Chapter Seventeen
~ Newt ~
The Saturday market was more than a ritual. It was the closest thing McKenzie River had to a living, breathing organism—a weekly tide of bodies and noise and color, cycling through with the inevitability of the moon.
Today, I was part of it.
Scratch that—I was part of it in a way that made people stop mid-transaction, nod in my direction, and say things like, “Mornin’, Bridger. Heard you saved the farm.” Or, “Looking sharp, son. That’s the McKenzie cut, isn’t it?”
The last comment, delivered with an approving grin by the butcher’s wife, took me a second to parse—until I realized I’d unconsciously matched my hairstyle to the McKenzie brothers’ collective preference—short on the sides, wild on top, styled with the kind of reckless abandon only an actual McKenzie could pull off without looking like a meme.
The air in the market was electric, supercharged by the sun burning through two days’ worth of fog and by the collective, unspoken knowledge that the events of the previous week had turned the local power structure on its head.
Not that you’d know it from the produce. The heirloom tomatoes looked smug, the apples polished to a military shine. Baskets of peas and green beans tumbled over each other in a riot of hyper-competence. At the next stall, a stack of honeycombs gleamed like amber, each cell heavy with promise.
And me? I was floating through it, so high on my own sense of belonging that I literally walked into Knox’s back at least three times before we’d made it halfway down the line.
Each time, he’d glance over his shoulder with a look that said, “You all right?” but also, “If you do that again, I’m throwing you over my shoulder and carrying you out like a sack of flour.”
I didn’t know how to explain that my feet were barely touching the ground. That the sensation of his hand on my lower back was a low-level electrical current, equal parts anchor and adrenaline shot.
The first collision happened outside Rosie’s Bakery. The market line snaked past her stand, where she’d already sold out of the good donuts and was in the process of hawking “breakfast bread,” which was just yesterday’s rolls with a new marketing angle.
I was craning my neck, half watching Rosie and half tracking the slow drift of the McKenzie clan through the crowd. Knox stopped abruptly.
My nose made intimate contact with the back of his shoulder, which was much more forgiving than I expected, given the topographical map of muscle underneath his shirt.
“Careful,” he murmured, without turning around.
“Sorry,” I said, but I couldn’t stop grinning. The apology caught somewhere between my teeth and came out as a laugh.
People were staring. Not in the way they used to—no pity or skepticism, just genuine curiosity, like maybe I was the day’s most interesting piece of produce.
Mrs. Kimura, who ran the flowers-and-ferns table, gave me a look that was more invitation than evaluation.
She said, “You look good, Newt,” and she said it with the confidence of someone who’d seen me at my worst, which was the Tuesday after my first market, when I’d fainted in front of her peonies and had to be revived with a shot of lemon water and several minutes of her muttered prayers.
Even the local kids seemed to sense the shift. The Schrader twins, notorious for their dead-eyed stare and propensity for following strangers, shadowed us for half a lap before breaking off to steal samples at the cheese booth.
I let Knox navigate. It was easier that way.
He cut through crowds with military efficiency, only stopping to pick up the occasional bag of kettle corn for Harlow, six pints of blackberries for Aunt Georgia, or a brick of smoked gouda for Ransom, who swore he was lactose intolerant but could down half a wheel in one sitting.
There was a kind of pattern to the way we moved.
I’d get distracted by something—usually food, but occasionally the shiny, glossy world of other people living their best lives—and Knox would sense it, reach back, and catch my sleeve or my elbow before I could drift too far.
Sometimes it was possessive, sometimes protective, but always with the assurance that if I wanted to, I could tug back and he’d let me go.
I didn’t want to.
Not ever.
I didn’t realize how much I wanted to be seen, not as a charity case or a cautionary tale, but as a member of this impossible, beautiful, stubborn tribe, until it started happening.
Until people started treating me like I belonged to the place—not just the geography, but the history, the mythos, the full-bore, three-alarm tradition of McKenzie River.
At one point, I caught sight of a trio of old men playing chess under the pavilion. They looked like they’d stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting, each one weathered by decades of sun and pettiness, but I recognized them. Pa’s Thursday drinking buddies.
They paused their game to nod at Knox, then at me, with a solemnity usually reserved for funerals or 4th of July parades.
One of them—Burt, I think, or maybe Mert—winked at me. “Heard you’re the one keeping the farm solvent these days,” he said. “Didn’t think a Bridger could do math.”
“Shows what you know about us,” I said, the words out before I could regret them. The men all cackled like I’d just told the world’s dirtiest joke. Knox squeezed my hand, a warning and a reward at the same time.
We moved on.
The crowd thickened at the far end of the market, where a band was tuning up, all guitars and bongo drums and the distant, ever-present threat of interpretive dance. Knox steered us away, but not before I caught a snatch of conversation that made my ears ring.
“Isn’t that the boy from the Bridger place?” someone whispered, just loud enough for me to hear. “Didn’t expect him to come back, not after the lawsuit.”
“Heard he’s living with the McKenzies now,” said another. “Maybe they finally tamed him.”
“Doesn’t look tamed to me,” the first replied, and I had to agree. I felt feral—wild and alive, like my skin had finally decided to fit.
As we passed the cider stall, I asked Knox, “You think people actually believe it? That I’m one of you?”
He looked at me like I’d just asked if the sun was going to rise tomorrow. “You are one of us,” he said, simple as gravity.
I flushed, but inside my head it was a fireworks show. “I mean—I live with you all, sure, but—”
He cut me off with a squeeze, this time at the nape of my neck. “You want a certificate? Blood oath? We can arrange a ritual if that’s what you need.”
I laughed, because it was ridiculous, but also because I could see Knox absolutely going through with it. Maybe dragging me out to the woods at midnight, making me drink a shot of moonshine while Pa hit me with a stick and Aunt Georgia embroidered my name on a quilt.
I wanted it. Not the stick part, necessarily, but the permanence.
The certainty.
We rounded the corner, passing the honey table again. Knox stopped and bought a little jar, the fancy kind with a wooden dipper, even though I knew he preferred his sugar in the form of bourbon and regrets. He handed it to me, then leaned down, his voice low and dangerous.
“For the record,” he said, “You ever want my last name, you just have to ask.”
I dropped the jar. It bounced off my shoe, landed in the grass, and miraculously did not break. “Jesus,” I said. “You can’t just—say things like that.”
He shrugged. “Why not? It’s true.”
My heart was a jackhammer. I bent down to retrieve the honey and muttered, “You know, most people propose with, like, a ring, or at least a meal that doesn’t end in bloodshed.”
Knox grinned, all teeth and promise. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
I stared at him.
He stared right back.
For a long, weird, perfect moment, the entire world shrank to the space between us—my ridiculous, traitor heart and his solid, unbreakable presence, the heat of his gaze and the certainty in his voice.
I believed him. For the first time, maybe ever, I believed someone who said they wanted me.
We kept moving.
The market thinned as we reached the end, the stalls trailing off into a little clearing where families picnicked and teenagers tried to smoke behind the cover of a single, miserable tree.
Knox led me to a bench, plopped down, and pulled me onto his lap with no preamble. I yelped, but he just wrapped his arms around me and held on, tight.
The bench creaked under our combined weight, but I didn’t care. I sat, legs across his lap, head on his shoulder, and let the rest of the world fade into static.
We stayed there for a while, saying nothing, letting the sun bake away the last traces of cold. I watched the people come and go, the vendors shout their last deals, the distant swirl of kids chasing each other through the grass.
I watched the old men finish their chess game, watched Mrs. Kimura pack up her flowers, watched Rosie close her stall and shoot us a knowing look on her way out.
All of it was real. All of it was mine, now.
I thought about what it would be like, having a place in this world that was secure, unshakable, anchored by the man whose hands never left my body for more than a heartbeat at a time.
I thought about what it would mean to be not just a survivor, but a McKenzie. I thought about the future, and for the first time, the idea didn’t make me want to hide.
“Do you think they’ll ever let me drive the truck?” I asked, just to break the spell.
Knox snorted. “You can try, but good luck getting the keys from Harlow.”
I considered it. “What if I challenge him to an arm wrestle?”
He gave me a look. “Harlow?”
“Yeah, he’s gentle. I bet I could catch him off guard.”
Knox grinned, shaking his head. “You’re a menace.”
I beamed. “Guess I’m learning from the best.”
He kissed my cheek, rough and sudden. “Damn right you are.”