Chapter 20
TWENTY
RAE
At first I tell myself it’s a coincidence.
A weird coincidence, sure, but still something that can be explained if I don’t think too hard about it.
Farms are constantly breaking and fixing themselves in small ways.
A board falls, another one gets replaced.
A hinge sticks, someone oils it. Maybe I did it myself and just don’t remember.
Maybe one night after a bar shift I stumbled home half-asleep, grabbed a hammer, and handled something before my brain had time to fully wake up.
That explanation works… for about two days.
After that it starts getting harder to sell, even to myself.
The first real crack in my perfectly reasonable “I must have fixed it and forgotten” theory happens three mornings later when I walk out to the east pasture with a feed bucket tucked against my hip.
The gate out there has been sagging for months because the hinge bent sometime during the winter.
Every morning I’ve been lifting the thing slightly before pushing it open so it doesn’t drag through the dirt and make that awful grinding sound that sets my teeth on edge.
So when I reach it and push the gate open automatically, expecting the usual resistance, I nearly stumble forward when it swings wide without the slightest bit of effort.
Smooth.
Silent.
I stop in the middle of the pasture entrance and stare at it like the gate just personally insulted me.
“…what the hell.”
I grab the metal latch and close it again, then open it a second time just to make sure I’m not imagining things.
No drag.
No lift.
No squealing hinge.
Just a perfectly balanced gate moving exactly the way it was designed to.
I crouch down slowly and examine the hinge more closely, squinting at the metal bracket attached to the post. The hardware is brand new. Clean bolts. Fresh metal that hasn’t had time to rust or fade in the sun yet.
Someone didn’t just tighten it.
They replaced the whole thing.
I straighten slowly and glance around the pasture like I might catch someone hiding behind a hay bale holding a wrench.
Nothing.
Just the goats staring at me from across the field like they’re deeply invested in the outcome of whatever investigation I’m conducting.
“Did one of you learn how to use tools?” I ask Kevin.
Kevin responds by trotting over and immediately trying to chew on the sleeve of my hoodie.
“Yeah,” I sigh, pushing his head away gently. “That’s about the level of help I expected.”
I leave it alone after that, mostly because I don’t want to think too hard about the one explanation my brain keeps circling back to.
But the next day it happens again.
This time it’s the barn.
I’m hauling a bale of hay toward the back stall when something catches my eye along the wall. The warped board near the corner that’s been crooked since early spring, the one I kept meaning to fix but never quite got around to, is suddenly straight.
Not just straight.
Reinforced.
I set the hay bale down slowly and walk over, running my fingers along the wood.
Whoever did the repair didn’t just hammer the board back into place.
They added a brace behind it. New nails driven in evenly, spaced out with the kind of careful attention that says the person holding the hammer knew exactly what they were doing.
My stomach does a weird little flip. Because there’s exactly one person I know who notices crooked boards and quietly fixes them without saying a word.
“Nope,” I mutter to myself, stepping away from the wall. “Not going there.” Coincidence. Still coincidence. Probably.
Except the following morning the float valve in the water trough that’s been sticking for weeks suddenly works perfectly again. No overflow. No banging the side of the tank with a stick to get it to reset.
The morning after that, the broken latch on the feed shed door is replaced.
Then the loose railing on the porch gets reinforced.
Then the gutter that kept sagging over the side of the roof suddenly sits perfectly straight like it was never a problem to begin with.
None of it happens while I’m home.
None of it happens while I’m awake.
It just… appears.
Like the farm is slowly repairing itself piece by piece.
Two weeks of this.
Two weeks of small things quietly improving around the property like someone is sneaking in when I’m not looking and playing a very strange game of anonymous handyman.
And every single time I notice something new, my brain does the exact same annoying thing.
It pictures Cole.
Standing somewhere out by the barn with his sleeves rolled up, a wrench in one hand and that quiet focus on his face he gets when he’s fixing something.
The way he moves slowly around a space, eyes catching details other people miss.
The way he notices things I’ve lived with for months without bothering to repair.
It’s infuriating.
And, if I’m being completely honest with myself, a little bit sweet.
I’m standing in the kitchen one morning pouring coffee when I notice the newest addition to this mystery.
The cabinet hinge.
I freeze halfway through pouring my mug.
Because the hinge that used to squeal every single time I opened that cabinet door doesn’t make a sound anymore.
I slowly pull the cabinet door open, already bracing for the familiar shriek of metal and that awful protesting creak that always makes me wince when the hinge drags against the wood.
But this time there’s nothing. No screech, no groan, no resistance at all.
The door swings open in one smooth, silent motion like it’s suddenly decided to behave itself.
I stare at it for a second, my eyes narrowing as the realization settles in. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
Moose lifts his head from the floor, watching me like he’s trying to figure out why I’m talking to a cabinet.
Daisy glances back and forth between me and the cabinet like she’s waiting for the punchline to whatever ridiculous conversation she just walked in on.
I pull the door open again, slower this time, listening carefully.
Still nothing. No creak. No scrape. No metal screaming in protest the way it has every single morning for the last month.
My eyes narrow as suspicion starts to settle in.
I crouch down and lean closer, running my fingers along the hinge to get a better look.
The metal catches the morning light for a second, clean and smooth, the screws seated perfectly into the wood.
Brand new. Installed like whoever put it there actually knew what they were doing.
My brain immediately flashes to Cole standing in this exact kitchen two weeks ago, leaning back against the counter with his arms folded while he watched me make coffee.
His gaze drifting slowly around the room the way it always does when he’s taking in a new place.
Noticing everything. Cataloging everything.
I straighten slowly, staring at the cabinet door like it might confess something if I look hard enough.
“You sneaky son of a bitch,” I mutter.
Moose tilts his head.
“Not you,” I tell him.
He wags his tail anyway.
I take a slow sip of coffee and glance out the kitchen window toward the barn, watching the morning sun stretch across the grass. For two weeks now someone has been slipping onto my property while I’m not here.
Fixing things quietly and carefully, making sure everything works the way it should without leaving anything behind that might point directly to who did it.
Whoever’s been doing it never sticks around long enough for me to actually catch them in the act either, which means one of two things is happening here.
Either my farm has developed a very helpful ghost that sneaks around at night repairing hinges and gates, or Cole Mercer has been creeping around my property like some kind of extremely large, extremely stubborn raccoon with a toolbelt.
I glance down at Daisy. “You think he’s been out there?” Her tail thumps against the floor. “Yeah,” I sigh. “That’s what I thought.” The thing is… I haven’t actually seen him. Not once.
But sometimes when I pull into the driveway after a shift at the bar, the gravel still looks freshly disturbed like someone drove through not long before I got home.
Sometimes the barn door is slightly open when I know for a fact I shut it before leaving.
Once, just once, I thought I saw a motorcycle disappearing down the road in the distance right as I turned into the driveway.
I stand there staring out the window for a long moment, my fingers wrapped loosely around the coffee mug while the animals move quietly around the kitchen behind me, paws and hooves shifting across the floor like the farm itself is waking up.
Because if it is Cole, then he’s been coming out here almost every day for two weeks.
Fixing things. Helping me. Without asking.
Without showing himself. The thought makes something in my chest tighten a little.
“Why would he do that?” I murmur quietly.
Moose’s tail thumps against the floor again.
“Yeah, yeah,” I tell him.
But the answer is already sitting in the back of my mind whether I want to acknowledge it or not. Because Cole Mercer is the kind of man who fixes things. And if he’s decided something in my life needs fixing, apparently that includes my entire damn farm.
By the time the third week rolls around, I’m officially done pretending I don’t know what’s going on.
At first it was little things. A fence rail here.
A hinge there. Stuff that could almost pass as coincidence if I squinted hard enough and refused to think about it too long.
But after nearly three weeks of waking up to find new repairs around the farm like some kind of extremely competent handyman fairy has been sneaking around my property, the list of “coincidences” has gotten a little ridiculous.
And tonight?
Tonight was the final straw.