’s blizzard,

which Wes knew meant the temperature would have dropped thirty or forty degrees since the sun went down. Addie sat in the

truck waiting for him, motor running.

“I’ll call you tonight, Phil.”

“I’m holding you to that.”

“Absolutely. If I don’t call, feel free to sic Senate gavel lady on me.”