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Cash shrugs “Maybe you can clear it up with him yourself now that you’re back in town?”

“I didn’t come here to bother him,” I say “Besides, he obviously irlfriend calling him up—”

“—whoa, whoa, whoa” Cash lifts a palm “Did you say wife?”

I nod “Yeah I heard he got married … has a kid or two …”

His full lips spread into a wide grin and shakes his head “Wow”

Thehim down, but Cash is too amused to notice him

“What?” I ask “What’s so funny?”

“Wyatt’s never been married,” he says “And he definitely doesn’t have any kids None that I know of”

An icy burst of confusion washes overa numbness in its place

My father isn’t the kind to htforward as they co families over here and nearly all of the three thousand seventy-eight residents of Whiskey Springs

“I just … I …” I don’t knohat to say And I don’t knohat to think because none of this issense

“Look, I don’t know all the details about ent down between you two,” Cash says, leaning in again “I just know that you really left a mark The bastard hasn’t been the same since … you”

He lifts both hands as if to say he’s finished with this discussion

“Take it up with hi at the end of the bar”

8

Wyatt

I stare into the bottoers as the sounds of classic country, clinking beer round A few years back, when Cash and his friend, Dylan, opened this place, I gave it six months, maybe a year tops The two of theuns in the west, had zero business experience, and they were barely old enough to legally drink at the time

But as Cash’s closest brother, I supported hiardless

And I proht, rain or shine