Chapter Three – Rowan
The storm breaks around midnight and walks all over the roof like it’s got a grievance.
I lie there and count the space between flash and rumble until the number gets big enough to let my jaw unclench.
When it moves off toward the bay, the dark turns plush.
Crickets pick up where thunder leaves off.
The first light is clean and silver. The world smells washed and edible.
Coffee, boots, barn. Same order, same pace. Horses blow steam at me like criticism I can live with. The roof still ticks, letting go of the last of the rain. I run a palm down Duke’s neck, and he leans his whole soul into it. We all want proof we’re real at dawn.
On my way back across the yard, I look at the cottage without meaning to.
A curtain moves. It’s a small thing, but it lands.
The porch light’s off—good. She slept. A sliver of navy at the window tells me the hoodie never made it back to the hook.
Somewhere between reasonable and reckless. I like that.
I set two mugs on her stoop—hers with cream and sugar, mine black—and knock with my knuckles because it’s early and because you don’t kick a quiet door when the person behind it is trying to remember how to be a person.
“Morning,” she says, voice sleep-rough through the wood. Then the door opens, and I forget about coffee for a second.
Bare legs, damp hair braided over one shoulder, my hoodie hanging off her like a promise I shouldn’t make. She’s barefoot, toes pink. Her face is clean, no war paint, and there’s a softness at her mouth I’ve only seen when a woman forgets to guard it.
“You brought the good stuff,” she says, reaching for the marked cup.
“Bribery works.” I hand it over. “Storm treat you okay?”
“Like a lullaby with a bass drop.” She tips her chin toward the yard, but I can tell with the way she avoids eye contact that she’s holding something back. “Everything still standing?”
“Mostly.” I point toward the south pasture. “Corner slipped. I’ll fix it after breakfast.” I don’t add after I walk you through your morning, so you don’t convince yourself you dreamed yesterday, but it’s there, hanging.
She takes a careful sip and makes a sound that registers in places I work hard not to notice. “I have a Zoom at ten,” she says, wincing like she hates saying it out loud.
“You need the house Wi-Fi?”
She shakes her head. “I trust your cottage to power my very important call about lipstick and deliverables.”
“Bold of you,” I say. “Carl texted. He’s got your car up on the rack. Says we can swing by after lunch if you want to hear the bad news from a man with hands like motor oil.”
Her mouth quirks. “I’ll bring him a muffin. Soften the blow.”
“Loretta’s bakery’s got a dozen every morning. She weaponizes carbs,” I explain.
“I like her already.” She tugs the sleeves over her knuckles and glances toward the north field. “Can I—” She stops, then starts again. “Can I walk with you while you fix the fence? I promise not to touch tools unless supervised.”
A laugh sneaks out before I can stop it. “You were a menace with the pliers yesterday.”
“I was an apprentice,” she counters, chin up.
“Fine.” I tip my head toward the barn. “Boots first.”
Ten minutes later, she clomps across the yard in a pair of mudroom castoffs two sizes too big and grinning like the sound they make is part of the fun. The sun’s up proper now, dripping honey off the grass blades. Everything’s brighter than it has any right to be after a night that loud.
We walk the edge of the south pasture in companionable quiet.
She keeps pace, eyes everywhere—fence, trees, the way dew beads on spider silk like jewelry.
When the bad corner shows itself—stringer warped, staple pulled, my own note in Sharpie on the post from last storm that says FIX ME, IDIOT—she aims an I-told-you-so smile at me without the words.
“I believe moderation and control were your talking points,” she says, parroting me, and I pretend not to like hearing my lecture in her voice.
“Guess I should take my own advice.”
I set the bucket down and pass her the pliers like we rehearsed. We fall into the same shape as yesterday without trying—her on the wire, me a breath behind, heat and cedar and the quiet tick of two people deciding not to say the loud thing.
“Here,” I murmur, guiding her grip. “Let the tool do the work.”
“Control,” she echoes, barely audible.
The staple sets clean. The wire hums. So do I.
We’re packing the bucket when Butterscotch toddles up and sneezes on Ivy’s shin again like it’s a sacrament.
“Ma’am,” Ivy says, affront softened by delight. “We just did laundry.”
“You named her. That’s on you.” I snag a towel off the fence and pass it over.
“She chose me with bodily fluids. That’s basically marriage.”
“Depends who you ask,” I say, earning a laugh that lands low and warm.
Back at the house, I point her at the kitchen because there’s an itch under my ribs that says if I don’t let her near the domestic part again, I’ll think about it all day.
“Tomato sandwiches are a seasonal obligation,” I tell her, dropping a fat red one on the counter. “After your Zoom, we’ll earn them.”
She slides onto a stool and props her chin on a sleeve-swallowed fist. “You say that like there’s a test.”
“There is.” I slice. “You’ll pass.”
At nine fifty-seven, she hurries back to the cottage with a salute that’s half joke, half armor.
I head out to check the tractor belts and consciously don’t look toward her window while I do it.
When the Zoom’s over—thirty-eight minutes if my gut’s right—she reappears with a victory grimace and a relief exhale big enough to rock a calf to sleep.
“Survived.” She blows out a breath.
“Toast,” I answer, holding up the bread like a Eucharist.
We eat on the back steps again because the day demands it. She gets mayo on her thumb, licks it off without thinking, remembers I’m there, and then looks anywhere but at me for six long seconds. The air between us goes thick and interesting.
“Carl?” I ask because I’m a coward and a gentleman, and because we both need the change of subject.
“Carl,” she confirms, popping to her feet, the sweatshirt long gone after the sun blasts us from above.
The drive into town is slow on purpose. Puddles still glass the low spots where the road dips.
Ivy holds her hand out the window and rides the air like a kid in a convertible, hair whipping, laughter quick and surprised when the wind catches under her palm and lifts it.
I fight back against the grin but lose miserably.
Carl’s bay door is rolled up, radio low, the man himself under her car like a mechanic calendar from 1992. He slides out when he hears us, wipes his hands, and gives me the nod people around here trade instead of handshakes when they’ve seen each other fix the same stubborn thing three times.
“Morning,” he says. “You brought the superstar.”
“She brought muffins,” Ivy answers, holding out the little brown bag we finagled from Loretta before making our way to the shop.
“Well, that’ll soften me,” he says, peering into it like it might bite. “Your spaceship’s fixable, Ms. Quinn. Needs a control arm and a new tire. Rock in the culvert kissed it where it shouldn’t.”
“How long?” I ask.
“Two days if the parts’s in Norfolk. Three if it’s not.”
Ivy nods. “I’m not going anywhere,” she says, so lightly I almost miss the way it lands.
Carl gives me a look that has nothing to do with cars and everything to do with men who recognize another man skating on thin ice by choice. I ignore him. Mostly.
We leave with grease under my fingernails and a promise from Carl to call when the parts and tire arrive. Ivy insists on paying for the tow even though Carl would have let me run a tab. She signs a receipt with her real name and watches the letters look like a stranger on the paper.
“You okay?” I ask when we’re back on the sidewalk.
“Strangely, yes.” She tilts her face into the sun and closes her eyes. “Two to three days used to feel like a disaster. Now it feels like… room.”
“Room’s not a disaster,” I say, words coming out rougher than I meant.
“No,” she agrees. “It’s not.” She opens her eyes and pins me with them.
Not a crisp, clear blue. Something in between that shifts with the light, the way the bay does when wind runs fingers over it.
They are the kind of eyes that make a promise unintentionally and keep it anyway. I need to remember how to breathe.
“Coffee?” I ask.
“Always.”
We take it to the boardwalk and lean on the railing the way we do things now—close enough to feel the vibration of the other one’s breath yet not touching because that would make the ground tilt too far, too fast. Down the beach, a kid chases his hat and wins.
Ivy watches him and smiles with her whole mouth.
The wind plays with the loose pieces of her braid until a short curl springs free right above her ear.
“You’re going to ignore it, aren’t you?” she murmurs without looking at me.
“Absolutely,” I lie, and reach anyway, tucking it back with a touch so careful anybody watching would think I was handling glass. Her breath stutters. Mine does too. The moment opens its eyes and stares at us.
We head back to the truck because the chores don’t care about my heart having opinions.
On the way out of town, a cloud slides across the sun and the temperature drops a notch, the way it does when the day’s getting ready to change its mind.
Ivy hooks her arm out the window again and rides the wind, hoodie cuff flapping.
She is, for the span of a two-lane mile, a woman who forgot to be anyone but herself.
I let her. I drive slowly. The rest can wait.