So when he exited the General’s on-site office at the end of the weekend, tired and happy from the experience, it was a blow to overhear some of the trainees as they prepared to return to their homes.
“I can see why they hired the General. The man’s a legend. I don’t care if he’s injured; he knows stuff worth listening to. But Sergeant Myers? What’s his deal? There’s plenty of men around who can do the General’s errands for him.”
“I heard he’s never even been in the field,” another man said. “Spent his whole time at USSOCOM in Florida. Pretty cushy, if you ask me.”
“He got that limp overseas, you idiot,” a third man said.
“His first time overseas.”
Emerson pulled back into the General’s office and closed the door, figuring he’d wait to leave until they were gone. Confronting them would make him feel like a fool. They’d back right down, of course. They couldn’t insult him to his face when he worked for the General. He’d prefer knowing how they really felt.
“Why are you malingering there?” the General said when he’d packed his briefcase. “Thought you were going to load our bags into the truck.”
“Yes, sir,” Emerson said. He opened the door again. The reserve men had scattered, and he exited the building, all his satisfaction in the weekend gone. This was just one more place he’d never really belong.
“Isn’t this the cutest thing you ever saw?” Cass held up a pale-green baby onesie dotted with tiny dinosaurs.
“Everything in this store is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” Wyoming told her truthfully. They’d driven to Bozeman to go shopping, and Wye was discovering that baby clothes were like candy—absolutely delicious and hard on your wallet.
“Look at these!” Cass pounced on a pair of soft baby slippers made to look like cowboy boots.
“Should we just grab one of everything in the shop?”
“I wish we could.”
Wye had to admit Cass was showing remarkable restraint, all in all. She had several bags of purchases, but she’d picked up and put down hundreds of items that were just as darling as the ones she’d bought.
“I’m so glad you’ll be at Two Willows when the baby is born.”
Wye made a noncommittal sound. That was several months away, after all, and despite her conversation with Emerson the night before, who knew what might happen in the meantime.
“Wye? You will be at Two Willows in March, won’t you?”
“I… hope so.”
“What does that mean?” Cass put down the baby boots.
“I’d like to be. And things are going well with Emerson. But—”
“But what?” She sorted through items on the display table but kept her gaze on Wye.
“Honestly? I don’t entirely understand why you’d want me to be.” Wye hadn’t meant to say that—especially not here—but the truth slipped out before she could stop it. “I mean, we’re friends, and it’s been fun to have a long visit. I get that. But you’ve got a husband, a baby coming. All your sisters, their husbands and your father live on the ranch. Why on earth would you want me there permanently, too?”
Cass let the sweater she was holding fall on top of the others, and Wye’s heart contracted as her friend’s eyes filled with tears.
“Cass,” Wye said.
“I forget sometimes how short a time you’ve known me,” Cass said finally, blinking back the dampness in her eyes. “It feels like we’ve shared so much, but we really haven’t.”
Cass was right. They’d become close only about a year and a half ago. Wye had known who Cass was, of course, and vice versa, but since Cass and her sisters were homeschooled, they’d never gotten to know each other during their younger years. It was only when they’d both volunteered at a blood donation drive for the local hospital that they’d got to talking and realized they had enough in common to be friends. They’d started meeting for coffee on Saturday mornings, and progressed to lunches and shopping excursions, and soon they’d been talking and texting almost daily. It was hard for Wye to remember a time when Cass wasn’t in her life.
“Before I turned twenty-one and Dad finally stopped sending substitute mothers to watch over us, I rarely got off the ranch,” Cass went on. “When one of the wardens, as we called them, was around, we spent all our time figuring out ways to get rid of her. When we managed it, we went to ground trying to eke out as long a period of time unchaperoned as we could before one of the General’s spies realized what was happening and got word to him, and he sent someone else. It was like waging psychological warfare. It took up all our time, along with all the chores we were handling ourselves so the General wouldn’t realize we’d run off another of his overseers.”
“You and your sisters were firecrackers.”
Cass frowned, and too late Wye remembered her penchant for explosives. “Sorry.” Cass was making it a point these days to feel her feelings rather than set off fireworks to express them. “I mean it, though. You were some fierce teenagers.”
“I guess.” Cass gazed into the distance at something that was only in her mind. She came to with a start and looked down at the tiny sweater in its crumpled heap. “Fierce and lonely as hell, Wye. I think we’re all still making up for that. Those weren’t exactly happy times,” she added quietly.
Remorse filled Wyoming. “I guess not.” She had a habit of making Cass’s and her sisters’ lives like a fairy tale in her mind, but there was nothing fairy-tale-like about your mother dying when you were a teenager, your father abandoning you and enduring a year’s worth of attacks by a would-be drug cartel.
“I value good friends—and company,” Cass said. “When you’re around, I don’t feel so alone.”
“How can you
