Chapter Six – Ivy
The mornings here start slow.
Not quiet—roosters don’t care for poetic timing and the goats across the fence make their opinions known with every passing hour—but slow, like time itself has learned to breathe differently on this land.
I like it.
Like the way the sun creeps over the ridge, brushing golden fingers across the fields like it’s waking the world with soft hands. Like how the dew still clings to the wild grasses and even the fence posts look like they have a story to tell.
I like that I can breathe here. Not the shallow, panicked inhale of red carpets and tour buses. Not the rehearsed calm that comes with media training and champagne toasts I never want to give. But a real breath. Deep. Steady.
Alive.
The barn doors creak open as I step inside, hair twisted in a messy bun, Rowan’s oversized hoodie swallowing my frame. I haven’t officially asked if I can borrow it again. I just… do.
The scent of hay and wood settles around me. Familiar now. Almost comforting.
“Morning, darlin’.”
I turn at the sound of Rowan’s voice, a lazy smile pulling at my lips before I can stop it.
He stands at the far end of the barn, pitchfork in hand, sleeves pushed up to reveal forearms that have no business being that defined.
Not to mention the fading tattoos from spending too much time in the sun.
“Morning,” I echo, voice still rough with sleep.
“You sleep okay?”
I shrug. “Storm’s gone. That helped.”
His eyes linger on mine just a moment too long, then he nods and gets back to work. I linger near the stalls, petting a curious horse who nuzzles my shoulder like we’re old friends.
“Hey, Rowan?” I ask.
“Yeah?”
“You said something about a camp once. Give me all the details?”
He glances at me, brow raised.
“For kids,” he says, jabbing the pitchfork into the hay with practiced ease. “To learn about farming, animals, and where food comes from. Thought it’d be a good summer thing. Especially for the ones who don’t have much else to do.”
I blink. “That’s… really cool.”
He grunts.
“No, I mean it.” I step closer. “I would’ve killed for something like that as a kid.”
He pauses. “Yeah?”
I nod, then smile a little. “I was a latchkey kid before I was a headline.”
Rowan leans the pitchfork against the wall and crosses his arms, giving me his full attention.
“I grew up in a double-wide trailer behind a gas station. And I say double-wide loosely. Half of it was waterlogged. The entire place should have been condemned. It was nothing more than a shack with vinyl siding,” I say.
“My mom worked two jobs. My dad was barely a name in my house, let alone a presence. If I wasn’t at school or home, I was at the bus stop with a book and a pack of crackers.
We didn’t have money for summer camps. We barely had money for shoes that fit. ”
His jaw tightens slightly, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“My mom always wanted better for me. But… she doesn’t always go about it in the healthiest way.
When I won a local talent show at eleven, it was like a switch flipped.
Suddenly, she’s my manager. My coach. My publicist. There’s no more after-school anything, no friends, no weekends.
” I swallow. “Just rehearsals. Pageants. Auditions.”
Rowan’s expression doesn’t soften. If anything, it sharpens.
“You were a kid.”
“Not for long,” I say quietly.
Neither of us speaks for a moment.
Rowan pushes away from the wall and crosses to a nearby saddle stand. His voice is low when he speaks. “You ever want to be just… a woman? Out here, mucking stalls, playing with goats?”
I smile at that even though it aches. “Yeah. More than I knew, honestly.”
He meets my gaze. “You can be.”
Those three words land harder than I expect. Maybe this place really is what I’ve been looking for all along. Even if I didn’t know it.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out to find the screen lighting up with the name I’ve been avoiding.
Mom – Mobile
The letters glare at me like an accusation.
She called five times yesterday, and I refused to answer. I respond once with a text.
Me:
I’m safe. I need some time.
And that only seems to stoke the fire.
The screen dims, then lights again as the call comes in a second time.
I sigh, thumb hovering. I already know what she’ll say. Know the polished cadence of her voice, the veiled threats under every soft word. But letting it go to voicemail again won’t help.
I pick up.
“Hi.”
A sharp inhale cuts through the line, followed by a clipped, “Evangeline. Finally.”
“I’ve been busy,” I say carefully.
“In a town with no name? What are you even doing out there?”
I bite my tongue. “Taking a break.”
“You don’t get breaks, sweetheart. Not when your fans are still asking questions.”
Her voice is too loud, too precise, as if she’s already walking through a list of damage-control items in her head.
“The label is panicking. Do you know how many PR people have reached out in the past forty-eight hours since pictures of you and Crew popped up? Spectacular performance, by the way. They want a new single by the end of the month, and your last appearance—whatever that was—has already sparked rumors.”
“I need space.”
“You don’t get to disappear.” Her tone dips, almost pitying. “You know that.”
“I’m not disappearing,” I say quietly. “I’m resting.”
“And I need you here,” she says sharply. “Which is why I need you to stop playing small-town dress-up and come home. We’ve worked too hard for this.”
I stare out at the field stretching beyond the barn, the hills rolling gently beneath a morning sun that doesn’t ask anything of me.
“I’m not coming back again. Not yet.”
“Evangeline—”
“I have to go.” My voice cracks, but I stand firm. “I’ll call you later.”
Before she can respond, I end the call. Then I drop the phone into my back pocket and bury my face in my hands.
The ache behind my eyes isn’t just a headache. It’s years of pushing and pleasing and pretending. Of being Ivy, her perfect little product. For the first time in a decade, I don’t want to be her at all.
I was nine when I realized the difference between quiet and alone.
Quiet is warm. Peaceful. The stillness right before a song begins.
Alone is what I felt most nights—sitting on the back steps of a weather-worn house that barely passes code, listening to the whine of cicadas and the low grumble of the neighbor’s truck engine two trailers down.
We didn’t have a porch swing or a lawn or even working plumbing some days. What we had was a broken screen door, a collection of empty soda bottles, and my mother’s makeup bag permanently open on the kitchen counter, just in case opportunity knocked.
It rarely did.
Mama was beautiful—she still is. Sharp-cheeked and sharp-tongued. She calls herself a dreamer, but mostly she waited tables at The Puddle Duck Diner and left me notes scribbled in eyeliner on fast food napkins.
TV dinner in the freezer. Don’t forget to feed Rags .
Rags was the stray cat who refused to leave. I liked him more than most people.
I don’t remember when exactly I learned to sing. Maybe I always had the talent. But I do remember the first time someone noticed. It was the elementary school talent show, a dusty stage in a gym that smelled like chalk and stale orange slices.
I wore a dress too small and a smile too big. My stomach flipped like a butterfly caught in a glass jar.
But when I opened my mouth and sang—really sang—the room went still.
It felt like someone saw me. A lot of someones.
Mama cried that night. Not out of pride, but because a door had opened. A crack in the universe, wide enough to shove a child through.
After that, everything changed.
No more weekends. No more spelling bees or slumber parties. Only voice lessons and auditions and a new name with a star stitched into its bones.
Ivy Quinn. Pop star in the making.
She never asked me what I wanted.
By the time she did, it was already too late.
The rubber boards creak under my boots as I step around the side of the barn, shielding my eyes from the late afternoon sun. I need something—anything—to quiet the noise in my head. And manual labor seems like the best option Otter Creek Farm has to offer.
Rowan has moved near the shed, arms deep in the back of an old four-wheeler. Probably to give me privacy during the call. I hadn’t even noticed his leaving.
My eyes are glued to his large body. His shirt clings to his back, damp with sweat. Grease streaks his forearm as he reaches for a socket wrench.
He glances over his shoulder, face shaded by the brim of his ball cap.
“You lost?”
“No,” I say, crossing my arms. “But I could be if it gets me out of my own head.”
Rowan studies me, then jerks his chin toward the paddock. “Gate’s sagging on the round pen. You ever hang a hinge strap?”
I lift a brow. “You asking if I can handle a drill?”
“Just asking if you’re a flight risk around power tools.”
“I’ll try not to impale myself.”
A long, hot minute later, we’re at the round pen where the top hinge has slipped, and the gate drags a half-moon in the dust. He hands me a pair of worn leather gloves.
“Here. Hold the gate square while I back the old bolts out.” I slide the gloves on and shoulder the weight; palms braced against sun-warmed metal. It’s heavier than it looks. The strain wakes muscles I forgot I owned.
He loosens the hardware, then holds up a fresh hinge strap and a bag of carriage bolts. “You’re up. Drill the pilot holes. Level matters.”
He passes me the driver. It’s warm from his hand. He points at the tiny bubble level fixed to the housing. “Keep that centered. Feather the trigger—don’t mash it.”
I line it up, but the bit skitters, biting shallow. “It’s fighting me.”
“You’re letting your elbow float.” His voice is low at my shoulder, steady as shade. “Here.”