Chapter Nine – Rowan
The bell above the door chimes with a tired little clang, the kind that says it’s seen one too many dusty boots and forgotten receipts.
I step into the feed store and scrub a hand over my jaw, trying to shake off the dull ache behind my eyes. The sun’s already high, sweat clinging to the back of my neck, and all I want is to grab the damn seed and get out.
“Morning, Rowan,” old Ted calls from behind the counter, one hand resting on the register like it’s holding him up.
“Hey, Ted. You get that calf formula in?”
“Back wall, third shelf. Just came in this morning.”
I nod, eyes scanning the aisles. The place smells like hay dust, motor oil, and rust—same as always. Same as it’ll always be.
The TV mounted near the counter drones on with its usual midmorning entertainment nonsense—background noise. But the moment I hear her name, I stop cold.
“Ivy Quinn and football heartthrob Crew Wright spotted in Nashville the other night…”
I don’t turn. I don’t have to. The grainy footage flickers in my periphery—her laugh, that signature wave to the cameras, and Crew’s hand on her lower back.
Fake , I tell myself. Contract. Optics. All of it for someone else’s camera. But the smile she gives him isn’t the stage kind, and when her fingers skim the sleeve of his shirt—like muscle memory, like she still knows where he ends—I feel something hot and unfamiliar lance through me.
Envy.
Of my own damn brother.
I hate it instantly. Hate that Crew’s always been the easy one—easy laugh, easy charm—and that for the first time in my life, I want what’s in his orbit.
My jaw locks so hard it pops. I fix my stare on a stack of seed bags like I can grind them down to dust by will alone.
Like if I don’t look away, I won’t look over and watch her choose him with a touch that should never matter to me.
“No official word on the rekindling of the couple’s romance, but sources say the chemistry was undeniable…”
God dammit.
I yank the formula off the shelf, grip it tighter than necessary, and stalk back to the register.
Ted glances up at the screen. “Can’t believe that gal was at Lila’s wedding. Whole town’s been talkin’.”
I grunt and drop the tub on the counter. “How much?”
“Still, she seemed real sweet. My niece swears she signed her gas station receipt. Said she smelled like heaven.”
I don’t answer. Ted gives me a look, then mutters the total. I slap down some bills and leave without waiting for change.
The door slaps shut behind me, and the heat smacks me in the face. But it doesn’t burn half as bad as the image stuck behind my eyes— her, with him.
Crew, grinning like none of it meant anything. Like he hadn’t left her behind without a backward glance.
By the time I pull into the drive at Otter Creek Farm, bypassing my house completely, the sun’s just past its peak, and sweat clings to the back of my shirt like a second skin. I toss the formula into the barn fridge and grab a shovel without thinking—no real plan, just needing to do something.
Keep moving. Keep working. Keep her out of your damn head.
The words loop in my skull like a broken prayer.
I’m elbow-deep in clearing a feed stall when I hear laughter. High-pitched. Familiar.
“Rowan!” Hadley’s voice rings out like a bell through the heat and dust. “You’re gonna scare the kids with that scowl.”
I don’t look up. “Didn’t know we were hosting a school field trip.”
“It’s not a school field trip,” she fires back. “It’s Bailey’s weekly reading group. Storytime picnic in the orchard.”
That gets my attention.
Bailey. Of course.
Sure enough, Bailey stands at the edge of the orchard in a wide-brimmed hat with a canvas tote bag slung over her shoulder. Her dress is lemon yellow, scattered with tiny blue flowers. She looks like something out of a magazine—sun-drenched and smug.
I wipe my hands on a rag and head over, jaw tight.
“Would’ve been nice to get a heads-up,” I say when I reach her.
Bailey glances up, completely unfazed. “Told Lila last week. Figured she passed it along.”
“She didn’t.”
“Shocking.” She arches a brow. “The kids love the goats. Thought it’d be nice to let them see the baby ones.”
“And the pecans?”
She gives me a too-sweet smile. “No one’s touching anything.”
I grunt. Apparently not enough to scare her off. Hadley appears at my side like a damn sprite. “Why don’t you go inside and cool off? You look like you’re about to spontaneously combust.”
“I’m fine.”
Bailey tilts her head. “Are you, though? Because I saw you nearly rip your truck door off earlier.”
That needle jabs harder than it should.
I look between the two of them—Hadley’s knowing grin, Bailey’s calm amusement—and something in me snaps, splitting right down the middle.
“You know what?” I say, louder than I mean to. “Maybe I don’t want people traipsing through the damn orchard every time they feel like it. Perhaps I’d like to have one day where nobody’s up in my business.”
The silence that follows is instant. Cold. Echoing.
Bailey blinks once. Hadley steps back like I just shoved her. And there it is. The guilt. Immediate. Sharp.
Bailey’s voice stays even, but I hear the shift, the careful don’t-spook-the-horse cadence she uses when something’s already gone sideways. “I’ll pack up the kids, and we’ll head out.”
The words land like a shovel to the ribs.
I see the whole scene from outside myself: two little girls no heavier than a feed sack wandering three steps past the rope line, palms itching to touch the first bud on a pecan, and me snapping like a spring-loaded trap.
Not at them—at everything else—but they don’t know the difference.
How in the hell can I take on a camp full of kids if this is how I fucking react?
Heat climbs my neck, ugly and immediate.
The orchard is quiet in that listening way—leaves holding their breath, a wasp ticking against a crate, dust hanging in the sun like evidence.
I’m mad at the wrong things: at a photo I didn’t want to see, at a brother I didn’t want to envy, at wanting a woman I shouldn’t be planning a life around.
So I barked. And now Bailey’s gathering them up like I’m a storm to move around.
“Bailey—” I start, too fast, too late. “That’s not what I—”
But she’s already moving, steady as a metronome.
“Okay, team,” she calls gently to the kids, “let’s grab our water bottles and head to the truck.
” Her smile is warm; her eyes—when they flick to me—are not.
The boys pretend not to look at me. One of the girls keeps her hand cupped around her paper baggie of treats.
Self-loathing sits heavy in my gut. I scrub a hand over my jaw and force my voice down where it should’ve been to start.
“My bad,” I say, easing in softer. “I shouldn’t have raised my voice—that’s on me, not you.
” I crouch to the littlest. “Wanna know a pecan trick? The best ones are heavy in your hand, and the shuck’s split wide open.
Next time, I’ll show you how to roll ’em out with the side of your boot and use the picker to scoop ’em—no climbing, no tugging on branches.
” She nods, unsure, eyes flicking to Bailey for confirmation like I’m a dog that sometimes bites.
Bailey gives her a small, encouraging nod and keeps ushering them along.
I straighten, shame burning a clean line down my spine. This—this right here—is why the camp feels like a fantasy I don’t deserve. It’s one thing to build a stage or string lights. It’s another to be the kind of man who doesn’t let his temper bleed all over a kid’s afternoon.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Bailey, quieter now. “I’m… not myself today.”
“Find him,” she says, not unkind, but firm. “He’s who they came to see.” Then she turns back to the kids, calm wrapped around them like shade.
I stand in the row after they go, hands open, letting the air move through the leaves and over my skin until the worst of the heat drains off. If I’m going to do this—camp, kids, any of it—my bad moods don’t get to steer. Not here. Not around them. Not ever.
Hadley waits until Bailey’s out of earshot before she spins on me.
“What the hell was that?”
“I said it’s fine,” I mutter, jaw tight.
“No. You snapped at her like she drove her minivan through your grove.”
I lift my palms. “You’re right.”
I step back and let them have the row. The urge to fix—the scene, myself—buzzes under my skin, equal parts pride and shame.
If a handful of kids in my sister’s care can knock me off center, how the hell do I run a camp?
I feel that truth settle: something I want doesn’t excuse the way I handled five minutes of chaos.
Without a backward glance, I head to my truck, kicking up dust with how fast I leave the farm and dodge across the dirt path that leads to the backside of my property.
I cut across the fence line to my side, oak shade giving way to the open yard. My barn—my mess, my order—waits like an old friend that doesn’t ask questions. Inside, the light slants through the boards in dust-thick bands.
A soft head bumps my thigh. Butterscotch.
She blinks up at me, lashes full of hay, and huffs like I’m late.
“Yeah, I know,” I murmur, scratching the warm spot behind her ear.
She leans all thirty ungainly pounds into my leg and sneezes for good measure.
Ivy’s laughter lives in that sound—her grin the day this calf christened her, the way she wiped her hands on my shirt and named the little menace like she had the right.
Guilt loosens a notch. I set a tool in my hands, something I can actually make better—oil the sticky hinge on the south stall, sharpen the loppers, and reset the twine on the baler hook I’ve been meaning to fix. My brain finds the rhythm of work, and the knot in my chest eases.
Out the wide door, I can see the guest cottage through the trees.
Curtains move with the fan. No sign of her, which means she’s doing exactly what I told myself I’d let her do: breathe without me hovering.
Nashville still hangs like distant thunder, but she’s leaning away from it.
I can feel that, too. But it’s her call to make, not mine.
I pour a Mason jar of sweet tea, walk it up to her porch, and leave it on the rail. No knock. No note. Just proof that I’m here.
Back in the barn, I try to lose myself in work, but my head won’t quiet.
I over-file a blade edge until it winks thin and useless.
Miss a tooth on the chain and nick my knuckle on the next pass.
Drop the same bolt twice because my grip’s all memory and no attention.
The pictures won’t quit—old headlines, staged smiles, the way the world thinks it knows her—and every time they flare, my hand slips.
One more mistake and I’ll be down a finger.
I set the file down, hard. Enough.
I cut across the yard to the house, rinse the grit and blood from my hands at the kitchen sink, and brace my palms on the counter until the sting ebbs.
The phone on the table lights up with another alert I don’t need.
I flip it face down and shove it into the drawer with the takeout menus, like that’ll muffle the noise in my head.
The place is too quiet without her humming off-key.
I open the fridge, pretend I’m hungry, then close it again.
Pacing feels foolish, but I do it anyway—window to door, door to window—until I force myself into a chair and breathe.
I think about the way she looked over her shoulder this morning, already deciding to stay and still afraid to say it out loud.
I think about those damn photos the world keeps of her—proof to everyone but me that a smile can mean anything you want it to.
I stand, wash my hands again just to do something, and grab a clean Mason jar. Two lemons, a handful of mint, sugar from the blue tin. If my head won’t quiet, my hands can at least make something I won’t screw up.
When the kettle clicks off, I glance through the window toward the cottage. Curtains still shift in the fan’s breeze. I don’t text. I don’t knock. I let her choose, and I get the house ready in case she decides the choosing is easier with company.