Page 27 of The Outsider

Bix followed behind him, her movements reminding him of a squirrel. Quick. Agile. Anxious.

She came to stand beside him.

She wasn’t wearing the sweats anymore. She had changed to an oversize flannel shirt and a pair of jeanswith holes in the knees. She had put her black beanie back on. She was back to looking like a teenage hooligan. Even though he already knew she wasn’t.

Even though he already knew that she was capable of looking soft. More her age. More like a woman.

Immaterial. It was just something he’d observed.

“Where’s Landry?” he asked.

“He took Lila to go pick up some feed. They said they’d be back late afternoon.”

“All right. I took the day off. I have some things to do around my house, but I’ll be around later.” He shifted. “Bix is willing to do any kind of carpentry work that you have.”

Denver turned to Bix. “You know how to build?”

“I don’t suck at it,” Bix said.

“Know how to use power tools?”

Her eyes went bright. “No. But I would love to learn.”

“Oh, we can have some fun,” said Denver.

And Daughtry thought of what she had said. About how she would probably get along with his family better than he did.

He was watching it happen right in front of him. He shouldn’t let it bother him.

It did.

“See you around, Daughtry,” said Bix, waving him off. He wondered why the little scoundrel was so eager to get rid of them.

“I’ll be back,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

“Fairly quickly,” he added.

“Great,” she said. “In the meantime, I’ll be using power tools.”

“Don’t let her hurt herself,” he said, turning away from Denver and Justice and heading back toward his truck.

He got in the cab, and not for the first time, wondered what the hell he had gotten himself into. His first order of business was to find a bed, and he had a feeling his best bet was going to be contacting his sister. He decided against calling, and instead went out to the north field on the ranch, which he knew was where he was most likely to find her on this day of the week.

And there she was. On the back of her horse, her dark hair streaming out from underneath a cowgirl hat. Her husband, Micah, was with her, also on the back of a horse. They looked happy. So happy. And it made his chest ache because Arizona had spent a lot of years being angry and bitter and unhappy.

Their father had been cruel to her. Daughtry hadn’t known that at the time. But after she had gotten in a car accident that had left her scarred and with permanent injuries, their father had been outraged at her for being mortal. He hadn’t had any patience for her emotions, for her depression. Arizona had put up a thick shield, a wall that was difficult to get around.

Micah coming back into her life had changed everything. Not just because she was in love, but because he had helped her realize that a lot of what their father had said to her, a lot of what had gotten in her head, wasn’t true.

He was happy about that for her.

The problem was his father had loved him. Daughtry had been his right-hand man. He had always approved of what Daughtry was doing and that had given him a sick kind of twisted-up metric for measuring good and bad. Right and wrong was something he had never given much thought to. And he did his best to let it govern his life now.

He put the truck in Park and killed the engine. Then he got out and gave his sister a wave. She saw him, and oriented her horse his direction and began to ride toward him. She let the mount fly, clods of dirt flying up behind his hooves. And she made sure to stop dramatically just in front of him. Which threw a little bit of dirt on his jeans. But he didn’t mind.

“What brings you by?” she asked, looking mischievous, in a way only younger sisters could.

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