Chapter 13
T he scent of slow-cooked beef and fresh-baked rolls drifted on the evening breeze as Allison stepped up onto the porch, balancing a tray covered in mismatched dishtowels.
The sun hung low in the western sky, casting golden rays over the prairie.
Crickets had begun their nightly chorus, the sound low and rhythmic beneath the distant creak of the porch swing.
“I come bearing gifts,” she called, nudging the screen door open with her hip.
Chester looked up from the small wooden table where he sat, a deck of cards spread before him like he was preparing to storm a casino. His brow lifted, skeptical .
“That better be food and not another damn rabbit-food salad,” he grumbled.
Allison laughed, adjusting her grip as the screen door slapped shut behind her. “No salad. I made pot roast with carrots, baby red potatoes, and soft yeast rolls. There’s extra gravy and a cherry cobbler that needs to be cooled on the counter.”
Chester gave a low, satisfied grunt. “Woman, you just got yourself upgraded to sainthood.”
Seth stood from where he’d been adjusting an old folding chair beside Chester. His flannel sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, revealing forearms sprinkled with sawdust. “Let me take that,” he said, reaching for the tray.
Their fingers brushed, and a small static moment sparked between them before Allison released her hold. “It’s hot,” she murmured, watching his hands instead of his eyes.
He nodded, the corner of his mouth twitching up in a quiet smile. “I got it.”
Dinner was spread out over the little porch table with real plates, real silverware.
No paper napkins. No shortcuts. Just home.
The pot roast flaked apart at the touch of a fork, the potatoes were creamy, the rolls buttery and still warm.
A pitcher of sweet tea sat between them, already beading with condensation.
“You ever play Spades, Allison?” Chester asked as he wiped a smear of gravy from his plate with a roll that had at least a half-inch of butter slathered on it.
“I can bake you under the table,” she said with a grin. “But I’m not much of a card shark.”
“She’s got a baker’s precision,” Seth said, helping himself to seconds. “I bet she could clean up if she wanted to. Maybe even count the cards.”
“Hell, you don’t need to count if you’ve got charm.” Chester winked. “Back in my day, I won half my games and all my arguments that way.”
Seth groaned around a mouthful of roast. “Don’t encourage him. Pops, you growled your way through life. You didn’t charm your way.”
“I like her,” Chester muttered, tearing his roll in half and soaking up the last of the gravy. “She feeds me and doesn’t fuss. That’s damn near perfect.”
Allison arched a brow. “High praise, coming from you.”
Chester popped the bread into his mouth and said around the food, “Don’t let it go to your head.”
She smiled and poured more tea into Chester’s glass. The meal was full of banter and warmth. Laughter filled spaces that used to echo with silence. Even Gomer lay peacefully at Chester’s feet, tail occasionally thumping when Allison passed by.
When the last bite of cobbler had been scraped from the dish and the dishes were packed back onto the tray, Allison gathered her things and took them to the car. She returned to find Chester rising from his chair, rubbing his lower back with a wince.
“I’m turning in,” he muttered. “Gomer, with me.”
The dog rose instantly and padded after him.
“Don’t go falling in love on my porch,” Chester called over his shoulder, not bothering to look back.
Seth chuckled. “He’s a charmer, isn’t he?”
Allison settled beside him on the porch swing, tucking her legs beneath her. “Ever fallen in love on this porch?”
“Not so far.”
The screen door slapped shut behind Chester. A moment later, the porch lights flickered on, casting a soft yellow glow over the swing. The air had cooled just enough to make the warmth of a coffee cup feel comforting.
The land around them was silent except for the whisper of wind through the grass and the hum of distant insects. The sky stretched wide overhead, deep blue and velvet soft, the stars just beginning to show .
They sat there in the hush, coffee cups cooling between their hands, neither one rushing the moment. Allison glanced sideways at him, her expression shifting. “I wanted to talk to you about something,” she said softly.
Seth turned toward her, his attention sharpening. “Okay.”
The porch swing creaked beneath their weight, a soft rhythm that matched the cadence of the crickets chirping in the tall grass just beyond the fence.
A distant owl hooted from a cottonwood tree, its cry carrying across the open prairie.
The sky overhead had shifted from blue to indigo, stars piercing the dusk one by one.
Fireflies blinked lazily near the fence line, floating like bits of light trying to find their way home.
Seth leaned back, his arm stretched along the backrest. The warmth between them was steady, companionable, but Allison's voice drew tighter now, worry curling around her words as she shared her worry about the woman they’d both seen.
She still hadn’t been located. But Allison had been feeding her, and clothes from the donation box next door had gone missing.
“Did you tell Ken?” Seth turned to look at her when she’d finished, concern sharpening his features.
“I called him again, and he came by,” she said, her voice softer now.
“I’m scared for her. She hasn’t picked up any food in two nights.
” She exhaled, frustrated. “I don’t know what to do, but she needs help.
Can you think of anything? It’s going into fall, and we get snow early up here.
Granted, that’s a month or so from now, but still … ”
Seth nodded, his brow furrowed. “Not sure. I mean, she could have left. I can try to track her with Gomer. I’d need something she’d worn. Something with her scent. He’s a damn good tracker. I’ll talk to Ken about it.”
“Would you? The insulated tote I use to put food out for her. She’s handled it. Would that work?”
“I can’t promise anything, but we can try.”
Her shoulders sagged a little, tension leaking out as she looked over at him. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” he said, but his eyes flicked back toward the screen door. “But I’d need to see if I could get someone to stay with Chester. I wouldn’t want to leave him alone.”
“I’d stay with him.” Her answer came without hesitation. “I wouldn’t mind.”
They fell quiet, the swing easing them back and forth with a gentle sway. Coffee cups sat cooling on the rail beside them, forgotten now. The stars above were brighter, the land stretching around them in every direction, open and quiet and unhurried. It was the kind of silence that invited honesty.
Allison shifted, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. “Do you ever feel like … maybe you broke something in yourself, and you’re not sure how to put it back together?”
Seth turned to her, his profile carved in moonlight. “Every day. Then I realized some things break for a reason and don’t need to be put back together.”
She smiled, small and tired. Not because it was funny, but because he actually understood.
“I used to hold onto Ken,” she said, her voice dropping lower.
“Not because I loved him. I didn’t. But the idea of someone else having him made me panic.
Like I’d lose something. But I didn’t want him anymore and still couldn’t let go. ”
Seth didn’t interrupt. He waited, letting her find her words, for which she was grateful.
She wanted this relationship to work, so she wanted to be completely honest with him.
“I wasn’t proud of it,” she continued. “I was over him. We were just … in each other’s orbit.
But I’d reach out when I was lonely or thought he was looking elsewhere.
We we re never sexually intimate; I couldn’t do that to myself, let alone him.
I believe that’s reserved for a person you believe you might have a future with …
at least in my opinion. I knew we didn’t have a future.
” She looked down. “Now I realize all that time I dangled a relationship in front of him, it wasn’t about him.
It was about me. I didn’t want to feel like I was forgettable. ”
Seth nodded, slow and steady. “You’re not.”
Her gaze lifted to meet his. There was no hesitation in his words, no flinch. Just truth.
“I’ve been figuring out a lot of things, doing some hard work on boundaries. Figuring out why I feel like I’m invisible sometimes.”
“How’s it going?”
“Better,” she said, then paused. “I still have moments when I flinch at normal things. Like, someone being nice to me, and I wonder what they want. Ducking people so I don’t take up space but feeling like crud when I do that to myself.”
“Like when you tried to avoid me at the hospital?”
She huffed, a little embarrassed that he’d caught that.
“Ah … saw that, did you?” Seth nodded, and she admitted, “Yeah. That was a prime example. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, I get scared that I’ll lo se myself if I care too much.
But I see it now. The patterns. I name them, and since I can identify what I’m doing, it helps. ”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his voice quiet. “That’s a hell of a lot braver than most people ever get.”
“I want to be someone who’s healthy, you know?
Not just for someone else. For me .” She hesitated, her fingers tightening as she clasped her hands together.
“But if I’m ever in something real again …
” She swallowed, heart pounding, “I want it to be built on truth. Not fear. Not habit. I guess that’s why I’m telling you all of this. Because to me, this is real.”
Seth looked at her, really looked. There was weight in his eyes. Not pity. Understanding. Like he knew what it meant to want to get it right this time, even when everything inside you was afraid to try.