CHAPTER 12
BLAIRE
W hatever had been left of my manicure was gone by the time I finished the north field.
June had given me gloves before I walked out this morning, but I’d left them on the porch rail.
There was something about feeling the dirt on my hands, watching it wedge itself beneath my nails until I could barely recognize them.
The work felt necessary, and each time my fingers sank into the soil, my chest settled and rooted itself back to this place.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea of selling June’s jams online. I’d pulled out my laptop last night, started building a website and designing labels.
“I’m calling it June’s Jams,” I’d said to June, and she snorted like it was the silliest thing she’d ever heard. But she didn’t fight me.
By the time I finally dragged myself into June’s kitchen, my hands were coated in dirt up to my wrists and every muscle in my body hummed with a satisfying, bone-deep exhaustion.
I moved to the sink, scrubbing my hands, and downed two glasses of water before I turned to look at my grandmother.
June sat at the table that was covered in chaotic piles of paperwork. Her reading glasses were perched high on her head, and she was glowering down at the papers in front of her.
“What are you doing over there?” I asked as I leaned back against the counter.
June glanced up with so much exasperation that it made me choke back a laugh.
“I might as well be planning my funeral. It will be here before I sort through all this for my accountant.” She snatched a sticky note off the counter, crumpled it, then threw it over her shoulder and nowhere near the trash can.
“He’s been calling for papers for my taxes, but I told him he’s gonna have to wait. ”
My legs ached as I crossed the kitchen and dropped into the chair opposite her. “Want help?”
June’s eyebrows knitted together, her mouth tilting sideways. “Sweet of you to offer, but there’s no use trying to untangle this mess. It’s a lost cause.”
“It’s not a lost cause,” I said, reaching for the nearest pile. I picked up an ancient water bill and held it up to her. “What’s the system here? Do you have them by date or subject?”
“System?” June huffed, tugging off her glasses. “That’s cute. I just throw everything in a box.”
“Jesus, June.” I flipped through the stack and found a yellowed warranty for a fridge I knew for a fact she no longer owned.
“You know you don’t have to keep every single piece of paper you ever come across.
Some people even have these things called computers.
” I wiggled my fingers in the air between us, like a stage magician conjuring up some rare artifact.
“Don’t need one,” she answered stubbornly, lifting her hands and showing me her calloused palms. “Computers are for people who don’t know how to use their hands.”
“Yet, filing cabinets are for everyone.” I thumbed through a stack of faded receipts and bank statements so old the ink was hard to read. “Please let me take over here before this paper avalanche buries us both. You’re going to crush June’s Jams before we even get it up and running.”
June snorted and crossed her arms. “All right, city girl, have at it. But remember when you ‘fixed’ my refrigerator, and I couldn’t find a damn thing.” She nodded toward her fridge. “I never found my mustard.”
“You’re going to thank this city girl when the IRS isn’t banging on your door, and that mustard was expired.”
June laughed, a throaty sound that seemed to fill every inch of her kitchen, and the warmth of it loosened something in my shoulders as I dug in and began sorting.
An hour passed, maybe more, as we sifted through decades of letters, bills, and records.
There was a newspaper clipping with my name circled where I’d made the honor roll.
Then there was a picture of me and Hunter, and I couldn’t have been more than twelve.
Hunter was scrawny and gangly, and he had braces covering his teeth as he smiled wide at the camera.
I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of it before I sent it to Maggie.
Blaire: Here you go. Just in case you ever need blackmail.
Maggie’s response was almost instant.
Maggie: Holy shit. Please tell me that’s Hunter and not Colt.
Blaire: That’s him, all right.
I pushed the photo to the side only to find old birthday cards from my mom, her handwriting still recognizable despite the years. I ran my fingers over the familiar loop of her letters and the slight smear of the ink where she dragged her pinkie when she wrote.
My eyes prickled with tears, and I’d almost forgotten June was there until she cleared her throat.
“Ruby’s doing better. No fever since late last night.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, focusing intently on aligning the corners of a stack of receipts. “I texted Colt this morning.”
June’s eyes caught mine over her reading glasses, one eyebrow arching upward. “You’ve been texting Colt?”
My fingers fumbled with the papers, sending several sliding across the table, but I quickly snatched them back up. “It’s not— I wanted to check on Ruby. I got his number from your phone when I picked her up yesterday.”
“Mmhmm.” June’s knowing hum filled the room, and I prayed she wouldn’t press further, not when my own thoughts were a mess.
I’d texted Colt more than just this morning.
I’d checked on Ruby multiple times through the night, and each reply from him sent a confusing rush of warmth and dread through me.
I could still feel the ghost of his hand on my neck when he’d pointed out the new freckles on my skin.
He hadn’t touched me in the same way that he used to, with that easy, absentminded possession that made me feel like the only girl in the world.
He was careful now, not letting his fingers linger too long.
The scene from yesterday kept flickering through my mind like a skipping record. He’d peeled Ruby off my chest and carefully lifted her into his arms. The whole time, his eyes had never left my face, watching me like I was something dangerous that he needed to protect himself from.
Dangerous.
He’d called me that before, back in his truck our junior year. After I’d grown tired of us circling each other with a tension that built day by day until I could barely breathe. I’d climbed across that worn bench seat, settled my knees on either side of him, and watched his eyes go dark.
“Christ, Blaire,” he’d whispered, his hands hovering at my hips, not quite touching. “You’re so fucking dangerous.”
But this was different. Now, he saw me as a threat to the fragile world he’d patched together for him and Ruby.
The word stuck to my insides, and I didn’t know what to do with it. Part of me wanted to be risky with him again, wanted to feel the heat in his gaze for all the right reasons, the old reasons.
But there was another part of me, the one that had learned to keep my heart guarded, that knew how quickly all that heat could burn everything around it, and I refused to let Ruby get hurt because of me.
I’d spent years becoming the girl who didn’t fall for men in a pair of boots with thick thighs and a damn mustache, but a single look from him had me back at square one.
Colt was a bad habit I’d slide right back into if I wasn’t careful.
I pretended not to notice June studying me.
Reaching for another stack of papers, I began sorting mechanically, my thumb flipping through each document as I arranged them into tidy categories.
But then a thick envelope caught my attention, and I slid my fingers under the flap and pulled out the papers from inside.
Deed of Trust.
The date stamped across the top was the year my mom got sick, and I quickly skimmed the page, not really absorbing the details until two names jumped out at me. Owen and Louise Calloway.
I stared at the names of Colt’s parents, typed neatly at the bottom of the page next to June’s, with all three of their signatures above them. The black ink blurred, and I had to blink to bring it back into focus.
Why were they on the deed to my grandmother’s property?
I tried to dig up some memory of this happening, but there’d never been so much as a whisper. But I had been a teenager then, and I was so wrapped up in losing my mother.
I was so consumed in Colt and how he seemed to be the only thing that held me together.
I flipped through the next page, and my mother’s name appeared, sandwiched between legal jargon and notary stamps.
This wasn’t just a deed. It was a loan. Not a small one either.
The numbers ran well into six figures, and I felt my jaw clench as I realized how much it must have taken to keep our house, our lives, from falling apart when my mom got sick.
And the Calloways had co-signed. They’d put their land up alongside ours as collateral.
How had I not known? Of course I knew that my mother’s treatments were expensive, but neither my mother nor June had ever let on how bad it was.
I thought of all the times my mama had sat at this kitchen table, staring out the window with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, telling me not to worry.
Part of me had believed her then, needed to believe her, while another part had seen the truth in the way her fingers trembled around her coffee mug.
I’d chosen the comfort of the lie over the terror of what might be coming.
And it was foolish.
I held the papers as anger and gratitude wrestled inside me.
I tried to imagine June, proud and stubborn to her marrow, asking the Calloways for help.
I knew that both Mr. Calloway and Lou had agreed without a moment of hesitation.
It wouldn’t have mattered that Colt’s mother and mine had been friends most of their lives; the Calloways were good all the way down to their core.