Page 69 of All We Carry Home

I stumbled as he put more weight on me but pushed him forward. Just a few more steps to the barn and one small set of stairs. Hopefully tomorrow he’d be back to his old, jovial self.

“Washington would be a mistake,” he said. “I’ve made mistakes too.”

“We all have,” I said.

His mumbling went further into the unintelligible as I pulled him up the staircase and into the apartment. He collapsed onto the bed, and I closed the door quietly behind me and went back into the barn.

Annie raced by with her parade of animals. Goats, a cat, a dog, and one particularly friendly chicken followed her in search of scraps.

The sight eased the weight and ache in my chest ever so slightly.

“Is Dad back?” Annie asked, hesitating for a moment. The new goat started chewing on her shirt hem.

“Yes, just sleeping.” I glanced around. “Where’s Peter and Warren?”

“At the cabins,” she said and bounced off. Her shirt was torn at the hem, but she was unfazed.

Good, at least I could trust that Warren was talking to Peter, making sure he was okay. The boy was troubled, but he wasn’t a bad kid. He’d worked hard, especially since recovering from the snakebite, and seemed to appreciate his second chance at life.

Eddie had seemed only more troubled by the experience. That was when his drinking had grown more intense.

I fell onto a spare straw bale and covered my face with my hands, exhaustion washing over me. Work had always been my constant distraction, my solution to the emotions and memories I could never make sense of. Yet even with the never-ending well of tasks, I suddenly felt I was grasping at the air and had nothing to anchor me.

I closed my eyes, voices and memories rising and threatening to choke me.

“Was it worth it?”

I tried to picture the last sunrise I’d seen—and I couldn’t.

A deep voice pulled me out of my fruitless struggle. “Eva?”

Warren stood beside me, removing leather gloves tinted black from moving charred lumber and debris.

All the questions and unknowns raced through my mind—along with Eddie’s drunken mumblings about how Warren cared for me.

“Would you meet me here in the barn around four a.m. tomorrow?” I asked.

I knew I shouldn’t open the door, shouldn’t even extend the invitation. I’d been vague before when he asked about seeing the sunrise over Beacon’s Bluff.

He blinked. Probably wondering why now, with everything else that had happened in the past twenty-four hours.

“Of course,” he said.

I nodded and headed toward the house. “I’ll see you then.”

I was playing with fire, and no amount of leather gloves or water in a bucket would protect me.

Warren

By the time I left Birkstrom that night, after making sure Eddie was sober enough to be useful if something happened on the grounds, it was nearly ten p.m. If I raced back to the hotel, I might get a handful of hours of sleep. Not that I cared.

I woke ahead of the three a.m. alarm I’d set and drove back out to Birkstrom in darkness. I’d need to tell Eva about my plans to run for the Senate. This morning. It would be the best chance at speaking to her one-on-one. The thought still churned my stomach.

The soft orange glow of a lonely light bulb lit my way to the barn, where another light inside was on. When I stepped into the quiet aisle, my heart stopped. She wore a light blue plaid blouse, tan pants, and her hair loose over her shoulders, different from her normal ponytail.

I hadn’t even realized I’d come to a stop until she turned, caught my eye, and gave a jerk of her head to motion me over. “Gotta hurry if we want the best seat in the house,” she said.

Her two mares, both tied to the stalls and saddled, were quiet, their ears drooping as if they weren’t quite awake yet. The tan mare, Acorn, turned as I approached and nuzzled my hand. The other, Autumn, sighed as Eva tightened the cinch and gave the saddle seat a pat.