The way she always smelled like coffee and whatever shampoo she'd been cycling through that month of the Thursday specials. He still drove past roast. He still couldn't eat the ring he'd moved to his right hand because he couldn't take it all the way off. She showed up too every day to every person she loved. Rachel Anderson had showed up, had put her hand on his when he was struggling, had reorganized his tool chest because she was looking for ways to do something for him.
Had sat in the same room with him in comfortable silence because she understood that sometimes love doesn't need language. She had showed up and he had spent 11 years running from that memory instead of carrying it. Something moved in Cole's chest. Something large and long sealed. His face forward, kept his jaw tight, kept his hands in his jacket pockets where nobody could see them clench briefly and then release.
Thomas was watching him. Cole didn't look at Thomas. He could feel it. You okay? Thomas said very quietly, Cole said.
And then after a beat, "No, but that's all right." Thomas said nothing. He just stood there, which was exactly the right response. Oh, and it made the whole thing both easier and harder at the same time. Put her hand on Cole's arm, not speaking, just her hand resting there.
The same gesture he'd seen through the diner window. Same thing he'd seen Rachel do a thousand times to students to strangers who were struggling in her presence. Women just know they stood there for a while. The three of them in front of the stone in the back field speaking, not needing to. When they walked back to the house made a decision, he didn't announce it.
He didn't make a speech. He just took out his phone as they crossed the yard back a few steps and called Dirt Bag. I need information, he said when Dirt Bag picked up tax auction, Harland County, a farm on Route 7 and Evelyn Parker. He gave what details he had, what the number is and who I talked to and what the deadline is. Brief silence on the other end.
Dirt Bag's voice stripped of everything except the directness Cole had always valued in him. Serious 9 days. Cole said, I'll call you back in an hour. One more thing, Cole said. Make it a big thing.
Don't bring the whole chapter into it yet. Let me figure out what we're actually dealing with first. Cole Dirt Bag's voice was flat with the particular tone of a man who had known Cole Anderson for 20 years. Told me, you made it a big thing. Just be quiet about it.
For now, I'm always quiet. Dirt bag. You told a parking lot full of strangers about the time I cried at a dog movie that was at a bar and they were friends. They were not friends. Me back.
He hung up. He caught up with Thomas and Evelyn on the porch. Was holding the door and looking at Cole with the slight narrowing of the eyes. That meant he had seen Cole on the phone and was not going to ask. Met his eyes.
I'm making a call. Cole said the farm. Don't argue with me. Thomas's face tightened. Tied in him old-fashioned and deep you couldn't reason with directly surfaced immediately.
Oh, I'm not asking. Cole said I'm telling you what I'm doing. This is not charity. This is me using a resource I have because a situation exists that I can help with things. Thomas's jaw was rigid.
Evelyn put her hand on her husband's arm. She said one word, but the weight of 61 years was in it. Looked at his wife. He looked at Cole. He looked away.
Our work. I won't take handouts, he said. Nobody's offering one, Cole said. But I know some people, people who know how to solve problems. This is Thomas was very still for a moment.
Then he said in a voice that was rough at the edges. He used to say the same thing when he helped people. He looked at Cole. Not Charity. It's just neighbors.
Cole held his gaze. Man. Thomas let out a long breath through his nose. He went inside without another word, but he didn't argue. Flag called back in 43 minutes.
Cole took the call on the porch where the afternoon light was starting to angle low and golden across the yards. He listened. He asked three questions. He listened some more. He thanked dirt bag and hung up.
He sat with the information for a moment. It was real. The deadline was real. The auction was real. It was also solvable.
Not easily, not by coal alone. With the right people and the right plan, and 9 days to execute it, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and looked at the yard. Tree, the tire swing moving slightly in the late afternoon air. About Michael Parker, 26 years old, coming home from his first bad call, sitting down with his father and saying, "I think I understand now what I'm here for." Cole had been riding for 30 years, enough miles to have gone around the earth multiple times.
He had been to dark places and come back from them. He had built a life that was by most measures a good one. Purposeful connected to something larger than himself where in the last 11 years he had also quietly carefully without ever quite deciding that started riding away from things instead of toward them on Thomas Parker's porch. He thought, "What am I here for?" And the answer came back clear and simple and unmistakable.
The way answers come back when you've finally gotten quiet enough to hear them. You're here for this. He was still sitting with that thought when the back door opened and Thomas came out and stood beside him. Looked at the yard together. You're planning something, Thomas said.