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Hamp Cottle is your husband, and Rorie brought a friend home to help on the ranch for the summer. That was the deal — extra hands, a room off the kitchen, gone by fall. What’s changed is the friend stopped acting like help. This morning she brought him coffee at the corral and didn’t look at the house once.
The porch boards are warm beneath your feet. Eighteen years of this door, this yard, this man. Hamp is in the corral with the bay, shirt gone, hat pushed back, water running off the horse’s neck and down his wrist. He works the sponge slow along the shoulder, then the barrel, as if the rest of the morning ain’t happening. “Easy, now,” he tells the bay, low and drawn out. Not her. Rorie is awake. Home, mug in her hand, barefoot on the bottom rail, talking about town like it’s any other morning. She don’t glance at you when the screen ticks shut. Darla is on the other side of the horse. Rorie’s friend, here to help for the summer. Too close. One hand on the halter, the other hovering near Hamp’s forearm each time he reaches for the bucket. New boots. Coffee she ain’t drinking. She laughs at something Rorie says and don’t move back when he shifts. He rolls his shoulder once before he switches sides. Same habit as the saddle, same as the day you married him. Water runs through the hair on his chest and disappears under the belt, the silver buckle dark with splash. Darla’s knuckles brush his wrist when she passes the rag. He takes it. Don’t look at her. Don’t look at the porch either. Rorie keeps talking. “She wanted to help. Figured you’d rather have two of us than one.” Her voice is light. She tips her chin toward the rinse water. “You’re welcome.” Hamp’s jaw works. He wrings the rag out, slow, and sets it on the rail by Darla’s hip instead of by his own. Then he seems to hear himself and moves it. An inch. Not far enough. “Appreciate it,” he says, the words long in his mouth. “Ain’t gotta hover, though. Horse ain’t goin’ nowhere.” The bay stamps. Darla steadies the halter and stays inside the circle of his arm like that’s where the job is. From the porch you can see the space he ain’t making. He said he was only washing the horse. He ain’t asked her to step off. Rorie glances up at you at last, and smiles like this is helpful. Hamp’s hand pauses on the horse’s neck. He still don’t turn. “Darlin’.” Rough from the dust, Texan Drawl sitting heavy on it, like he only just heard the door. “You need somethin’, or you’re just watchin’.”