Chapter 4 #3
The clerk—older woman, glasses on a chain, the kind of person who looks like she's been working here since mail was invented—smiles. "It's addressed to Scout Adler, care of Ward and Weller Auto. Came in yesterday."
She hands me a box. Small, brown paper, my name written in handwriting that makes my chest tight. Neat. Precise. Familiar.
Holt's handwriting.
"I'm gonna—" I gesture vaguely. "I'll be right back."
I step outside, find a bench in the shade, and open the box.
Work boots.
Not fancy. Not new. But good quality, sturdy, exactly my size. The kind that'll last, that'll protect my feet, that cost more than I can afford right now.
There's a note. Small, tucked inside, written in that same careful hand:
Yours are falling apart. These'll last longer.
—H
That's it. No explanation. No grand gesture. Just: your shoes are dying, here are new ones. I noticed, I fixed it.
My throat goes tight.
My eyes burn and I blink hard because I'm not crying over work boots in the middle of town on a Saturday morning.
I'm not.
Except I am.
A little, because nobody has noticed my shoes before. Nobody's cared that they're held together with duct tape. Nobody's just—fixed something without being asked.
He saw.
He noticed.
He cared enough to do something about it.
I sit there on that bench with a box of boots in my lap and something cracks open in my chest. Not breaking. Opening. Like a door I'd nailed shut is creaking back open, letting light in.
“You okay?” Maeve appears, hovering. “You disappeared and I thought maybe you’d melted or been kidnapped or—what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I wipe my eyes. “Nothing’s wrong. Holt sent me boots.”
“Oh.” She sits next to me, looks at the box. “Oh. Yeah. That’s… very him.”
“He noticed my shoes were falling apart.”
“He notices everything. He just doesn’t say anything about it.” She nudges my shoulder lightly. “Probably a leftover habit from the military.”
I blink. “Holt was in the military?”
“Yeah. Him and Finn.” Maeve’s tone shifts, careful. “But that story isn’t mine to tell.”
I look down at the boots, the weight of them warm in my arms. “I don’t know how to—” The words snag. “I don’t know what to do with that.”
“You say thank you. You wear the boots. And you stop acting surprised when people here treat you like you matter.” She stands and holds out her hand. “Come on. One more stop. Then I’ll take you back before you melt into a puddle.”
I take her hand, let her pull me to my feet, and tuck the box under my arm like something I’m not ready to set down.
The Sundown Saloon sits at the end of the main street—low building, weathered wood, neon sign that's off during the day but probably glows red at night. The door's locked but Maeve cups her hands and peers through the window, gestures for me to do the same.
Inside I can see a bar, tables scattered around, a small stage in the corner. String lights across the ceiling waiting to glow.
"That's where Rhea sings," Maeve says. "Place gets packed Friday nights. Standing room only, good beer, live music. Basically where the entire town ends up whether they plan to or not."
"Finn mentioned something about it being mandatory."
"It's not mandatory. It's just—where you go.
What you do. Finn loves it. Gets drunk enough to be fun but not enough to be a problem, dances like nobody's watching even though everyone is, flirts with anything that moves.
" She grins. "Holt shows up, sits in the back corner, drinks exactly one beer, and judges everyone silently while making sure nobody does anything too stupid. "
"That sounds exactly like Holt."
"Right? You're learning his patterns already." She pulls back from the window. "Okay. Tour complete. You've officially seen Coyote Bend. Welcome home, Scout. Population two thousand nosy people who already know your business."
We walk back and I'm not even pretending I'm not a sweaty disaster anymore. The sundress was definitely a mistake but I'm too tired to care. My feet hurt, my face is probably sunburned, and I'm carrying a box of boots that makes my chest feel too full.
By the time we reach the shop, I just want industrial fans and cold water and maybe to lie on the concrete floor until my body temperature returns to something human.
The bay doors are open, music blasting—something twangy and old—and I can see both Finn and Holt working. Finn's under a truck, legs sticking out, singing along badly. Holt's at his workbench, bent over something complicated, and he hasn't noticed me yet.
"Scout!" Finn rolls out from under the truck, grinning. "Look at you! All dressed up! Hot date?"
My face goes nuclear. "No. I was exploring. With Maeve. This is just—I wanted to wear something that wasn't covered in grease and shame."
"In a sundress?" He's sitting up now, wiping his hands. "That's very committed to the exploration aesthetic. Very 'I got my shit together' energy."
"I wanted to feel like a person instead of a shop gremlin!"
Maeve's trying not to laugh. Finn's delighted.
And Holt—
Holt's across the garage at his workbench, and he's not working anymore. He's standing there, wrench forgotten in his hand, completely still, and he's looking at me.
Not the quick glances I've caught before. Not the careful way he doesn't look too long. This is different.
His gaze lands on my sandals. Moves up slowly.
Takes in the sundress—pale yellow cotton sticking to my skin, little white flowers, fabric that moves when I breathe.
My legs bare from mid-thigh down. My waist where the fabric cinches.
My collarbone. My neck where my hair's falling loose for the first time since I got here.
He's drinking me in, taking in every detail, and he's not trying to hide it anymore.
When his eyes finally reach my face, something shifts in his expression.
Goes warmer. Hungrier. There's heat there—actual heat that has nothing to do with the temperature, everything to do with the way he's looking at me like he's just realized I'm not just his tenant or his employee.
Like he's seeing me as a woman. As someone he wants.
His jaw tightens, probably trying to remind himself of boundaries and professionalism and all the reasons he shouldn't be looking at me like that. But he doesn't look away.
My skin goes hot.
My breath catches.
I'm suddenly hyperaware of my body—how the dress clings, how I'm sweating, how I probably look like a disaster but he's looking at me like I'm the best thing he's seen all day. All week. Maybe longer.
The air between us gets heavy. Charged. Electric. I feel it in my stomach, in the way my pulse kicks up, in the sudden awareness of the space separating us and how much I want to close it.
Then he blinks. Shutters. The heat in his gaze banks and he turns back to his work without saying a single word.
But I saw it. Felt it. And my body's still responding—heart racing, skin too warm, breath unsteady.
"Well," Finn says, voice absolutely loaded with amusement. "On that note. Did you need something, Scout, or were you just stopping by to give Holt a medical emergency?"
I snap my attention back to Finn. "I was going to see if you needed help. Since I'm here anyway."
"You're off today—"
"I know. But I want to. Put me to work."
Finn grins. "There's inventory in the back room that's been crying for organization. Think you can handle it?"
"I can handle anything that involves making sense of chaos."
"Perfect. Grab an apron."
I grab one from the hook—too big, hangs past my knees, swallows me whole—and tie it on over the sundress. Maeve waves goodbye, calls out "Nice meeting you!" and disappears back toward town. I head for the back room before I can think too hard about the way Holt just looked at me.
Before I can process what it means that he looked at me like that.
Before I can acknowledge that I wanted him to.
The back room is exactly the disaster I remember—boxes stacked with no system, parts mixed together, labels that say helpful things like "misc" and "stuff" and "idk ask Holt." I sit cross-legged on the floor, tuck in my dress, grab the clipboard hanging on the wall, and get to work.
I'm maybe fifteen minutes in—cataloging socket wrenches and trying to figure out why there are three different sizes labeled the same—when I hear footsteps.
I look up and Holt's in the doorway.
He settles against the doorway looking like he knows exactly what that does to me, one shoulder propped there, arms loose at his sides, every inch of him taking up the room without trying.
It hits me in the stupidest way, because this is the kind of thing the men in those dog-eared romance novels do—stand there looking unfair, waiting for the heroine to trip over her own pulse.
And here I am, throat tight, trying not to stare at the line of his chest under that worn T-shirt while the back room shrinks around us.
The air shifts and I'm suddenly very aware that we're alone. That he just looked at me like—like that. That I'm sitting on the floor in a sundress with an apron that's doing nothing to make me look less ridiculous.
"Your inventory system is still a war crime," I say, because someone has to break the silence and it's always going to be me. "How do you find anything?"
"I know where everything is." He walks in—closer now, standing over me while I'm cross-legged on the concrete. I have to crane my neck to look up at him. His shadow falls across me, blocking the harsh fluorescent light. "Been working here long enough."
"That's just admitting your system doesn't work. That's not the defense you think it is."
His mouth curves slightly.
"You've been here a week and a half. You've already reorganized the desk, the filing system, and now you're coming for my inventory."
"Someone has to. This personally offends me. This is chaos masquerading as organization and I won't stand for it."
"You gonna fix it?"