25. Callum
TWENTY-FIVE
CALLUM
My kitchen was too quiet.
Not the kind of silence that settled in with the night and wrapped itself around your shoulders. This silence felt sharp. Hollow. The kind that made you feel like the walls were waiting for something that wasn’t coming.
I didn’t know what to do with it.
So I scrubbed the same damn coffee mug three times before finally setting it on the drying rack and grabbing a dish towel. I wasn’t really thirsty, but I filled a glass with water anyway. Then I emptied it into the sink. Then filled it again.
Stan would’ve told me I was being an “overthinking bastard” and shoved a beer into my hand.
He would’ve laughed at how long I’d been putting off fixing the wobbly leg on the kitchen island, calling me out for walking past it every day like it wasn’t mocking me.
“You see the problem. You’ve got hands. Fix it,” he’d said once when I complained about a leaky faucet.
I pulled the stool out and crouched beside the island, wrench in hand. The bolt wasn’t even that loose, just enough to give it a little wobble when you leaned too far left. Still, I tightened it like it might keep the whole damn building from falling down.
The wrench bit into my palm harder than it needed to.
I could still hear Stan’s voice. Still see the way he leaned back with an easy grin, feet up on the porch rail, calling me “son” like it was a casual afterthought. He never knew how deep that word could cut when it came from someone who meant it.
And hell, I didn’t even correct him. Not once.
Something inside me knocked loose then, but I didn’t let it fall apart. Just held on tighter to the wrench and gave the bolt one more unnecessary turn.
By the time I made it outside, the sky was starting to burn with the colors of early evening—orange bleeding into a rich indigo that clung to the edges of the hills. I grabbed a beer from the fridge, popped the cap, and made my way toward the fence line, letting the quiet wrap around me.
Levi was already there.
Perched on the fence, arms draped over the top rung, gaze locked on the far edge of Stan’s property like he was trying to will the old man back into view.
His silence didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was how long it took him to realize I was there.
“You think Stan knew?” he asked finally, without looking over. “That he was dying?”
I exhaled through my nose. “He was old. Sometimes that’s just what happens.”
Levi nodded slowly, swiping at his nose. “He was the only guy who ever called me ‘bud’ like he meant it.”
My grip tightened around the bottle.
“He didn’t treat me like a screwup,” he added, quieter now. “Not once. ”
“I miss him too.” My chest ached, and words caught in my throat as I looked at my boy. “And you aren’t a screwup. Do you understand me?”
Levi’s eyes sank to the ground, and he only nodded. My words were forced, but he deserved to understand. “I’m serious. You’re a good kid. I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever—” I didn’t dare complete that thought. My words choked on tears, but I wrapped Levi in a fierce hug.
Silence stretched again, heavy and close.
Levi finally pulled back and asked, “What happens now with the farm?”
“I don’t know.” The truth tasted bitter. “But a lot of people are going to have opinions about it.”
Levi’s head dipped in acknowledgment. Then he turned to look at me, eyes steady. “It’s okay to miss him, Dad.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I just stood there like a man trying to stay upright in a world that felt tilted.
And then Levi—this kid who used to throw tantrums over Pop-Tarts—reached out and set a hand on my shoulder. Steady. Sure.
It hit harder than anything I’d been ready for. I gripped my son, pulling him into a hug while we both cried over the old man who’d always been more than just a neighbor.
That night, long after Levi had gone to bed, I found myself on the couch with my phone in my hand and the volume low.
I wasn’t even sure why I had opened Instagram.
Maybe I wanted to mindlessly scroll and forget about the day.
Maybe I wanted to see whether anyone else was posting about Stan or the farm.
To my surprise, the first thing to pop up was a reel, posted by Kit Darling.
The caption read Let’s help make Stan and Elodie’s dream a reality! Donate here! A link followed, bright and shiny and irritatingly enthusiastic.
My thumb tapped the reel before my brain caught up.
Elodie’s smile filled the screen.
She wore a floppy, wide-brimmed hat that made her look like she’d wandered out of a Hallmark movie and onto a farm by accident. The video must have been older because Stan was in the background, laughing alongside her.
Elodie’s face was split into a wide grin as a baby goat clambered into her lap, and she let out a laugh—loud, unfiltered, pure joy. Her nose was smudged with dirt, her cheeks flushed, and she looked so alive it hurt to watch.
Elodie looked like summer, like the kind of warmth you could drown in if you weren’t careful.
“How do we feel about goat yoga, Star Harbor?” she asked the camera with a teasing grin.
In the background, Winnie shouted, “She’s not a yoga goat! She’s a jumping goat!”
The video cut with perfect comedic timing, and I found myself gritting my teeth when I saw the likes: 12.7K.
Then I read the flood of comments: “This girl is magic.” “Stan knew what he was doing leaving that farm in her hands.” “I’d go to goat yoga even if it broke me.”
I stared at her face frozen mid-laugh, her hand wrapped around that silly goat like she’d known it forever.
Damn it, she is beautiful.
Not just the way she looked, though that didn’t help, but the way she didn’t even have to try. She was beautiful in the way she pulled people in just by being exactly who she was.
The community loved her.
They believed in her .
Hell, I might have too ... if she hadn’t been standing in my way.
The next morning I stopped at the bakery to grab a coffee and hear myself think, but that didn’t happen—I barely made it through the entrance before I heard them.
Three Keepers—Cora, Harriet, and Lorraine—were seated at the back near the window, chatting like they were on stage.
“That Darling girl is something else,” Harriet said, folding her napkin like origami.
“She’s going to bring this town back to life,” Cora agreed, nodding toward her phone, where the goat yoga video played on a loop.
“I donated. Did you?” Lorraine asked, sipping her tea like she hadn’t just stabbed me in the gut.
I didn’t say a word, I didn’t need to. Cora glanced up, spotted me at the counter, and nudged the others. Their conversation slowed, lowered, but didn’t stop and that made it worse.
I paid for my coffee, muttered a tight thanks, and walked out with my jaw clenched. I was used to respect in this town, used to being someone people trusted with things that mattered.
Now? Now I was the guy standing in the way of the beloved local hero and her dream.
That night, I told myself I was just taking the long way home. I told myself I needed the drive to clear my head.
Instead, I ended up coasting up the road that ran alongside Star Harbor Farm, windows down, the air thick with the smell of cut grass and dusk, until I found her.
In cutoff shorts and a tank top, Elodie’s hair twisted into a messy knot, dirt smeared across her cheek like war paint.
She was standing by an equipment shed with Winnie, stringing sparkly banners between the posts while the kid sang something that sounded like a cross between the “ABC Song” and a Taylor Swift chorus.
Elodie’s laugh rang out, and I swore I felt it in my ribs.
She looked so damn happy.
So grounded. So certain.
This is what Stan saw—not just charm, but heart. Grit. A whole damn future with Elodie at the helm.
I got out of the truck before I even realized I was doing it. I took one step toward the fence, toward her.
Elodie didn’t see me; she was too busy living in that little golden moment with her niece.
I stood there, heart hammering in my chest like it might shake something loose.
I yearned to go to her. A huge part of me wanted to cross that line, start a conversation that might not end where either of us expected. I could tell her I missed Stan—that I didn’t know what to do next. That I couldn’t stop thinking about her no matter how hard I tried.
But I didn’t.
Because if I crossed that line now ... I didn’t know if I’d ever come back.
I swallowed hard and kept driving until I got back to the inn. I parked the truck and didn’t look back.