Page 28 of The Outsider

“I had a question for you. You know Bix, the woman that I just hired to work on the ranch?”

“She looks like a kid to me.”

“She’s not,” he said. “I mean, younger than we are, but an adult.”

“Okay. Proceed.”

“I need a bed for her. So that she has a place to bunk down while she’s working here.”

“Okay.”

“I was just wondering if you knew if there were extras either at the ranch house or in storage somewhere.”

“I have one that we just put out in the storage shed. You’re welcome to get it if you want.”

“Yeah. I’d appreciate that.”

“It’s unlocked. Just behind the house. It should be the closest thing to the front. We just got a new bed and put it in there.”

“Perfect.”

“We have an extra bedroom,” she said. “If Bix needs a place to stay...”

“No,” he said. “I’ve got room at my place.”

“And you actually want her to stay with you?”

He couldn’t quite untangle why this felt like the best way forward. He felt responsible. For her. For his family. He felt like she was a mission that he had to see all the way through because he was the one who had started it. It seemed reasonable. Rational even.

He didn’t want her at the ranch house. While he trusted Bix more or less, he would be an idiot to trust her all the way. That was just logical.

“She’s...”

“Your stray?” Arizona asked.

He bristled slightly at that. It was unflattering to both him and Bix. But the problem was it was not far from the truth.

“She’s my responsibility,” he said, opting to just put a better label on it rather than scold his sister.

“You are a man who loves responsibility,” said Arizona. “And a hair shirt.”

“You’re the only person who can get away with saying things like that to me.”

“Wow. What do you do to the other people who say things like that to you? Do you glower at them until they put themselves in handcuffs?”

He gave his sister a deadpan look. “I’m going to go get the bed now.”

“Okay. Feel free to take some of my other junk with you.”

“I’m not a cleaning service, Arizona.”

“You’re not good for much, Daughtry.”

He shook his head and made his way back to the truck. It was a short drive over to the house his sister shared with Micah and their son. A cute little place, with a picturesque yard. It was amazing the way that his sister’s internal changes were reflected in the way she had decided to shape the home that she and Micah shared.

He didn’t have time to linger much on that, though. He went to the shed and opened it up, quickly finding the mattress, box spring and basic bed frame.

It was a bigger bed than he had been intending to put in the space, but Bix would probably enjoy it. Not that she had said anything about whether or not she had enjoyed sleeping in his bed last night.

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