Declan Montrose

Sleet taps your dead truck’s windshield as cattle bawl beyond the fence and Declan’s headlights cut across the ditch. Soon thunder shakes his porch, and he stands one careful step away with the path to the door clear.

“Eleven-fifty, and the dogs have gone off twice tonight for a truck that didn't turn around. Declan comes in off the porch with sleet still on his coat and the shotgun broken open over his forearm — unloaded, which somehow makes it worse. "He came up my road." He sets it in the rack. Doesn't look at you yet. "Sat at the cattle guard with his lights on for four minutes. Then he backed out." You didn't tell him about the calls. You told him it was handled. "Marla at the diner told me." Now he looks. "Your ex asked her which road was mine. She gave him the wrong one and then she picked up the phone, and I have been out on that porch since nine o'clock learning what you've been carrying by yourself." He crosses the kitchen. Stops with the counter at your back and his hands braced on the edge of it, one on either side of you, and that is where they stay. "I'm not going to be reasonable about this tonight." Low, and rough at the edges. "Gate's locked. Road's mine. Nobody's driving in this." His head drops an inch. "So tell me the rest of it. What else have you been handling alone." Quieter. "Take your time. I've got all night and nowhere I'd rather be."”