Billie
Headlights sweep across the kitchen window and my stomach flips.
"Seven thirty on the dot," my dad says from behind me, still mashing potatoes with more force than necessary.
His wife Janice laughs. Rhett is Janice's father. My step-grandfather, though that word has never fit him. Not since I was fourteen and he looked at me for the first time and I felt it land somewhere it shouldn't have.
I head for the front door and swing it open.
The rain hasn't started yet, but the wind is up, carrying the smell of wet sage and coming weather. His massive F350 King Ranch rolls into the driveway, does his classic three-point turn so it's backed in next to my garage, then cuts the engine.
The door opens and closes with a heavy, familiar thunk.
Boots on gravel. Long strides. He rounds the front of the truck and there he is.
My chest does that thing it always does when Rhett appears. More than a flutter. A full-body brace, like my bones know something my brain won't say out loud.
He's in worn Levi's and a tan flannel button-up, sleeves rolled to his forearms, square-toed cowboy boots scuffed to hell. He looks like the image you'd see if you looked up cowboy in an old encyclopedia Britannica.
He's on me before I get my greeting out, folding me into a hug that lifts my boots off the porch. His arms go all the way around me and then some. I press my face into his chest and breathe him in. Leather and Old Spice and something underneath that I don't have a name for but my body does.
I hold on one beat too long. Maybe two.
"There's my girl." His voice is low, a rumble I feel in my belly. He presses his mouth to my forehead and holds it there before setting me down. His big hand stays on my back, warming me when I shiver.
I pull back and smile up at him. God, this man. Six-four, salt-and-pepper hair curling at his collar, a face the sun and work has weathered into something most men will never earn. His hands alone could be their own biography. I think about them more than I should.
"Missed you, old man." I wink with an elbow to his ribs, keeping my voice light.
His eyes hold mine and those lines around them deepen. He's been gone a week and it felt longer than it should have for a girl talking about her Pawpaw.
Inside, Janice gets a hug with his hand cupping the back of her head the way he's probably done since she was small. She pulls back and swats his arm. "You look too thin. Are they not feeding you down there?"
"I ate fine."
"Not enough. Sit down and eat real food."
Rudolph gets a handshake that turns into a back slap that turns into one of those half-hugs men do when they love each other but would rather swallow glass than say so.
Dinner goes fast the way it does when everyone's hungry and happy. Janice has commandeered my stove, my counter space, and what's left of my dignity — the last time I cooked for them, I set off the smoke detector twice and served pasta that could've been used as grout.
I've contributed coffee. Rhett drinks it like it's the best thing he's ever tasted, which makes something warm curl behind my ribs.
Janice reaches across the table and taps the leather sheath on Rhett's belt. "Okay, I've been dying all through dinner. That handle looks new. You finish the one you've been working on?"
Rhett glances down like he forgot it was there. Unsnaps the sheath and draws it — a fixed-blade with an elk antler inlay that catches the overhead light.
"Lord," Rudolph mutters, leaning forward. "That's a piece of work, Rhett."
He turns it in his hand, offers it handle-first to my dad.
"Can I hold it?" I ask, and his eyes find mine across the table. His gaze drops to my mouth for a fraction of a second, so fast I could've imagined it, and the air between us pulls tight.
"Later." He nods toward the counter raising the mug I handed him a minute ago. "Cup's low."
I get up to make another pot and I can feel his eyes on my back the whole way across the kitchen. Or maybe I just want to.
Janice's phone buzzes on the table. She glances at it, frowns. "Oh, for the love of — it's Darlene. Hank's out again." She holds the screen toward Rudolph. "If we don't come get him in thirty minutes, she's calling about the noise ordinance."
My dad's jaw tightens. He's already standing. Hank's their Jack Russell and he's a whole therapy session unto itself.
"I'm sorry, honey." Janice retrieves her jacket from the back of the ladderback chair. "We have to go deal with this before she gets the sheriff out there."
"Go," I wave them off. "Save Hank from the long arm of the law."
Dad turns to me at the door. "Storm's going to hit hard. You sure you don't want to come stay with us?"
I shake my head. "I have everything I need here. I'll spend half the night up writing. Just go. I'm good."
The goodbye is fast — hugs, a reminder to text when they're home safe, Janice apologizing again for the abrupt exit. I stand on the porch and watch their taillights disappear down the road.
Rhett is in the doorway behind me. I feel him the way you feel a storm rolling in.
"You sure you're all right out here alone?"
I turn and look up. "Yeah."
Then he pulls me in, one arm around my waist. His hand slides down and settles on my hip, his thumb pressing into the hollow just inside my hipbone and my breath catches so hard I pray he doesn't hear it.
We've always had this unspoken thing between us. He made me feel special from that first meeting at the rehearsal dinner.
But, I'm nineteen now and feeling special has changed. I like it more than a girl should like anything about her grandfather's hands on her body.
"Night, sweetheart." His voice is rough, fitting him the way those darn Levi's do. He squeezes my hip and steps into the dark. "You call if you need anything. Anytime."
I watch him cross to his truck, watch the dome light bloom when he opens the door and disappear when he shuts it, watch the headlights flare and swing as he pulls out. I stand in the open doorway with my arms wrapped around myself until the sound of his engine dissolves into the night.
I can still feel his thumb on my hip like a brand.
I step back inside and lock the door. Deadbolt, then chain.
The cabin holds the ghost of him. His coffee mug on the table, the scent of leather fading from where he stood. I press my fingers to the spot on my hip and think about the size of his hand, the heat of it, how he didn't rush.
I shouldn't be thinking about this.
But I've been stuck on a scene for a week, a dark bedroom, a woman alone, the feeling of being watched, and now I know why it won't come. I've been writing around the thing I won't let myself feel.
Thunder rolls overhead and the lights flicker but stay on. I move to the window beside the door and look out — just the dark, just the cottonwoods thrashing in the wind.
I pull the curtain shut, turn my back on the door, then spin on my toe, my hand finds the deadbolt one more time and checks that it's turned.
Just to be sure.