“I never thought I’d have it,” Connor said as if reading his mind.
“I bet not.”
Connor looked at him out of the side of his eye. “You seem pretty resolutely set against it.”
“Yep,” Wolf said. “Not for me.”
“That’s interesting,” Connor said.
“How is it interesting?”
“Oh, I’m just always fascinated by what we’re so certain of. Until variables get thrown in our paths. There’s a whole hell of a lot we don’t know. About ourselves. About the world. Hell, I didn’t ever think that I would have four little redhead daughters. I didn’t think that I would ever be able to fall in love again.”
“Yeah, well. I’m happy for you,” Wolf said.
“You know, the thing about this sort of thing is... None of it’s magic. You make decisions. Because you can try to give meaning to tragedy all you want, but at the end of the day it’s about what you decide to take away from it. Or what you don’t. So if this is your takeaway...well, that’s it.”
“It’s not that simple,” Wolf said. “I don’t want to sound dramatic or anything like that, but Garrett’s Watch is cursed. You try to sidestep that, and it just comes for you. Somebody ought to burn it down and salt the earth.”
“Except your brother seems fine enough?”
“Yeah, well, you don’t know Sawyer very well. He’s... He gets what he wants. And he’ll make it work. Because it’s who he is.”
“What about you?”
“You deal in agriculture.”
“Lightly. Not sure that I would consider cows agriculture.”
“Then you understand how it all works. If the seed is bad, you’re not getting a good crop out of it, are you?”
Connor looked at him for a long time. “With seeds, sure. But people aren’t seeds. People get to choose.”
“Not everybody,” Wolf said, thinking of Jessie. Thinking of Breanna. They hadn’t chosen their fates, nor would they have.
Nobody would.
“All right, you don’t get to choose everything. That’s what makes the things you can choose all the more special.” He tilted his beer bottle back toward the house. “Like all that in there. I’m real glad that Liss helped me be brave enough to choose it.”
“Again, mighty happy for you,” Wolf said. “I’m not looking for that kind of change. It’s good to see. It’s good to see Garretts doing all right. It gives me hope. For Sawyer. For Elsie.”
“Not for yourself?”
He raised his beer bottle so that it covered up the sinking sun. The light poured through the brown bottle, but it diluted it. Making it so it didn’t hurt his eyes. “Hope for me is just waking up to ride again. To see about my business. Work the land. Maybe go out, get laid. That’s hope to me. I got nothing beyond that. And I don’t want anything beyond it. You know, there’s something to be said for that. For just accepting what you have.”
“Oh, sure,” Connor said. “You might be the first man in existence to actually do it.”
He knew his cousin didn’t believe him. Well, fuck him.
“There are probably a lot of us,” Wolf said. “We just don’t run around talking about it.” He drained the rest of his beer. “I might call it a night.”
“Have you met Violet?”
“Why?”
Connor’s gaze became far too astute. “Well, because you seem antsy to get back to the place. You mentioned this morning that you had a nice breakfast before you went out to work. Unusual, considering the hour. I figured it was Violet. And also, you didn’t just sayyes, which means what I suspect to be true is likely true. You sweet on her?”
Wolf snorted. “I don’t do sweet.”