It was November in western Montana, the kind of cold that came early and stayed mean. A thin crust of snow had begun to form over the dead grass, and the sky over the Bitterroot Mountains was the color of old steel. Nate stood on the front steps with one backpack, a sleeping bag, and his ten-year-old sister gripping his coat sleeve so hard her knuckles looked white even in the dark.
Their dog, Bear, paced in tight circles beside them, hackles half raised, as if he understood every word that had just been shouted through the cracked screen door.
“You should’ve thought about that before running your mouth in my house,” Wade Harlan barked from inside.
Nate swallowed hard and tasted blood where he’d bitten the inside of his cheek. Wade had hit him only once that night, a fast backhand that split the skin near his mouth, but it wasn’t the hit that mattered. It was the sentence that came after.
Get out.
Not for a night. Not until he calmed down. Get out and stay out.
Lily looked up at Nate, her face pale and frightened beneath the pink knit cap their mother had bought her the winter before. Their mother had been dead for eight weeks. Eight weeks since the pickup slid on black ice outside Missoula and slammed broadside into a logging truck. Eight weeks since every casserole in town had gone cold and every sympathetic face had gone back to its own business. Eight weeks since Wade stopped pretending to be anything but what he was.
