Chapter 7
Jessie
Spur & Spoon diner smells like coffee, bacon, and something sweet baking in the back. It’s small—maybe a dozen tables, half of them occupied by people who look up when we walk in, then quickly pretend they weren’t staring.
Getting used to that. The looking.
It’s funny—three years I spent cultivating an audience of strangers who wanted to watch my every move.
Jessie Henry, Free-Spirited Nomad Artist. The paint-stained hands, the artfully messy studio interior.
I built a brand out of being unbranded. And somewhere along the way, I stopped making art for myself and started creating content for the algorithm.
The trap was so pretty I didn’t notice the bars until I couldn’t breathe.
In the city, people wanting to know about me always felt like they were looking for a story to screenshot and share. Or content for their own channels.
But here? These people don’t know my follower count. Don’t care about my engagement rate. They’re not looking at me and calculating my value.
Here, it’s just curiosity. Simple, genuine interest as if they actually want to know me, not just know about me.
There’s a difference.
“Booth in the back,” Tank says, his hand finding the small of my back again.
I’m starting to crave that touch. The steadiness of it. The way it says I’m here without demanding anything in return. After yesterday’s kiss on the porch, every brush of contact feels charged.
We slide into a worn leather booth, the worn upholstery soft against my thighs. Tank takes the bench across from me, and for a moment, we just look at each other.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.” But he’s almost smiling.
Something in me goes dangerously gooey. I don't know what to do with it, so I look away.
A woman with a gray bouffant and cat-eye glasses appears at our table before I can spiral.
“Well, well.” She sets down two mugs and fills them with coffee from the pot in her hand without asking. “Sawyer Granger in my diner. And with a friend, too. Should I check outside for flying pigs?”
“Wanda.” Tank’s voice is gruff, but there’s warmth underneath. “This is Jessie.”
“Honey, the whole town knows who she is.” Wanda turns her sharp gaze on me, her scrutiny piercing me like an X-ray. “Mabel spotted you two at the general store. That was”—she checks her watch—“forty-seven minutes ago.”
Tank drums against the table. “Must be a new record for the gossip chain.”
I stifle a laugh.
“Small towns run on nosiness and casseroles.” Wanda pulls out a notepad. “What can I get you, honey?”
“Two slices of Shay’s huckleberry pie,” Tank says before I can open my mouth. “With ice cream.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Presumptuous.”
“Trust me.”
“And if I want something else?”
“You don’t.”
Wanda tucks the notepad back into her apron. “Huckleberry pie it is. Drinks?”
“Just coffee,” Tank replies.
Wanda’s expression softens as she looks at me again. “It’s nice to meet you. And it’s good to see him smiling. Been a while.”
She’s gone before I can respond, weaving between tables toward the kitchen.
I look at Tank. “Been a while?”
He shrugs, but tension creeps into his shoulders. “She worries about whether I’m eating enough, sleeping enough, talking to enough humans.” He wraps his hands around his coffee mug. “Small town stuff.”
“That’s not small-town stuff. That’s people caring about you.”
His jaw tightens, and he busies himself straightening the sugar packets into a perfect row because, apparently, accepting concern is harder for him than defusing bombs with paper clips.
This gruff, growly mountain man who bid a thousand dollars to keep me safe. Who gave me his bed and slept on a too-small couch for days. Who stood in his kitchen this morning, coffeepot in hand, watching me sketch like I was something worth looking at.
These people see him. They care about him. They’ve been worried about him, alone on his mountain, and now they’re looking at me like maybe I’m the answer to a question they’ve been asking for years.
It should feel like pressure. Like expectation. Like all the reasons I usually run. But… it doesn’t.
Wanda returns with a slice of pie that’s frankly obscene—golden double crust, lemon-scented berries piled high, a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting down the side. She sets it in front of me with a theatrical flourish.
“Best pie in three counties,” she announces. “Shay Sutton’s special recipe, and she’s got the ribbons to prove it.”
I take a bite.
Oh.
“Oh, my god.” The words come out muffled around the fork. I don't care. This is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth, and I’ve eaten at Michelin-starred restaurants.
“Good?” he asks.
“I’m going to need a minute.” I pause to let my taste buds absorb the fruity, sugary goodness. “And an introduction to the angel who makes this pie.”
Tank nods. “Shay. Henry Sutton’s wife. Henry’s father founded the veterans’ program at Havenridge Ranch.”
I take another bite, closing my eyes. “Don’t talk to me.”
His laugh is low and warm, doing things to my stomach that have nothing to do with the pie.
By the time I’ve scraped the plate clean, Wanda has refilled our coffees twice, and at least six different townspeople have craned their necks to get a look at us. Tank ignores them all, his attention fixed on me like I’m the only person in the diner.
It’s a lot. He’s a lot.
I could get used to this. The thought surfaces before I can stop it. This diner, this pie, this man watching me like I’m the most interesting thing he’s seen in years.
I could stay.
We leave cash on the table and push back out into the cold, snowy afternoon. Tank falls into step beside me as we head toward the truck.
“That guy on the phone this morning,” he says, voice carefully casual. “Does he always talk to you like that?”
I should’ve known this was coming. Tank doesn’t push, but he doesn’t forget either.
“Albert.” I sigh. “He’s my agent. Five years now. He got me my first gallery show, my first commission over ten thousand dollars, my first feature in a real magazine.”
“Sounds like you owe him.”
“That’s what he thinks.” The words come out more bitter than I intend. “That’s what I thought too, for a long time.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m starting to wonder if I built my own cage and handed him the key.”
Tank stops walking. I stop too, turning to face him. We’re in front of the hardware store, afternoon light catching the dust motes floating between us.
“Why do you let him talk to you like that?”
The directness startles a laugh out of me. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“I’m serious. He treats you like you should be grateful he deigns to represent you. Why?”
“Because I wanted strangers to validate me.” God, it sounds even worse out loud. “I wanted the followers, Tank. The commissions. The features. I didn’t believe my work mattered unless someone else told me it did.”
He listens, his expression unchanging, but his eyes soften. He’s not judging.
“Albert just helped me monetize the cage I was already building. And now I don’t know who I am without the brand, without the audience, without someone telling me what to paint.”
“So you came here to figure that out.”
“That’s partly true. It’s what I tell myself, but I came here to hide.” I stare at the cracks in the sidewalk. “And, yeah, I want to figure it out too.”
“And what do you want to make? If no one was watching. If there were no algorithm, no client, no agent telling you what sells.”
I open my mouth to answer and realize I don’t have one.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I used to know. But it’s been so long since I made something spontaneous that I can’t remember what that feels like.”
Tank closes the gap. Not touching, but close enough that I’d barely have to lean to change that.
“Then maybe that’s where you start.”
“It’s not that simple. I have contracts. Obligations. A career that—”
“You’re the talent, Jessie.” No room for argument. Just Tank, steady as bedrock, looking at me like I’m the only one who hasn’t figured this out yet. “Those galleries, those clients, that asshole agent—they need you. Not the other way around.”
“Believing that is terrifying.” My hands are shaking.
When did that start? “If I’m worth more than what I’m getting, then I have to do something about it.
Walk away from the only career path I know and hope I can build something better.
And what if I can’t? What if I blow up my whole life and end up with nothing? ”
Tank holds my gaze.
“Then you start over. Here. Somewhere else. Doesn’t matter. At least you’d be free.”
Free.
A flutter kicks up somewhere south of my common sense. I’ve spent my entire life running from anything that felt like a cage. And here I am, trapped in a career that’s slowly suffocating me, telling myself it’s what I wanted.
“I don’t know how to stay somewhere long enough to build something,” I whisper.
“You’ve been staying with me.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it? Seems like you’re building something right here. Whether you meant to or not.”
“Tank—”
He doesn’t let me finish.
One second there’s space between us, and the next he’s got me caged against the side of his truck, one hand braced beside my head, the other cupping my jaw with a gentleness that contradicts everything about his size.
“Tell me this isn’t what you want, and I’ll back off.” His voice is wrecked. “I’ll never mention it again.”
I grab the front of his flannel and pull him closer.
“Don’t you dare.”