Chapter 11 #2
“That covers the house.” He stepped back and inspected his work, testing the deadbolt with a satisfying click. “All the doors and the windows downstairs. Done. Anything else?”
I didn’t hesitate. “The orchard cottage could use a lock, if you have enough hardware.”
He turned, confused. “What’s in the orchard cottage that anyone would take? A clawfoot tub?” His mouth twitched.
“Dad’s orchard records are there, too,” I said. “I can’t lose those.”
He held my gaze for a beat and understood. “Right. Then let’s get it done.”
We walked out through the orchard together in the late afternoon light. The branches cast long shadows across the rows.
When we finished the cottage lock and he tested the new deadbolt on that small door, turning the key twice to be certain, my chest relaxed at last.
Then I pulled him through the cottage door by his jacket and kissed him up against the wall next to it, thoroughly, with my hands on his pecs, and him finding my waist in the same moment.
He groaned. It vibrated my chest as he kissed me back with all the patience of a man who had been waiting a long time for exactly this moment when I would be the one to reach for him.
We were both a little breathless when I finally stepped back.
His eyes went dark. His hands had not moved from my waist.
“That's my reward for good work or is there more?” he asked.
“Don’t push it, cowboy.”
His grin was absolutely satisfied and earned.
Sage and Ivy arrived later than they had intended, trailing apologies with a casserole dish that smelled incredible from the porch steps. They fussed and made a huge deal about Knox and the locks, gushing over his ability to be handy with a tool.
I remained quiet.
Knox read the room the way he always did and reached for his jacket.
“You don’t have to go—” Ivy started.
“Yeah, stay,” Sage called.
“Need a shower. Change of clothes.” He shrugged into his jacket, unhurried. “Colt and I are meeting my folks halfway to Billings to return Dad’s truck.” His eyes met mine briefly. “I could drive by later tonight and check in on you, Daisy.”
Sage, standing beside me, said nothing but elbowed me. Which, from her, was its own loud kind of communication.
“If you want. Don’t go to any trouble though,” I said, nonchalant.
Sage clicked her tongue, shook her head, and walked him to the door in the manner of a woman providing an escort, whether or not one was wanted. I watched while starting the dishes as they huddled with low voices on the porch for a minute.
When she came back in, and his truck disappeared down the drive, she had the expression of someone absolutely not minding her own business. She exchanged a glance with Ivy.
“Don’t even,” I warned them both.
“We didn’t say anything,” Ivy protested.
“You were about to.”
She put the casserole into the oven, and turned to face me, hands on hips. When she spoke there was no teasing in it. Just Ivy, telling me the bold truth.
“He’s a good man, Daisy. That’s all I’ll say. The world doesn’t have enough of those. Believe me, I know.”
I knew that, too.
“Why are you still in denial about Knox’s attention?” Sage admonished.
“We’re friends. Stop pressing, please.” I left it at that, and went to the fridge to assemble a salad. They sighed almost in unison.
We ate dinner without acknowledging a thing about Knox and me. I couldn’t. Things between us were too new, nothing defined, and I needed my sisters to be okay before I ever examined my own life. Right now, with someone breaking into our house, things were definitely not okay.
After dinner, they headed to their rooms to put things back in order.
I stood in the entryway for a few minutes, admiring the new deadbolt on the back door, thinking about Knox.
How handy he was, and there was a very long list of things that needed fixing around here that I had been managing without for too long.
And how his lips heated against mine in the cottage this afternoon.
How sleeping in the circle of his arms last night had been some of the best sleep I had gotten in as long as I could honestly remember.
My sisters were not wrong. Knox was a good man.
I wasn’t entirely ready to say so out loud to anyone yet.
It was dark when Sage and Ivy finally left for the last Cowboy Night at the Sapphire Saloon. I made them go. Told them to stop hovering, that I was fine, that I had done nothing but take care of myself and this property for years, and one break-in was not about to change that.
I apologized to Ivy for not being up for joining them for her last triumphant night at the Sapphire Saloon. She waved it off and told me to text Knox.
I laughed in her face. He had been planning to attend himself, I was sure of it.
Maybe he would meet someone there.
The thought arrived uninvited and sat directly in the center of my chest without apology. I swallowed it down and watched their taillights disappear down the drive, almost regretting now not going with them.
After putting the living room back together, I baked apple dumplings using Mom’s recipe. I popped open a can of lemon-lime soda, a trick she taught me for the rich syrup the apples baked in.
While they cooled, I settled on the porch swing with a blanket and what was left of my coffee, and my loaded rifle leaning in the corner.
The night was brisk and clear, the stars out in the particular thick way they appeared over open land with no competing light.
The scent of apples and cinnamon wafted through the air.
For a little while, it was peaceful. Inside me lived the satisfaction that came from working land you knew and loved and had kept alive through a few hard seasons.
The loud snap of a twig stole that thought right out from under me without warning.
My heart lurched into my throat. I fixed my eyes on the dark at the line of trees toward the sound, watching for shapes, for movement, for anything that did not belong. The rifle was in the corner, three steps, maybe four, away. Why had I not laid it across my lap in the first place?
Another snap. I gasped.
A deer. Had to be. They came for the apples we left out, moved through the far field after dark, and were certainly the explanation for every sound coming from the orchard tonight. Almost certainly.
Headlights came barreling up the driveway.
I recognized the engine before the truck fully materialized, and I let out a breath that I had apparently been holding since the first twig snap.
Knox.
Relief spread through me warmer than I cared to admit.
He parked and got out, and jogged up the porch steps—hair loose and curly from a recent shower, a tight dark henley pulling across his chest in the cold air, featuring his pecs prominently.
He settled onto the swing beside me without asking, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and used his feet to rock us.
We sat in the October quiet together. Neither of us said anything for a minute, and then another, and it was not uncomfortable.
“Did you do some baking?” He asked.
“Hm-hmm. Dumplings.”
“Save one for me?”
“Maybe. Maybe even two.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“Really, Knox, I’ll be fine here,” I tried to convince him—and myself. “You don’t have to keep coming back. I have a rifle right over there.”
“I noticed.” His voice was breezy. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
“Then why?”
He took his time in answering. “Because I’ll always be watching over you, Daisy. Whether or not you need it. That’s just how it is for me, because I care. Maybe I care too damn much.”
I froze, chilled by his sweet words. They moved through me and attached to something I had not expected them to find—a memory, old and cold, that lived in a part of me I kept carefully guarded.
Trevor’s voice… “I’ll always watch you, Daisy.” Only his was thick and menacing with a threat.
A different time, a different sort of watching.
I sat with both things at once—that memory with Trevor and this moment with Knox, the same shape of words meaning entirely different things depending on who was saying them, and why, and what lived in their eyes when they did.
I knew the difference between the two men deep in my bones.
Trevor’s version of watching had been full of red flags. There when I never wanted him. Keeping me worried, constantly looking over my shoulder.
Knox’s was sleeping on top of my covers fully dressed and holding me while I slept.
Or showing up this morning with a box of hardware and installed it all.
The kind of man I could trust with the weight of my life if I ever got brave enough to put it down for a minute and let someone else carry the load.
“Stay, Knox,” I whispered. I had decided and was done arguing with myself about it. “Take me to bed and stay with me.”
He turned his head and measured me in the dark, and whatever he found in my face was enough.
He stood and held out his hand.
I took it.