6. Move-In & The Town Sees #2
She points to a mini donkey and a few horses in the pasture. “That’s Muddy the donkey. There are a few horses in the back pasture, Annabell and Mischief. They are my new rescues. And of course, Sundance and Missy are at Mom's, and Dad’s new boy, Matrix.”
A Blue Heeler and a small Red Heeler appear from the direction of the east pasture.
“And those two are Oliver and Cooper. Oliver and Atlas are the blues, Cooper is the red, and Aries is the hound. They had come to be with me when Dad broke his leg. Four dogs and crutches are a recipe for disaster and an accident waiting to happen. Technically, they’re Mom and Dad's dogs, but they'd worked alongside me long enough that the ‘theirs or mine’ line had blurred long ago.” The two make their way over to Falon.
They circle me once, noses sniffing a million miles an hour.
Oliver glances up at Falon. She gives him nothing.
Cooper sniffs my boot and trots off after him.
"You passed," Falon says.
"High praise."
"That's as good as it gets on day one. Aries’s around here somewhere. She’s my geriatric hound."
“Do you need any more help today. I’m not allergic to work.”
“Are you sure you’re up for it. I don’t want to rough up those pretty little hands,” she jokes, then gestures for me to follow her.
We work until the sun goes down. I carried, she directed. She introduced me to Dispatch when she decided to appear at some point and claimed the top step of the guest house porch, where she sat for the rest of the evening and watched us work.
After chores, Falon suggested dinner and led me to the main house.
“Your kitchen is chaos.”
“I know, I know. I’m still painting and still have a few more cabinet doors to sand. But the good news is the laundry room is done.” She lights up.
There are recipe cards on a corkboard. Wooden spoons in a jar by the stove.
Mismatched mugs on hooks. It's Falon and construction. I thought back and realized that when we were growing up, I never really knew Falon’s taste.
Tyler was the football quarterback and had trophies everywhere.
Melody showcased her farmhouse décor, and Rick was usually working on the ranch but loved his fishing.
Falon, on the other hand, had a distinct style, but it was generally buried under the other three.
But this, this space. This is hers, and only hers.
She cracked eggs into a bowl and started adding spices and other ingredients while I sat at the table, trying not to look like I was memorizing her. She moved through the kitchen with ease because she put it there.
"You cook?" she asks without looking up.
"Pearl taught me the basics. Better at breakfast than anything else."
"Mind if you take morning duty. I can do lunches and dinner."
We eat scrambled eggs and toast at her kitchen table, and it's so easy it hurts.
Like we've done this a hundred times. Like, we could do it a hundred more times.
In high school, while other girls were gossiping, Falon was moving through life with a good head on her shoulders, and now, at twenty-three, she had her own ranch and was fixing up an old farmhouse that fit her perfectly.
She once said she never wanted one of those already fixed houses; she wanted to fix her own, and here she is doing it.
"What have you done to the farmhouse?" I ask.
Falon lights up. "Windows in the dining room. The floors, the bed and bath, and the kitchen are still a work in progress. I insulated the garage, put together the patio furniture.”
"You did all that yourself?"
"Most of it." There's pride in the shrug. "It's mine. I want to do it right."
“What still needs to be done?”
“Oh, wow. Too much to mention, but my must-dos first are: the fireplace needs work before winter. Upstairs bathroom is basically gutted, so I’m showering in a tub and plywood.
" She takes a bite of toast. "But the original ceiling beams in the living room are gorgeous, and I think I want to keep them exposed. "
Every inch of this life is exactly where she put it. I lean back in my chair. When I got here, 'temporary' was the point, but now it's starting to feel like the wrong word entirely.
"It's really something," I say. "What you're building here."
She looks at me across the table.
"Thanks, Bo," she says quietly, uncomfortable with the compliment.
We do the dishes side by side. She rinses; I load. Our fingers brush as we hand off a plate. Then again, with a bowl. The second time, the pull-away is a bit slower, and we both feel it.
Frank starts up outside; three sharp crows. Falon doesn't even flinch.
"He does this every night," she says.
"But it's not morning?"
"Frank operates on Frank time." She hands me the last bowl. "I've made my peace with it, except at four a.m."
When the dishes are done, I wish Falon a good night and head for the door.
"Bo?"
I turn. She's standing by the sink with the dish towel in her hands, looking uncertain in a way she almost never lets herself look.
"You're really okay here? It's not too rough?"
It's the least rough thing I've felt in eighteen months.
"I'm good," I say. "Promise."
She nods, satisfied, and her features soften. "Let me know if you need anything."
"I will."
I walk back to the guest house under a sky full of stars. When I close the door behind me, the silence is different.
I'm lying on the bed staring at the ceiling when my phone buzzes.
Tyler: How's Everwood?
I look at the message for a long time.
Bo: Good. Settling in.
Tyler: Falon okay?
Bo: Yeah. She's fine.
Tyler: Good. Keep me posted.
I set the phone face down on the nightstand.
I told Rick and Melodie the truth. I told them what Tyler wanted, and they trusted me with it. But I didn't tell Falon.
Three months. April to July. That was the plan. Long enough to catch my breath.
I knew it was a lie before I finished telling it to myself.
Watching her tonight, and how excited she got talking about her house. She moved through her kitchen and talked about the beams she'd cleaned up. She looked at me across the table, genuinely glad I was there.
I know three months won't be enough.
And staying might break me worse than leaving ever did.
Falon
Millie is already in the booth when I get to Ethel's, which means she's been there long enough to order coffee and collect at least two pieces of gossip from whoever sat nearest the window.
"You're late," she says cheerfully.
"I'm two minutes early."
"I've been here ten. That makes you late." She wraps both hands around her mug. "Also, Ethel already knows."
I slide in across from her. "Knows what?"
Millie tilts her head. "That Bo Gates moved into your guest house yesterday."
I open my mouth.
"She said, and I'm quoting directly, 'about time.'"
I close my mouth.
Daisy arrives thirty seconds later in a burst of energy and canvas tote, dropping into the booth beside me with the look on her face that means she has been waiting to say something since approximately six this morning.
"Okay," she says. "Talk."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"He moved into your guest house, and we had to learn this info from the Everwood gossip chain."
"He needed a place to stay. And I was going to tell you at lunch."
"You have known this man since you were eight years old, and you offered him a place to stay the same week he got back to town." Daisy folds her hands on the table. "I'm not saying that's not generous. I'm saying that is not just generous."
Kinley slips in beside Millie, unwinding her scarf, catching the tail end of the conversation. "How'd he look?" she asks.
"Fine."
"Fine like fine, or fine like?—"
"Kinley."
She smiles and picks up a menu that hasn’t changed since the place opened.
Lila appears with coffee for everyone and a look on her face that says she is fully informed as well. She doesn't say anything, which is almost more alarming.
We place our orders with Lila, and when she leaves to place the orders, the conversation migrates to Millie's Thursday farm calls, Daisy's ongoing battle with her landlord, and Kinley mentions a few small morsels of gossip she heard from the clerk's office.
Working there gives her the greatest intel.
It's easy, warm, and exactly what a Wednesday morning is supposed to feel like.
Then Mrs. Winslow arrives.
She doesn't walk into Ethel's so much as materialize, already moving toward us before the door has finished swinging shut, wearing a cardigan with a pattern that could generously be described as tie-dye floral and bells on her shoes, carrying a pie plate with both hands.
"Falon, sweetheart." She sets the pie plate on the edge of our table. "Would you mind returning this to Janet? I keep forgetting."
"Of course, Mrs. Winslow."
"Thank you." She pats my hand. Doesn't move. "I hear you've got a houseguest."
"He's in the guest house. Not the house."
"Mm." She considers this. "He was fixing the fence along your east line this morning. I drove past on my way to bingo."
"He likes to keep busy."
"He sure does." She looks at me with those sharp, warm eyes that have been reading this town for seventy-something years. “That one’s a keeper.” She winks, and I blush. Not very subtle, is she?
I open my mouth.
She's already turning to go, pie plate business concluded.
Daisy watches her leave. "I love her."
"She's terrifying," I say.
"She's right," Millie says, which is less helpful.
“About what, the shirt or the bells?” I laugh, but I love Mrs. Winslow.
“Both, and about Bo.” Milly drinks her coffee and pretends she doesn’t see me staring at her.
The coffee gets refilled, and our normal friends get together. Kinley steals one of Daisy's fries, and Millie tells a story about Matrix's latest vet checks that involves more drama than the movie.
But underneath all of it, something Kinley says catches me.
She's talking about her week, and she mentions offhand that she ran into Melodie at the pharmacy, and Melodie said Falon had been an absolute rock through all of this with Rick's leg, both ranches, and the farmhouse, and not a single complaint.
"You're always the one holding things together," Kinley says. "I don't know how you do it."
She says it with sincerity. She always does.
I smile. “You know me, just staying busy,” The conversation moves on, and nobody notices how it feels.
Always the one holding things together, dependable, always helpful, friendly, and Melodie’s daughter, or Tyler’s sister. No one ever talks about me as me.
I’m Rick's daughter. Reliable. Capable. A saint. It’s always said with good intentions and as a compliment, but still. It’s never just: Falon has done such a great job on the old Anderson house. Or I’m so proud of who she’s become.
Never just Falon.
I drive home with the windows down and the pie plate on the passenger seat, and Mrs. Winslow's words still sitting somewhere in the back of my mind. That one’s a keeper.
I pull into the drive, and his truck is there.
Parked at a slight angle, the way it always is.
His jacket is on the porch rail of the guest house. A thermos sits on the step, probably still warm.
Small things. Evidence of a life being lived thirty yards from mine.
I sit in the truck for a moment with my hands in my lap and let myself feel it.
I want him to stay.
Not temporarily. Not until he decided to leave. But forever. I always have.
I want his truck in the drive, his jacket on the rail, and the light in the guest house window when I come home late. I want morning coffee with someone who already knows how I take it. I want the easy that we had at the kitchen table last night.
I want it badly enough that it scares me.
Because wanting something and not knowing the outcome is the most dangerous kind of wanting there is.
I grab the pie plate and get out of the truck.
Frank is on his post, watching me come through the gate with what I can only describe as a challenge.
"Not a word," I tell him.
He crows anyway.