CHAPTER 13 #2
Colt opened a packet of wipes from the pouch. His hands were careful, but Beau saw the square of white cloth and tensed as if it were a branding iron.
"No."
"It has to be cleaned, bug. " Colt's voice stayed low. "Dirt can't stay in there."
Wren watched Beau's chin wobble. The little girl's flower crown sat crooked in the dust. Harlow's quilt waited on the blanket behind them, bright with stars and untouched by the spill of fear.
Wren chose her words as carefully as she had ever chosen type on a wedding invitation.
"Beau," she said, "what do you think Harlow's star quilt would say if it could talk right now?"
Beau blinked through tears. Colt's hand paused with the wipe.
"It doesn't talk."
"True. But if it did."
Beau sniffed hard, considering. "It would say I got dirt."
"Probably. Quilts notice things."
"It would say don't put jelly on stars."
"Very practical quilt."
The corner of Beau's mouth twitched, then trembled again. "It would say Daddy has to be gentle."
Colt's face changed, grief and love crossing it so quickly that Wren looked at Beau instead. "I think it would. And it might say you can squeeze my hand while he cleans it, because I am not the boss of your knee, but I can be a helper if you want one."
Beau studied Wren's hand. "You won't be sad if I squeeze hard?"
"I have survived ribbon wire, hot glue, and the corner of a folding table. I can handle a strong squeeze."
Colt breathed out through his nose, almost a laugh. "Ready?"
Beau took Wren's hand and squeezed with all the strength in her small sticky fingers. Colt cleaned the scrape in swift, gentle passes. Beau cried once, loudly, then buried her forehead against Wren's forearm while Colt pressed a bandage over the red place on her knee.
Wren held still. Rather than gather Beau into her lap, she avoided any claim that the child belonged to her care. She kept her hand available and her body steady, a fence rail rather than a gate.
"There," Colt said. "Clean. Bandaged. Mean ground defeated."
Beau lifted her face. "My hand has jelly and hurt."
"We'll clean that too. " Wren reached for a fresh napkin, then stopped. "Colt?"
He nodded.
She dampened the napkin with lemonade water from a cup and held it where Beau could see. "Jelly first, scrape second. The jelly is trying to hide the evidence."
Beau gave a watery giggle. Wren cleaned around the small scrape on her palm, careful not to drag too hard. Purple jelly stained the napkin. Dry grass clung to Wren's knees. A star sticker, loosened by sweat, had stuck itself to the side of Beau's wrist.
"Do I still get dessert?" Beau asked.
Colt's shoulders dropped. "If your stomach survived the tragedy."
"It did."
"Then yes."
The small crowd lost interest once the tears stopped. Picnic sound filled back in, cautious at first, then whole. Children shouted over the next game. Someone opened a bag of chips with a pop. The teacher praised Beau for being brave enough to sit under the shade until she felt ready.
Cressie came over last.
"Well," she said, looking down at Wren in the grass, at Beau's hand in hers, at Colt crouched close. "Isn't that a picture."
Wren felt Colt go still.
She could have ignored it. She could have let the words pass as harmless, which was how half the sharpest things in small towns survived.
Instead she slipped her hand free from Beau's because Beau had already loosened her grip, and she smiled up at Cressie with the mildness she used on clients who changed their minds after a deposit.
"It's a scraped knee," Wren said. "Less picturesque in person."
Cressie's brows rose above her sunglasses. "Children do reach for who comforts them."
Beau was watching now. Too much adult meaning pressed against the air.
Wren brushed grass from her skirt and stood, careful not to step closer to Colt than the moment needed. "They reach for safe hands. Colt is right here. Harlow's quilt is right there. I'm a guest with a napkin."
Colt looked at her then, and whatever he had been ready to say stayed behind his teeth.
Cressie's smile thinned. "Of course."
Nothing about her tone meant of course.
The picnic wound down in a scatter of crumbs, dropped flags, and children tired enough to become unreasonable about leaving. Beau's knee had become a badge by then. She showed the bandage to the teacher, to a classmate, to the empty air, and finally to Harlow's quilt before letting Colt fold it.
"Wren said the quilt is practical," Beau told him.
"Sounds like a good quilt," Colt said.
"It said you were gentle."
His throat moved. "I'm glad."
Wren busied herself collecting cups before her face could reveal too much.
When she straightened, Colt was watching her with a softness that scared her more than his guardedness had.
Guardedness she knew how to survive. Softness invited a person to come closer before anyone had proven the floor would hold.
"I've got to take her home," he said. "Quiet time, then I'll do evening checks."
Beau leaned against his leg, suddenly boneless with post-picnic exhaustion. "My knee needs the couch."
"Your knee has a demanding schedule."
Wren tied the cup sack closed. "Thank you for letting me come."
Colt looked as if the words sat wrong on him. "She wanted you here."
"And you had to decide if that was all right."
"I did. " He glanced toward Beau, then back. "You handled it right."
Handled it. Such a plain phrase for the way Wren's heart had been beating since Beau reached for her.
"I tried."
"I saw."
Beau tugged on his hand. "Daddy, can Wren see my couch knee later?"
Colt crouched to her height. "Not today. We've got our afternoon routine, and Wren has work."
Wren loved him a little painfully for saying no before she had to. For giving Beau a boundary that did not make Wren the one stepping back.
"I do," Wren said. "Very important cup-returning work."
Beau accepted this with a sigh of adult disappointment. "Bye, Wren."
"Bye, picnic boots."
Colt lifted a hand, then guided Beau toward the truck with Harlow's quilt tucked over his arm. Wren watched only long enough to see Beau climb in without favoring the knee too badly. Then she turned toward the drink table and finished cleaning what she had brought.
The cup-returning work took her to the feed store because Junie had loaned the drink cooler, the stack of trays, and, somehow, the exact number of folding spoons a preschool picnic could lose and recover.
Wren loaded what she could into her car and drove with the windows down, dry grass still etched red across her knees below the hem of her skirt.
By the time she reached the feed store, the gossip had beaten her there.
She knew it before she opened the door. The front windows held the late-afternoon glare, but inside, three women at the coffee counter turned together with the synchronized guilt of people interrupted mid-sentence.
The feed store smelled of burlap, mineral blocks, old coffee, and paper invoices warmed by the sun.
A fan clicked over the counter. Behind it, Junie was marking something on a yellow pad with the stub of a pencil.
Cressie stood near the bulletin board, one hand resting beside a flyer for the wedding-week volunteer schedule.
"Wren," she said brightly. "We were just saying how eventful the picnic was."
Wren set the stack of trays on the counter. "If this is about the beanbag relay, I agree there should be an inquiry. The red team had an extra child."
One of the women at the coffee counter coughed into her cup.
Cressie's smile sharpened. "I meant Beau. Poor little thing. It is something, seeing how quickly a child can attach."
Wren felt the room waiting for her to either apologize for existing or confess to a scheme she had never made. Heat climbed under her collar, but she had lived through Austin clients who could weaponize a seating chart. She could survive a feed-store audience.
"Beau scraped her knee," Wren said. "Colt cleaned it. I distracted her because she asked for my hand."
"Children ask for candy too," Cressie said. "Adults are meant to know when tenderness gets complicated."
Junie's pencil stopped.
Wren kept her eyes on Cressie because looking away would feed the wrong thing. "I agree. That's why I reminded Beau that Colt was right there and Harlow's quilt was right there. I am not confused about who her parents are."
The fan clicked twice through the silence.
Cressie glanced at Junie, then back. "No one said you were."
"Good. " Wren lifted the drink cooler onto the counter with more force than it needed. "Then the story can stay accurate."
For a moment, no one moved. Then Junie slid off her stool and took the cooler by one handle.
"Cressie, if you've got a feed ticket to settle, settle it. If you've got a sermon, take it someplace with pews."
The woman by the coffee urn found sudden interest in her cup. Cressie gave a small laugh, but color rose beneath her makeup.
"No sermon," she said. "Only concern."
"Concern doesn't need quite so much audience," Junie said.
Cressie's mouth tightened. She collected a folded receipt from the counter and left with the bell over the door giving one brisk, offended ring.
Wren exhaled only after the door shut. Her hands were steady, which seemed unfair when the rest of her felt made of creased paper.
Junie looked at the grass marks on Wren's knees, then at the purple smear on her cuff where Beau's jelly hand had gripped her. Her expression softened, though her voice stayed practical.
"You want coffee or work?"
Wren blinked. "Those are my choices?"
"Coffee is free. Work pays."
That got through the tightness in Wren's chest. "Work, please."
"Thought so. " Junie tapped the yellow pad. "Colt said you made sense of his invoice pile yesterday."
Wren's stomach dipped. "He said that?"
"He said you found two duplicate charges, one missed credit, and a payment plan that didn't make him feel like a fool."
Wren looked down, pretending to straighten the trays. "That last part doesn't sound like him."