Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
When I arrive at Moonbeam Farm, light from inside the kitchen casts a pale glow over the yard. I pause, imagining Hutch making breakfast in the kitchen that always felt too small for him.
I’m sure if I went inside, it would look the same as it did back then. Same faded couch with the quilt folded over the back. Same family pictures on the walls. Same dining room table stacked with various farm equipment, boxes of canning jars, equine supplements, and unpaid bills.
Same feelings I’ve kept locked inside my heart for so long.
I let mine down too. Last night, I lay awake with this twisting through my mind. I didn’t know Hutch had a guard. What does it mean that he let it down for me?
Laughing with him reminded me of how good things used to be between us. The easy friendship we shared.
Then he had to drop that little invitation to be his distraction last night.
Asshole.
Are we ever going to find our way?
By the time I feed and refresh the water for the six boarding horses, the sun’s long rays are peeking over the Bitterroots. The grind of a tractor engine rises from below. Squinting, I make out Hutch’s broad shoulders and the silhouette of his baseball cap.
When we were growing up, seeing him work the land or tending to the animals would turn my insides to mush. Even though he made it clear farm life wasn’t for him, he looks awfully fuckable doing it.
Inside the barn, I nearly crash into Beth carrying a saddle toward a horse waiting in crossties at the end.
“Morning,” I say, glancing into the first stall, which belongs to Otis, Louisa’s horse. He’s munching on his breakfast and the stall’s been cleaned. So have the other three.
I continue to where Beth is busy with saddling. “Anything else I can help with this morning?”
“No, thanks.” Beth tightens the cinch strap, making her horse grunt.
“Where do you ride from here?”
“Stone Creek Road has Miner Prairie trail access,” she says, releasing the left stirrup.
“Can I come?” Louisa did ask me to ride Otis, and on Fridays I have an extra hour in the morning.
Beth ducks under Taffy’s neck to whip the right stirrup down. “Think you can you keep up?”
I let this little rebuke roll off me. “I’ll make you a deal. If I can’t, I’ll turn back.”
“Suit yourself,” Beth says.
I have to sprint to prep Otis, who seems reluctant to be separated from his breakfast, but thankfully I remember how to tack up. Louisa and I are similar in height, so her saddle is a close fit. The rich scents of leather and sweet alfalfa combine with the musk of animals in my senses as I hurry to get ready.
When I slide into the saddle, the horse lover in me comes alive. I give Otis a squeeze and a click of my tongue to follow Beth down the dirt lane bordering the pasture. In the field to our left, the tractor turns down a row, heading our way, and in the soft morning light, Hutch’s eyes lift to mine. Even from this distance, the shift in his expression makes my breath catch.
Beth glances back, her gaze flicking from her brother to me for an instant before she turns away, her shoulders tight.
Once on the road, I pull up alongside her.
“Saw you at the vigil last night,” Beth says.
I was there with Sofie. Even though I didn’t know Marin very well, a good many of the families are my patients, and because Sofie’s sister Linnea was in the same class as Marin, she knew a lot of them too. I meant what I told Hutch. Grief is so much harder to bear alone. We’ll heal together, as a community.
“I’m glad you were able to be with your friends,” I say.
“The police want to talk to us.”
“They’re probably looking for information. They want to find who did this.”
“Rye had a nightmare last night.” She’s looking straight ahead, her jaw tense.
I’d be surprised if he didn’t, but it adds another layer to what he shared. “Did it scare you?”
Beth gives me an impatient huff, then turns her horse onto the spur heading into the forest. We ride single file, the sunlight filtering through the trees. Otis’s steady gait and the soft squeak of the saddle blends with his easy breaths and the tapping of my contented heart. But when we complete our loop and return to the farm, I can’t help the flutter in my tummy when Hutch comes out of the closest greenhouse, his baseball hat flipped backward. He hasn’t shaved yet today, giving his handsome face a rough edge. His sharp green eyes track us for a moment before he hoists a bag of feed over his shoulder and heads off to some new chore.
Beth shoots me a glare, startling me back to the horse I’m sitting on.
“It’s cool you want to help us,” Beth says, dismounting and gathering the reins to lead Taffy into the barn. “But don’t you dare break his heart again.”
A reply is buzzing on my tongue but I bite it back. I don’t understand what she’s getting at, but arguing about it won’t get me anywhere. Confused, I watch her disappear into the barn.
I’m just finishing grooming Otis when Hutch appears outside the stall cradling one of his mom’s famous thrift store mugs, Toby at his heels, tail wagging. “I’ll trade you. Coffee for your house key.”
I give him a look. “Why do you want my house key?”
“So I can put in a deadbolt today. I’m also going to get a dowel for that back slider.”
“Deal.”
Surprise flashes in his eyes as he hands me the coffee mug. “You feelin’ okay?”
I take a slow slurp of the coffee. It’s bold but flat, the way Louisa’s coffee has always been. She wouldn’t be caught dead spending extra money on gourmet beans.
“It’s nice of you to offer, and it would make me feel safer.” And I might have had a nightmare last night, too.
He’s still looking at me like I’ve sprouted two heads. “All right then.”
I take another sip of the coffee. “I took my spare key out of service last night, so I have it with me.”
He frowns. “What spare key?”
“The one I keep in the garden.” I polish off the coffee. “Don’t worry, it’s so hidden nobody would find it. It’s one of those fake rock ones. Every time I’ve had to use it, it takes me at least three tries to find it.”
He takes the mug and pulls open the stall door for me.
We walk from the barn side by side. The scent of the freshly turned dirt hits my nostrils. Earthy and rich. This close to Hutch, I also get a hit of sun-warmed cotton and the woodsy spice that makes him smell so good.
My belly flutters.
Beth steps through the front door in black jeans and a cropped T-shirt. Her hair is partially pinned back, with loose waves framing her pretty face. Her dramatic makeup makes her seem five years older than the girl I rode horses with a half hour ago, as does the look of hostility she grazes us with as she hurries to her car.
“How are things between you two?” I ask once she’s driving away.
Hutch rubs the back of his neck, wincing. “She’s giving me gray hairs, that’s for sure.”
“Because she doesn’t follow your rules?” I reach into my car for my purse.
“You should have seen what she wore the other night.”
“She has a right to express herself.”
“This is my baby sister we’re talking about here.” He inhales through his nose, like he’s trying to keep his cool. “I just don’t want her acting out to get attention. That kind of attention.”
I remember his reaction to Zach showing up. “Who would be her target? You?”
“Maybe. We’re hardest on the people we love,” he says with a hard sigh.
Don’t I know it.
I force down a swallow to reclaim my bearings. “She feels safe enough with you not to hide her feelings. I’d count that as a win.”
“Someone had been texting Marin from a burner phone. What if there’s some creep out there luring girls into a trap?”
This has been on my mind, too. “Then Zach and Everett and the rest of their team will find him and put a stop to it.”
Hutch nods, but his eyes stay focused on some distant place. “You’re right.”
I slide the spare key from my purse and drop it into Hutch’s big palm. “Beth knows you’ve got her back.”
He closes his fist around my key. “What about when I’m gone?”
An ache pulses through me. I don’t want to think about Hutch shipping off again. But it’s the truth. He’s not staying, and I damn well better remember it.
“She’s got plenty of people here. ”
He huffs a sigh. “I’ll feel a whole lot better when Marin’s killer is in custody.”
“We all will.”
I’m just leaving work when a text message from an unknown number flashes on my screen.
Hi Ava. This is Chris Tisdale. My aunt Tracy gave me your number
My mind spins for an instant before it clicks. This is the scientist guy Louisa wanted to set me up with.
Hi
No pressure at all, but would you like to meet for coffee sometime?
I tell myself it’s just coffee.
Sure
What’s your favorite spot?
Love Buzz on Fourth
I’m in town this weekend. Would tomorrow morning work?
Shit, that’s soon. I take a slow breath, thinking this through. Saturday, I’m meeting my parents at the diner for breakfast, and I had planned to stop at Louisa’s too. But if I put meeting Chris off until his next visit, I’ll just stew on it. Better to get it over with.
Would Sunday work?
I’ll make it work
I blink at the screen. He doesn’t even know me, yet it sounds like he’s willing to rearrange whatever he had going to meet up. I shouldn’t let it impress me, but it sort of does. It is a sign my bar has sunk too low?
Or maybe it’s just been a really long time since…
I think of my cowboy romances and the dog-eared pages I revisit with my trusty helper. My last steady was a fellow med student, and though our weekly hookups were fervent and fun, it was just physical.
With a sigh, I push my messy thoughts aside.
After Chris and I agree on a time, I lock up the building and after a stop at the grocery store, head home. When I get there, the new deadbolt in my door practically glows in the evening light. Hutch must have also adjusted the porch light settings, because it blinks on automatically when I climb the steps.
Inside, I secretly hope for a hint of his scent or some indicator he’s been here, but my house is quiet and still, with sunlight streaking through the windows. On the oval dining room table, two new keys sit side by side along with the house key he borrowed. No note. I slip one of the deadbolt keys onto my keyring and tuck the spare and my extra house key into the junk drawer.
I bring in the two bags of groceries, but when I open my freezer to put away my frozen burritos, stacked neatly in a row are six containers of coffee fudge chunk.
What the hell? I stare for a moment, then whip out my phone.
Hutch answers on the second ring.
“How much ice cream do you think I eat?”
He gives a soft grunt. “Now you won’t run out.”
I wrap my free arm around my middle but it doesn’t keep my insides from fluttering. “Thank you.”
“Deadbolt work okay for you?”
“Yes. The motion sensor light, too. I’ve been meaning to do that.”
“Good.”
“Thank you.”
“Welcome.”
The silence turns awkward. Asking him to come over or meet me for a run or a hundred other ways to spend time together all get lodged in my throat at once.
“How’s Louisa?” I finally manage.
“Ornery,” he says with a sigh. “Where do I find more of those cowboy romances? They are the only thing keeping her on the couch.”
This makes me smile. “Has she read the ‘Cowboys of Creedence’ yet?”
There’s a pause where I think he’s muffled the phone to ask her. “Yes.”
“Hmm. I’ll do some research.”
“Thank you.”
I think about the nightmare Beth told me about.
“Big plans tonight, Greely?” he asks before I can figure out how to bring it up.
I smile into the phone. The first time he called me that was gym class in fifth grade. We were doing a fitness test, and I was halfway up the rope bolted to the ceiling, my arms burning and my determination faltering. No girl had made it to the top, and I wanted to be the first.
You’ve got this, Greely! He called out from across the gym.
“Nope,” I reply. “How about you?”
His phone dings, like from an incoming text.
“Uh, just gonna hang out,” he says, sounding distracted.
Old feelings I don’t like rise up sharp and hot. It’s not jealousy because it was never like that between us. I always wanted more for him than a string of one-nighters. I wanted him to feel something inside. And to let someone feel for him .
Even if that person wasn’t me.
“Have fun,” I say with cheer I don’t feel.
“You too.” We say a quick goodbye and hang up.
I open my freezer and gaze at the cartons of my favorite ice cream, like it holds the answers, but it only chills my skin.
The same dream startles me awake at four a.m. I blink into the darkness, forcing a series of deep breaths into my lungs. Normally, I love my big bed and the way it swallows me, but right now, the emptiness feels vast. I use a grounding exercise I learned after the break-in, starting with five things I can see. Thanks to the pale glow from a night light in the hallway, the list comes easy. My dresser, the picture of me, Kirilee, and Sofie at her wedding, my bathrobe hanging on the back of my door, my blue and white comforter with the cloud pattern, and my lamp.
Four things I can hear. The soft breeze in the treetops. My heartbeat. The air in the vents. My silent house.
This is not the house four blocks from Sunset Beach in San Francisco. The intruder isn’t here.
It’s just me.
I’m safe.
Three things I can smell. My laundry detergent in the pillowcase. I squeeze a bead of vanilla-scented hand lotion from the tube in my bedside table drawer into my palm and work it into my fingers, focusing on the sensations. My mind drifts to Hutch’s sunbaked cotton scent and the earthy base notes of freshly turned soil.
I move through the rest of the exercise, each layer drawing me out of the past. When I finish, I feel better, but I know there’s no getting back to sleep, so I get dressed in my cozy sweats and pull my hair into a loose bun and get out my baking supplies. By six, I’m loading a batch of salted caramel brownies into two tins—one for the Finn River Sheriff’s department, and one for my dad and his crew of firefighters. Using my hands and focusing on the recipe as the sunrise fills in the shadows and the hummingbirds crowd the feeders I keep stocked outside my kitchen window has pulled me all the way back to the present.
When I pull up to Moonbeam Farm a half hour later, Hutch’s truck isn’t there.
I know what it means, but I refuse to let it sour my mood. The house is still and dark, so I head to the far pasture. Caspar meets me at the fence corner. I rub his soft nose and scratch his neck.
Beth’s words rattle around in my head. Don’t you dare break his heart again.
Twin headlight beams cut the darkness below me. I glance over my shoulder as Hutch jumps down from the truck and heads inside.
Feelings I buried six years ago twist and tighten inside me.
I won’t let him break my heart again, either.