I close my truck door and take a look around.

What's left of the ranch is more than just depressing. It's goddamn eerie. What was once tidy and well-maintained is now rundown and overgrown. The moonlight may be bright enough to guide my steps, but the fast-moving clouds are bringing the shadows to life. And I don't trust them. I see "ghosts," in fact. The Quinn of the past is not the only one that makes me uneasy. She's not even the most worrisome, and that's saying something.

Taryn didn't leave a light on for herself and uses her cellphone flashlight to lead the way. Fumbling with my own phone, trying to keep up and not trip or drop the damn thing, we skip the front steps and circle to the back of the house instead.

They used to have a nice deck and patio overlooking a sizable garden and greenhouse. Weather, weeds, and time really did a good number on the area, though. The greenhouse has cracked, shattered, or missing panels. The steps leading to the back of the house groan beneath my weight. The wood of the deck continues to crackle with every step. The stability is questionable, and the planks are covered in a layer of grit.

With a little persistence, Taryn jimmies the sliding patio door open, and I follow her over the threshold.

"What they don't know won't hurt them," she informs me.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that we're breaking and entering. At least it wasn't by force. Well, not really. She just knows something that the bank doesn't.

She closes us in and relocks the door to the best of her ability. A few steps later, she has a battery-operated work-light turned on. "The power's out," she informs me, leading me from the kitchen. "Luckily, there's a bunch of junk still in the storm cellar. Some of it was actually useful."

The house is a little dusty and cluttered with tools and construction waste. I find it sad that it's so empty, but it's not beyond hope. With a few people and a few days of labor, it would likely be habitable again. I wish the same could be said about the land, but, at first glance in the dark, it's much further gone. And I would know. It used to be one of my jobs to keep it contained.

Taryn sets the work-light on the floor in the dining room and veers into the parlor. I stay with the light, and through the doorway, I can make out a sleeping bag and an open suitcase. There are a few pairs of shoes on the floor nearby, all of them sensible.

When she leans over to take her boots off, I do an abrupt "about face." It's pretty much her bedroom and I pace the floor in the opposite direction, to give her a moment of privacy.

It's the first time I notice the guitar leaning against the wall. I bring it to the open stepladder below the dismantled light fixture and sit down. I take a moment to inspect it. There's the scratch I caused and the dent I didn't. Without a doubt, it's the guitar Quinn and I both learned on.

I don't know why, but it's a pleasant surprise. Maybe it's the whiskey still in my system. Even though it's been a while, it feels so natural in my hands.

When I start strumming, I glance into the parlor. I suppose I'm seeking Taryn's reaction. This whole ordeal started with a guitar pick. Nothing has been explained yet, but I finally feel like we're getting somewhere.

Taryn is standing in the far corner, just within my range of sight. She managed to get a pair of flannel shorts on without me noticing, but I catch a glimpse of the back of her bra and the curve of her waist, just as she's throwing a loose T-shirt over her head.

I shouldn't have done that, and I didn't mean to. I didn't think she'd be changin' changin'. I wasn't thinking in general, and I suppose that suits me in times like these.

Strumming louder and faster and shifting my whole person toward the wall in the other direction, I'm able to recover before she notices. Even so, I'm a little rattled when she comes back into the dining room, and it does not get past her. "Everything all right?"

"Sure. Fine." I stop strumming to fiddle with the tuning pegs.

Taryn pulls over a folding chair, angles it toward me, but she walks past it and heads to the front window.

"You haven't lost your touch." She stops there to stare, as if she sees something besides darkness, and weeds, and broken things.

I realize I'm staring and turn my gaze to my fingering. "Now, you don't need to go buttering me up with lies." I try to recall any songs I might still know by heart. At my best, there would have been at least a dozen. Time has done me no favors, though. I haven't picked up a guitar since things ended with Quinn, and I'm more than a little rusty. "Do you still have my guitar pick?"

I regret the words as soon as they're out of my mouth.

Taryn may have been lost in thought, but, like I expect and deserve, she reaches into her night-shorts pocket—and that means the transfer to them was premeditated—and she moves in on me, holding the guitar pick out for my weary eyes to see.

She stops, just inside the reach of my knees, and doesn't waste the opportunity to look down on me. "So, you admit it's yours now?"

Taryn lifts an eyebrow, somewhat amused. I suppose I'm lucky there's not steam coming out of her ears.

"I never denied it," I try, as pointless as it may be. She got me, and she got me good.

Her eyebrows bob up, and it highlights the eyeroll. "You know, you could have saved yourself the trip here and me the broken windshield." She tosses the pick on my leg. It slides to the crotch of my jeans, and that seems fitting somehow, like I just got kicked there.

"That may be, but then you wouldn't have had the pleasure of hearing me play."

She was walking away, notably less amused, but a crack of a smile breaks through as she collapses into the folding chair next to me. It's loud and clumsy . . . for her, and she does not sit ladylike. Still, it doesn't matter what she does with those long skinny legs of hers and bare feet. They're classy and elegant, regardless.

And distracting.

They force my eyes closed, but that makes it worse. "A song!" My now open eyes land on the side of her head. "We need one. Do you sing?"

She looks taken aback, like no one has ever asked her that before. "Do you? I'd love to hear you try."

"You'd regret that. Think dog in heat." I'm not that bad, but I'd rather hear her. Since she dodged the question, I'm curious. Anyone related to Quinn might doubt themselves and hold back, but that doesn't mean Taryn can't sing. "What's a song that every Texas girl would know?"

Her eyebrows go up and stay up this time, but I don't let that discourage me.

"I know!" I start strumming the opening to Dolly Parton's Jolene with my unlucky guitar pick.

https://youtu.be/Ixrje2rXLMA

Quinn and I played it for our high school talent show. I practiced until I could play it in my sleep and won't ever forget it as a result. I messed it up when it mattered most, though. I realized the hard way that stage fright is real, and I was its new victim. We still won. The competition wasn't fierce, and no one was really listening to me anyway. As much as I wish I could say otherwise, Quinn is that good. I suppose it's the source of her impossibly high standards, and I'm sure this has not improved with experience. She smiled and said nice things with the First Prize trophy in hand, but I could tell she was disappointed, mostly in me.

It was the first and last time we ever played together in public like that. The "win" really lit a fire underneath her, too. Quinn was given a better guitar for her birthday soon thereafter and gave up the fingernails and the smooth skin of her fingertips, all so she wouldn't need me anymore. I had other uses, but the accompaniment was something I lost a couple of years in. And I must say, I should have seen the rest coming well before I did.

Good Lord! I should have picked a different song...

At the time Taryn should jump in with "Jolene," she says, "Grady" instead, and it's in a tone meant to level with me.

"I hear ya," I chime in before she has a chance to comment. "You're probably tired of that one, too." Even if Taryn had gone out of her way to avoid it, she probably heard Quinn and I practicing it a zillion times. If her talents were ever overlooked because Quinn was the "star," I can certainly understand why she's not into it.

There's no one who understands sibling rivalry better than me. I have the scars to prove it.

I flatten the strings with my three available fingers, cutting the chord short, and start playing some commonly used chords in an order that makes sense. I will carry on until I come up with something else.

"Grady," she interrupts me again. It's firmer this time and she's pinching the bridge of her nose with her eyes closed.

When she doesn't follow up with anything, I reset my fingers and start strumming again. It's just something I need to do to ease the tension.

But, what makes it bearable for me, seems to be ratcheting it up for her. "She's missing!" she blurts through the hum of a mistake. I messed up the fingering and the chord sounded terrible.

I quickly put it out of its misery, stopping the reverberation with my fingers again. "Quinn?"

"Yes, Quinn." Taryn brings her ankles onto the chair and sits cross-legged. "Who else?" All the fight is gone from her voice. With the collar of her well-loved T-shirt, she takes a moment to blot her eyes dry. "If you think about it, does it really surprise you?"

No would be my answer, but I don't have the balls or heart to say it. Quinn would have sold her soul for a recording contract. Who she'd sell it to was always scary to me.

It seems my worst fears were valid. I wasn't just being pigheaded and overprotective.

I set the guitar on the floor and place the pick on top of it. Then I lift my ankles to the first step of the ladder and bury my head in my hands. I think I might pass out, or vomit, or cry my eyes out.

What this means . . . and all the implications. . .

I can't process it right now. And if that's the case, how could I ever hope to get off my ass and do something about it?

I could tell Taryn to go up a crick, but that seems equally impossible at this point. And cruel. I already tried that and failed miserably. I've been sitting in her old dining room, playing her sad songs ever since. All the while, I'd been wondering what it would be like to live here. To bring it back to life. To belong here in every sense. Not just as an employee or a fling.

What would I have to do to deserve more? And how did I fail the first time?

This is the only way, and it's a goddamn longshot. I'm probably more likely to die than get what I want.

And that's Quinn, isn't it? Alive, and well, and home? This must be my final test.

At that, my head lifts. "What does that have to do with my guitar pick from ages ago?"

"I have no idea," Taryn responds. "It showed up in my mailbox at school. No envelope. No note. It had to be put there for a reason, though. I just don't know what that reason could be..."