Chapter Two- Ivy
The porch smells like last night—honeysuckle and wood smoke—and something warmer I can’t name until I spot it: a navy hoodie hanging from the hook by the door, shoulders broad, cuffs soft from a hundred wash cycles.
My fingers move before my brain does. The fabric is cool in the morning, a little heavy, and when I pull it over my head, it swallows me whole.
The hem slides past my hips, sleeves to my knuckles, and neckline brushing my collarbones with the faintest scrape of old cotton.
It smells like him. Cedar. Soap. A note of hay and sun.
The feeling that follows is embarrassingly big for such a simple thing.
People give me clothes all the time. Wardrobe racks, stylist pulls, boxes with handwritten notes that don’t smell like anyone.
This is different. It’s a thing that belongs to a person and is offered without ceremony. No cameras. No barter. Just… warm.
A paper bag waits on the little table by the window, a Post-it slapped to the top in block letters.
Eat.
I smile so hard my cheeks hurt. Inside, I find two breakfast burritos wrapped in foil and still pleasantly warm, plus napkins and a plastic fork I definitely won’t need.
I unwrap one and take a careful bite of the egg, cheese, peppery potatoes, and a little heat that wakes up the back of my throat.
I make a noise I’d like to pretend I don’t make over food, then lean a hip against the counter and let the cottage be quiet around me.
My phone blinks face down on the counter, the way I left it last night. I turn it over like I’m lifting a heavy stone.
Seventeen texts. Four missed calls. A calendar ping I absolutely ignore.
Celeste:
Where are you? Call me.
Publicist (Mara):
Label wants to confirm your availability for the June slate. Touch base this morning?
Celeste:
You’ve got a brand meeting at 11a CST. Do not be late.
Crew:
Hey, stranger. Jacket back in your orbit yet?
Bailey:
Want to try a bit of heaven?
The last two make me snort, and I make sure to reply to them and them alone. I drop the phone and push it away with one finger, like it might bite.
“Not today,” I tell the cottage, which does not argue.
When I open the door again, morning air slips inside and tugs at my hair.
The yard is dew-damp and gold around the edges, like someone dipped the world in honey and let it drip.
I step outside in bare feet and Rowan’s hoodie—ridiculous and perfect—and breathe until my ribs feel like they might behave.
By the time I pad down the path toward the bigger house, I’ve talked myself out of—and back into—texting my mother three times. I land on a compromise. I send Mara a quick note.
Me:
Alive. Safe. Taking a breather. Zoom later?
A text bubbles back instantly.
Publicist (Mara):
Relieved. Take the morning. I’ll fend off the dragons.
Bless Mara.
I veer toward the barn, drawn by the rhythm—a steady clank and a low voice of something living. Rowan’s inside, and the horses know. They lean heavy necks over stall doors and track him like planets around a sun. He glances up when my shadow spills across the threshold.
“You found it,” he says, the corner of his mouth tipping like he knew I would.
“The hoodie?” I tug the sleeve. “It kidnapped me. I’m filing a report.”
“Stockholm syndrome sets in quickly.” His eyes skate over me—bare legs, big sweatshirt, messy hair—and then do the gentlemanly thing of pretending they didn’t. “You eat?”
I lift the other half of the burrito. “Working on it.”
“Good.” He jerks his chin at a bucket propped by the door. “Walk with me? Just be wary that it will heat quickly once the sun decides to unleash its fury.”
I should say no. I have a long list of things to avoid today—gossip sites, my mother, anything with fluorescent lighting—and none of them sound appealing. Following the cowboy in his natural habitat despite the impending heat.
I fall into step beside him, our shoulders brushing once when the aisle narrows. Electricity might be dramatic, but a hum takes up residence under my skin when he’s close. We step out into the brightness and past the paddock toward a fence line that looks mostly fine to my untrained eye.
“Two posts loose.” He talks like he’s narrating for an audience. “One staple popped. Coyotes have been testing it lately.”
“Testing?” I echo, eyeing the trees like a wild dog might stroll out with a clipboard.
He gives a slight smile. “They’re smart. They watch. They push where you don’t think anyone’s looking.”
“Relatable,” I mutter.
He doesn’t tease. He just sets the bucket down, then pulls out a hammer, a fist full of U-shaped staples, and a pair of pliers the length of my forearm.
“Want to try?” he asks, mildly.
“Absolutely not,” I say, because reflex. My feet betray me and carry me closer anyway. I stop with my hands tucked into the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie like I’ve handcuffed myself on purpose.
He hears the second answer under the first, but he only nods. “Watch, then.”
He braces a boot against the bottom wire, leans the post with a shoulder, and works efficiently and without fanfare.
The pliers bite down, the wire sings a clean, bright note, and his forearms rope and release.
There’s a smear of dust along a vein I have no business staring at.
He sets a staple, holds it steady with two fingers, and taps once.
Neat. Sure. The metal seats; the line tightens.
“You want tension,” he says, eyes on the fence, “but not too much. Yank like hell and you’ll snap it. Baby it, and it’ll sag, then the first curious nose is through.”
“Moderation,” I offer.
“Control,” he corrects softly. “Let the tool do the work. You guide.”
Heat gathers low and ridiculous at the word guide. I lean my shoulder against the next post, pretending it needs supervision. He keeps moving down the run, and the space between us is an elastic thing—stretching, relaxing, humming with everything we’re not doing.
He glances over once, quick and unreadable, then sets the last staple and tests the line. It thrums, tight and obedient. My pulse answers like a show-off.
We keep walking. The morning warms by degrees. Somewhere behind the barn, a rooster finds a reason to be dramatic. When we swing around the north paddock, a sound like a tiny trumpet goes off. I jump because dignity is a luxury, and Rowan laughs.
“Easy,” he says, angling me toward the source.
A calf blinks up at me with sticky lashes and a constellation of caramel patches. She gives an indignant snort again and then sneezes directly on my bare thigh. The warmth is unexpected and honestly adorable.
“Oh my God.” I press a hand to my chest and start laughing, helpless and bright. “Ma’am. Boundaries.”
“She’s three weeks old,” Rowan says, trying and failing to hide his amusement. “Boundaries are a Q4 goal.”
“What’s her name?”
“Doesn’t have one yet.”
“Butterscotch,” I say immediately, because of course.
He looks at the calf, then looks at me. “Fitting.”
“Welcome to the world, Butterscotch,” I tell her solemnly, and she sneezes again for emphasis. I wipe my leg with the inside hem of the hoodie and pretend that’s not basically sacrilege.
Back at the barn, he washes his hands at the utility sink and passes me a clean towel without asking. When he turns, his face is easy in a way I’m not used to seeing in men—work done, morning unfolding, company not resented.
“Plans?” he asks, drying his hands.
“Bailey texted,” I say. “Said I need to try the cinnamon twists before Coral Bell Cove runs out forever.”
“She’s not wrong.” His mouth tilts. “I’ll run you into town if you want.”
The offer lands like the hoodie did—simple, unshowy, and kind. I should hesitate, but I don’t.
“I want.”
After a quick change of my clothes into something less…
sleepywear, and tossing Rowan’s sweatshirt in the washing machine with plans to confiscate it later, I meet Rowan, who’s waiting patiently by his truck, hands tucked casually in his pockets.
We take the long way into town, which turns out to be the only way.
The road threads between pines, dips past a marsh that flashes silver when the wind skims it, and then climbs just enough that the bay throws a wink through a gap in the trees.
Rowan doesn’t talk to fill space. He points, sometimes.
“Old bird sanctuary.“
“Don’t park by that oak—wasp’s nest.”
“If you want the best tomatoes, skip Main Street and ask Mrs. Kline at the end of Dock Lane.”
I memorize it all like a person who might need these facts more than she needs industry awards.
Bailey’s already outside the bakery when we pull up, holding a paper bag like it’s a relay baton and this is the handoff. She spots me through the windshield and grins big enough to light the sidewalk.
“There she is,” she sings, pulling me inside. The doorbell chirps and the air changes—cold and sweet, butter curling under my tongue just from breathing. “You’re in luck. Cinnamon twists are still warm.”
“Hi to you, too,” I say, laughing.
Rowan trails us, tips the girl at the register like he always has cash exactly where he needs it, and leans a shoulder against the wall while Bailey presses a twist into my hand.
Sugar dusts my fingers, which is how I end up licking it off like a scandal in slow motion.
The pastry is still soft in the middle, sticky at the edges, and I make that noise again.
Bailey fans herself. “Okay, ma’am.”
“Do you sell these in bulk?”
“Only if you promise not to sue us when your nutritionist cries.”
“Joke’s on you,” I say. “She doesn’t believe in joy.”
Rowan’s mouth quirks; his eyes do, too. I’ve started noticing that his gaze warms when something genuinely amuses him, a sunbeam through branches, here and gone.