Chapter 4
Chapter four
Rhett
By dusk, another storm is starting. The last of the daylight drifts across the fields, low and gold, catching on the sludge and ice left from the storm the day before.
The festival lights are still off, the generators silent, and for once the ranch feels still.
There’s no laughter, no tractors running, just the soft sound of the creek rolling somewhere behind the barn.
I’ve spent most of the afternoon fixing what the storm tore loose and trying not to think about the woman who’s turned my quiet life upside down in less than twenty-four hours.
It doesn’t work. Every time I close my eyes, I see her smile, hear that laugh, feel the ghost of her waist under my hand when she slipped on the barn floor.
I tell myself it’s nothing. I like lying to myself.
When I head toward the house, the porch light is already on. Frankie sits on the top step wrapped in one of Grandma’s quilts, a mug cupped in both hands. Her hair’s still damp from her shower, curling around her face. She looks comfortable here, like she belongs.
She looks up. “You move quiet for a big guy.”
“Old habits.” I ease onto the step beside her. “You’re gonna freeze sitting out here.”
“I like the cold. Makes the stars brighter.”
She gestures toward the horizon where a few have already started to blink through the clearing clouds. The scent of rain and wood smoke hangs between us.
“Grandma’s turning in early,” she adds. “Said you’d be out finishing chores. Luke’s gone into town. Guess that leaves you and me.”
Her voice is light, teasing, but there’s something underneath it, an awareness neither of us bothers to hide anymore.
“Guess it does,” I say.
For a long minute we just sit there, watching the sky. The night hums, still charged from the storm. Her hand rests on the quilt near mine, close enough that the heat from her skin seeps through the fabric.
“This place is different,” she says quietly. “It’s calm.”
“That’s the point.”
“Do you ever leave?”
“Not if I can help it.”
She studies me, head tilted. “So you just stay? Take care of the land, the festivals, the pumpkins?”
“It’s home. Someone’s gotta keep it running.”
“You make it sound like a prison sentence.”
I glance at her. “Sometimes it feels like one.”
The wind shifts, carrying the faint scent of cinnamon from the kitchen window. She tucks the quilt tighter around her shoulders. “You ever think maybe you deserve more?”
Her words find the soft spot I thought I’d buried years ago. “You don’t even know me,” I say.
“Maybe not,” she admits. “But I know the look of someone trying to make peace with ghosts.”
I should laugh it off. Instead, I ask, “And what about you, witchy woman? You running from yours?”
She smiles faintly. “Absolutely.”
That earns a quiet laugh from me, and she looks pleased, like she’s been waiting to hear it. The space between us shrinks.
Lightning flashes far off on the ridge, turning the world silver for a heartbeat. When the light fades, she’s watching me.
“What?” I ask.
“I can see the storm in your eyes,” she says, almost to herself.
I don’t know who moves first. Maybe both of us. One second there’s air, the next there isn’t. Her breath catches as my hand finds her cheek, thumb tracing the line her chin. She doesn’t pull back.
The kiss starts soft, testing, careful, but it lands like thunder. All that quiet I’ve kept locked down breaks wide open. She tastes like coffee and rain and mine.
When we part, the night feels different. Fuller.
She leans her forehead against mine, voice barely above a whisper. “That was—”
“Yeah.” My pulse is still unsteady. “It was.”
We stay there for a moment, neither of us moving. The wind rustles the cottonwoods, and the first true stars burn through the clearing sky.
Finally she smiles, eyes bright. “I should probably go in before your grandmother sees me corrupting her grandson.”
“She’d claim it was her matchmaking,” I say.
She rises, the quilt slipping from her shoulders. I catch it before it hits the step, fingers brushing hers for just a second, enough to set that spark alight again.
“Goodnight, Rhett,” she says, soft but certain.
“Night, Frankie.”
I watch her climb the stairs, hair glowing gold in the porch light. When the door clicks shut behind her, I stay where I am, the taste of her still on my lips and the storm she started still rolling somewhere under my ribs.