Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Frankie
I wake up alone. Sunlight sneaks past the curtains and lays a pale stripe across the quilt. Somewhere outside, a rooster crows. It should all feel foreign, but it doesn’t.
Where is Rhett?
I lie there and let the memory of last night lace through me: warm porch light, pumpkin faces flickering, Martha’s sleepy smile, Luke’s never-ending stories, and Rhett knocking at my door.
When I swing my legs out of bed, the floor is cool under my feet.
Another one of Rhett’s flannels lies across the bed.
Along with a note that says he had to get up and work, it also mentions that he can’t wait to see me this morning.
I pull on the flannel, roll the sleeves, and catch myself smiling at the mirror.
Downstairs, Martha hums a tune as she sits at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a romance novel. She turns when I step in, eyes kind and too clever.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” she says, and slides a mug toward me. “You’re glowing. Must be the altitude.”
“Must be.” I wrap my hands around the cup.
Outside the window, the yard glitters with dew. Rhett crosses the far edge of the lawn toward the smaller barn, sleeves already shoved up, hat low against the low, bright sun.
Martha sees where I’m looking and makes a sound of approval. “There are biscuits and jam. You should take Rhett one. He was out extra early this morning working on chores. I’m sure he’s hungry.”
I pop a biscuit into a napkin and step out into the morning air. Rhett hears me before he sees me. He turns with that careful, steady way he has that makes my knees weak.
“Delivery,” I say, lifting the napkin.
He takes a bite. “Thanks.”.
“Do you need help?” I ask. “I’m great at manual labor of the holding-things-while-you-do-the-real-work variety.”
He breaks the biscuit in half and hands me the bigger piece, like that’s normal. We eat in a companionable silence.
“What’s on the docket today?” I ask. “Fence whispering? Tractor therapy?”
“Feed the horses, check the south lock, call the propane man before the afternoon chill. Luke’s hauling Haunt décor back to the loft.”
“How long have you two been doing this?” I make a vague circle at the barn, the yard, the morning that seems to wear his name. “All of it.”
He looks over the pasture, eyes narrowing. “Feels like always. Come on,” he says, nodding toward the barn. “You can help me with the horses.”
“Yay,” I say and follow him like a puppy dog.
We walk into the barn, and I fall in love with his horse, Teddy. I strike up a conversation with him, asking how long he’s lived on the ranch and what his favorite treat is.
“You always talk to animals?” he asks, amused.
“To the sweet ones,” I say as Teddy snuggles into my shoulder. “Sometimes they listen better than people.”
“I agree.”
I take a deep breath and say, “I should get my car looked at,” I say. “Find out if it forgives me for assault with a pumpkin.”
“Your car’s ready to go. Luke and I fixed it the first day you were here.”
I nod, try to keep my voice casual. “Right, then I will get out of your way and head to the retreat. There are still a few more days.”
I can’t gauge his reaction as I watch him through my lashes. “Unless, you know, the roads are dangerous. The map is cursed. Or the fog machine eats towns now.”
“Roads are clear.” He says it gently.
After what happened the night before, I thought he would be asking me to stay instead of acting so cold. “Fine. I’ll go learn how to be my highest witchy self or whatever it is we’re doing. Probably there will be tea.”
“And chanting.”
“We discussed this. I only hex exes.”
He huffs. “Noted.”
“Rhett,” I say, then stop, because sometimes names are sentences.
“Frankie,” he answers, and his mouth softens by a millimeter again.
“What are we doing?” I finally ask, not afraid of sounding like a woman whose heart could break at any moment.
He looks down at his hands, at the palm with the pale scar I keep wanting to trace. “I don’t know.”
“Same.”
We sit together in silence until a truck turns up the drive. It’s loud, cheerful, unmistakably not from here. The truck is teal and sparkly with a glittering decal on the back window: Witchy Women Weekend.
“Oh God,” I whisper, torn between laughter and horror. “They found me.”
“They?” he echoes.
“My friends.” I slide off the rail and brush my hands on my thighs. I had texted them that I was fine and that there was no reason to worry about my absence from the retreat. They may have tracked me down somehow.
Rhett straightens too, eyes flicking briefly toward the truck and then back to me. I read worry there, and maybe something like bracing. “You want to meet them out front?”
“Better than letting Luke do it,” I say, and we start back across the field.
By the time we reach the yard, the chaos has spilled out onto the gravel like glitter.
Willow is in a mustard coat, hair a riot, filming a vertical video introducing “Brush Creek Ranch: where our girl Frankie is currently hiding.” Tasha, cool, composed, and lethal in sunglasses, carries a tray of fancy coffees like a benevolent caffeine fairy.
Jade, who once convinced me to buy a cauldron-shaped humidifier, is hugging Martha and trying to set a date to adopt her.
“FRANKIE!” Willow barrels into me with the force of a small, excited dog. “You disappeared like a legend. We thought someone kidnapped you or that you were hooking up with some man.”
“Hi to you too,” I say, laughing even as I wince at the volume. “Please stop yelling at me.”
“He’s hot. Does he have any brothers?” Jade asks while looking over at Rhett.
Tasha takes me in —the flannel, the boots, the fact that I am definitely glowing —and lifts one brow behind her sunglasses. “We brought croissants. And an intervention.”
Martha beams, delighted. “Bless you, girls. Come inside before this wind knocks you all over.” Rhett hovers a few steps back, polite, careful, the gentleman version of a retreat.
The women clock him at once. It’s impossible not to.
He’s tall and steady, hat shading his eyes, jaw rough with a morning that began before sunrise.
Willow gasps. “Ohhh. That’s him, isn’t it? Wicked Cowboy.”
“Please lower your voice,” I hiss.
Jade, unhelpful, waves. “Hi, Rhett! I promise we are normal.”
Tasha extends a coffee as a peace offering, “For you. Thank you for rescuing our girl from vehicular pumpkin homicide.”
Rhett takes it because refusing would be rude, and he was born incapable of being disrespectful. “Thanks.”
Willow is already filming the gravel. “Live from the scene of the crime—”
“Willow,” I say, irritated. “We’re guests. Put your phone away.”
She pouts, then slides the phone into her pocket with the reluctant flair of a woman who has never complied with anything quietly. “Fine. But if he so much as tips his hat, I’m taking a mental picture.”
Jade leans in, whispering not quietly enough. “Frankie, he’s a lot.”
Tasha’s mouth twitches. “He’s the correct amount. For you.”
Rhett’s face doesn’t change, but I feel him go still beside me. I turn to reassure him, already reaching for his sleeve, but he’s already stepping back.
“I’ve got work to do,” he says evenly, and tips his hat toward my friends, toward me. “Nice to meet you.”
“Rhett—”
“It’s fine,” he adds to no one, and is gone a beat later, disappearing into the barn.
My friends, oblivious, are already cooing over Martha and asking about a million questions. Luke appears from nowhere, thrilled at the prospect of a new audience, and begins telling tales to the girls, who are enthralled by his every word.
I smile, answer questions, and pretend that Rhett walking away didn’t hurt.
“Hey,” Tasha murmurs, reading me correctly as always. “You okay?”
“Sure,” I say. “It’s complicated.”
“All good things are.” She squeezes my fingers once, quick and certain, and then floats off to flirt with Luke.
“We’re proud of you,” Willow whispers. “Even if you fell for a cowboy like a cliché.”
I laugh because crying wouldn’t. “I didn’t fall, I just drove through his pumpkins.”
Jade sighs dreamily. “Same difference.”
Martha ushers everyone toward the porch like a general marshaling troops.
I trail behind, look back, and catch a last quick glimpse of Rhett’s silhouette through the barn door—a sure, solitary line against the dim.
I want to run after him and say the thousand things, to promise I’m not here to turn his life into a story for the group chat.
Instead, I carry plates and pour coffee and let the house swallow us in sugar and cinnamon and chatter, because sometimes you can only do one true thing at a time, and mine right now is to show everyone how okay I am.