Then maybe we saved each other. Ryland nodded. Yeah. A small smile touched his face. Maybe we found each other exactly when we were supposed to.
Outside, stars burned quietly over Dusty Creek. Neither of them believed the hard days were behind them. There would still be people who refused to accept them. There would be trouble, pain, tests neither of them could yet see coming. But now they had something they had not possessed before.
A family, a home, and enough hope to keep moving forward. Sunday morning arrived beneath a thick ceiling of gray clouds. The air felt wrong, heavy, charged, almost as if the sky itself were holding its breath. Ryland stood in the kitchen making coffee when he glanced through the window and frowned. He knew that smell.
Rain was coming and judging by the sky, it wasn't going to be gentle. The children woke in high spirits. It was their first full Sunday in the new house. Yara prepared corn tortillas for breakfast and showed the children how to shape them by hand. Easy, she told them, pressing the dough between her palms.
Don't fight it. Food tastes better when you make it with care. Kea insisted on trying one herself. Her tortilla came out crooked, torn in two places, and shaped more like a saddle blanket than anything round. She held it up proudly.
"Look at mine!" Everyone burst out laughing. The sound filled the house with the kind of simple happiness none of them had known only days before. After breakfast, Ryland took the children out to the stable to teach them how to care for Flint. He showed them how to brush the horse's coat, clean dirt from his hooves, check his tack, and make sure he had enough feed and water.
A good cowboy takes care of his horse before he takes care of himself, Ryland explained. Flint carries us, works for us, trusts us. He gave the horse a firm pat on the neck. That makes him family, too. Reco was fascinated.
From the moment he stepped into the stable, he could hardly take his eyes off Flint. The horse seemed to understand the boy's excitement and stood perfectly still while Reco stroked his nose. "One day, I'm going to have a horse of my own," Reco declared. Ryland grinned. "That right?"
Reco nodded firmly. "And I'm naming him Lightning." Ryland laughed and tousled his hair. I reckon that sounds like a fine name. By midmorning though, the mood outside had changed completely.
The wind began to rise. At first, it only stirred the dust. Then it started bending scrub brush and rattling loose boards around the yard. The gray clouds overhead darkened until they looked nearly black. Far across the desert, thunder rolled like heavy drums.
Yara stepped outside and studied the sky. "A storm's coming," she said, her face tightened. "A bad one." Ryland joined her and followed her gaze. He had lived in Arizona long enough to know what desert storms could do.
They came fast. They hit hard. And sometimes they tore apart anything standing in their path. "Everybody inside," he ordered. Now the family hurried through the house, fastening shutters and checking the doors.