Chapter 14
I stared down into brown, beady little eyes, wondering how the hell my life had turned into this.
A tiny piglet stood in the middle of Hudson Hardware, pink snout snuffling at a stray screw left on the floor.
Black-and-white patches covered her round little body, one eye smudged in black like a pirate's patch.
Her hooves made the faintest tapping sounds against the old wooden floor, curious about everything. She looked like a football with legs.
A warm, squeaky, living football.
“This is not how my Tuesday was supposed to go,” I muttered, leaning against the counter.
Rowdy huffed from his usual spot near the register, resting his chin on his paws. His whole expression said, you’ve officially lost it.
I rubbed a hand over my face, still reeling from the fact that a volunteer from the county animal rescue had dropped off a piglet twenty minutes ago, handed me a half-empty bottle of formula and a bag of feed, then hurried back to her truck with a promise to call later.
She’s not keeping weight on, she’d said. We were hoping you might help. Just for now.
Just for now. Famous last words.
“Well,” I said to the empty store. “Now what?”
The piglet answered by snuffling closer and chewing on the toe of my boot. She was warm against my calf, and when I bent to scoop her up, she fit in the crook of my arm. Her round little belly rose and fell fast against my palm.
“You’re kinda cute. I’m not sure this is what the grief counselors meant by stability and routine, though.”
I grabbed my phone, thumb flying as I searched how to take care of a mini potbelly piglet. A dozen links popped up at once.
Warm bedding.
Socialization.
Heat lamps.
Vaccines.
Bottle feeding.
Enclosures.
I exhaled slowly. I had most of that—straw in the barn, heat lamps left over from chick season, and an old dog kennel I could scrub down and set up inside.
The rescue had sent her with a bottle and formula to get through the night, but not much more than that.
“So,” I muttered, eyeing her round belly before setting her down on the counter, “we’re improvising.”
The piglet made a soft grunt, curled into a little loaf on top of a stack of lumber receipts, and closed her eyes. Rowdy stared up at me, his dark eyes carrying more than a little judgment—even as his tail gave a soft thump against the floor.
“Don’t look at me like that.” I shook my head. “This one’s not on me.”
As if my day hadn’t already gone off the rails, my phone lit up with a call from Beckett. My pulse kicked immediately.
“Is she okay?” I asked, already regretting dropping Junie off at the rink with him this morning after her meltdown. She’d said she wanted to go, but I should’ve known she wasn’t ready. “Tell me she’s okay.”
“She’s fine,” Beckett said, and I sagged against the counter. “Junie asked if she could take a nap in Tate’s office instead of sitting on the bench with me. She’s not upset, but I think she hit her limit today.”
Relief loosened something tight in my chest, even as guilt crept in behind it. “I’m on my way.”
I grabbed my keys and waved to Steve as he came back in from lunch. He took one look at my phone, then the pig on the counter, and gave me a slow thumbs-up.
Rowdy’s ears perked the second I moved, and he was halfway to the door before I hung up.
I looked down at the sleeping pig, then back at Steve. “Well, I can’t leave you here.”
She cracked one dark, sleepy eye open, then closed it.
With a sigh, I scooped her up.
Minutes later, I had a pig tucked against my chest, a dog in the passenger seat, and the distinct feeling my life had spiraled into a very weird place.
The piglet made squeaky grunts whenever the truck jostled, then burrowed deeper into my shirt. Rowdy leaned as far away as possible, pressed flat against the passenger door.
“Yeah, yeah,” I told him. “I wasn’t expecting to give you a little sister today either.”
He sighed. The pig snorted. I shook my head and hit the gas. Every scenario I’d rehearsed in therapy lined up in my head, neat and useless.
Junie wasn’t upset.
She was just tired.
Tired was normal. Expected, even.
She’d been holding up so well after everything. The grief counselor I’d been seeing for months drilled the same thing into me every time we talked: Meet her where she is. Safety first. Routine second. Love always.
“She’s been through hell,” I told the pig, because somebody had to listen. “Kid gets a free pass for at least a decade, don’t you think?”
She snuffled against my ribs. I took it as an agreement.
The Linwood Rink still looked like hell from the outside—dirty brick siding, a flickering sign—the kind of place you drove past unless you knew better. Inside, though, it was home. Cold air, old concrete, and the sound of blades cutting ice.
I pulled into the first available parking spot and climbed out, pig still in my arms, Rowdy right on my heels.
Tate’s red eyebrows nearly disappeared into her hairline the second she spotted us. I’d known her my whole life—before the rink was hers, before it was partly mine too—and she knew better than anyone when to stop asking questions.
“You know,” she said, “I’m lenient with Rowdy because he’s awesome, but that’s—”
“A service pig,” I deadpanned, shifting the pig in my arms. “In training.”
The piglet squealed on cue, sticking her happy little face out toward Tate.
A smile cracked her serious facade.
I didn’t wait long enough to be denied, barreling through the lobby and up the stairs to her office.
Blueprints littered the tables—early plans for the expansion Beckett had been pushing since he, his brother Mason, and I invested.
Everything was still up in the air, but the Conway brothers did nothing halfway.
Junie lay curled in the old recliner, rain boots kicked off, hair mussed from sleep.
Her eyes flicked open when I knelt beside her.
“Hey, bug.”
That tired little smile just about wrecked me. “You’re here.”
“Of course I am,” I said. “I told you I was just a phone call away.”
Her gaze dropped to the bundle in my arms, and her whole face lit up. “Is that a pig?”
“Indeed, it is.”
Her hands flew to her mouth. “Can we keep her?”
I sighed, already defeated, but loving the look of pure adoration taking over my girl’s face. “Yeah. Probably.”
She reached out and brushed her hand over the piglet’s back, reverent. “She’s so warm.”
The pig snorted. Rowdy leaned in, resigned to the chaos. Junie giggled—a sound I’d do just about anything to keep around.
“How’d you get her?” Junie asked once I had her buckled into her booster seat in the back of my truck, the pig settled in her lap. One small palm rested protectively against the piglet’s back. Rowdy rode shotgun with a long-suffering expression, judging me with every breath.
Sunlight flashed through the trees on the side of the road, and I wondered if I was about to make this better or worse.
“A woman dropped her off at the hardware store earlier today.”
Junie’s brow furrowed. I caught her expression in the rearview mirror and hesitated, already questioning the wisdom of continuing.
“She didn’t want her?” Her voice cracked, tears filling those bright blue eyes. “How could she not want her?”
“This piglet’s mom died,” I said, choosing each word with care. “She’s too little to survive on her own, so they brought her to me.”
Junie nodded as tears spilled over her cheeks. She squeezed the piglet, holding on. “You’ll be okay, Piggie,” she whispered. “Ty’s good at taking care of us.”
I blinked fast, throat tight, because fuck. Seven words and she’d destroyed me.
Junie moved right past the moment, still murmuring to the pig. I stared out at the road, forcing myself to breathe, to keep it together.
Be steady.
Be safe.
Be what she needs.
I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve her, but Junie was the best thing to ever happen to me. I couldn’t screw this up for her.
“Do you want to live in my room, Piggie?” Junie said. “Ty painted it blue, and it’s really cute. We can put a picture of you on the wall. You just have to make a funny face first.”
I glanced at her in the mirror. “Piggie, huh?”
“Yeah. Isn’t that the rapper you listen to in the barn? Piggie Smalls?”
I laughed, the sound surprising even me. “Yeah, bug. That’s a great name.”
Junie grinned wider, pleased with herself.
Piggie Smalls sniffed at Junie’s face, her wet nose burrowing into the crease of her neck until Junie let out a soft giggle.
I still didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but with Junie humming softly, Rowdy’s head heavy in my lap, and Piggie snoring against Junie’s stomach, it almost felt like maybe we were going to be okay.
The gravel crunched under the tires as we turned down the long driveway. Daisy wore pink heart-shaped sunglasses that covered half her face as she knelt in the garden by Violet’s house, wielding a trowel like she was determined to wrestle the weeds into submission.
All day I’d been worried about her, not sure how to help a grieving woman. Was it the same as a child? Offer her stability and just meet her where she was at? Maybe I should ask at my next therapy appointment.
Music blared out of a little stereo on her sister’s porch, so it took her a minute to realize I had parked there. But the second she spotted Junie in the back seat, she frowned.
I pointed at my house, and Daisy followed me up the drive to the top of the hill. The moment I had the truck in park, Junie flung the door open and tumbled out with Piggie clutched to her chest.
“Dizzy!” she yelled, hair flying everywhere as she ran toward Daisy.
Daisy straightened, brushing her palms on her shorts. “Hey, cutie. Why are you—” She caught sight of the pig, then looked at me. “What the hell is that?”
“A pig,” I said.
“A pig,” she repeated.
“Yep.”
By the time I rounded the front of the truck, Junie was halfway up the porch steps, piglet in her arms. Daisy met me at the base of the steps, eyes narrowed, half amused and half overwhelmed.
“There is a lot to unpack here.”
“I didn’t have a pig when I left this morning.” I didn’t know why I clarified that, but today had been weird on all fronts.
Her eyes crinkled. “I noticed that.”
“She came from a rescue,” I added. “Long story.”
That earned a soft chuckle, and fuck, I loved that sound from the Winslow girls. “Of course she did.”
Junie didn’t even look up when we stepped into the house, already spreading a blanket on the living room floor. Her hockey mascot stuffed animals sat in a nearby pile while Piggie Smalls waddled through the middle.
“Okay, you go here because you’re in the same division,” Junie said, dropping a plush mascot into a neat line. “And you can’t stand by him because you’re rivals after the 1999 Stanley Cup.”
Piggie sniffed one, then another.
Daisy stopped short beside me, watching the scene unfold. “Wow,” she whispered. “So… hockey is a thing.”
“You should hear her when she gets going on stats,” I said. “That kid is the smartest person I know.”
Junie glanced up, eyes bright. “If pigs could play hockey, do you think she’d be a goalie?”
As if demonstrating her skills, Piggie flopped down in the middle of the blanket, legs splayed, snout tucked against a stuffed animal’s side.
Junie giggled and immediately launched into a detailed explanation of which mascots were nice, which ones were villains, and why Piggie couldn’t trust the orange one with the weird eyes.
I leaned against the doorframe and let the noise wash over me—Junie’s steady stream of hockey facts, Piggie’s snorts, Daisy’s quiet laugh beside me. For a second, I stayed there, hands braced on the wood, grounding myself in the normalcy of it.
“Was she okay today?” Daisy asked after a few minutes.
Rowdy sat heavy at my feet, eyeing the living room chaos. “Yeah,” I said. “Beckett called. Junie hit her limit.”
“After this morning, I’m surprised she made it this long. I say we call it a win.”
I nodded, glad we were on the same page.
Daisy took a tentative step into the living room, then sank down on the floor beside Junie. My girl beamed, showing her how to hold Piggie just right, like she’d been doing this for years instead of an afternoon.
“Are you good?” I asked.
Daisy lifted a thumb without looking back, already absorbed. “We’re good.”
I lingered another second, watching Junie curl closer to her, then turned away before my chest could tighten too much.
I stepped back outside, already making a mental list of everything we’d need for tonight.