Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Andi
I always associated the phrase when it rains, it pours with bad things happening, but the past few weeks had shed a whole new light on that phrase for me.
Because, for once, the downpour was good.
Almost too good. To be honest, it sort of…
scared me a little bit. My life had finally taken a turn for the better and part of me—the part that had been conditioned to always expect the worse—was just waiting for it all to blow up in my face.
Like the day I went to Red to ask about keeping my job.
Norah had been so certain that Red would find a way to keep me, even with all of us expecting Laurel to come back soon.
I’d fed on her excitement and let it fill me with hope, but that lingering doubt I just couldn’t shake hovered on the edge of that hope, digging in its dirty little claws and threatening to puncture my peaceful bubble.
I’d been a mess when I approached him before the start of my shift—nerves and adrenaline pumping throughout me so fiercely that I had to stick my hands in my back pockets because they were trembling so badly.
So was my voice, but I couldn’t do anything about that.
But when I’d finally gotten the words out—after stumbling over them about a dozen times—he looked at me with… relief.
In an unexpected turn of events, Laurel had actually come to him earlier in the day and explained how she and her husband were taking the baby and moving to be closer to her mom—saying something about her mother needing help with running the little candle store she was the sole owner and operator of.
I felt for Laurel because it was a save-face story if I’d ever heard one.
Whispered rumors had made their way through the patrons at Belle’s Diner and Merle’s Feed & Seed like a match to gasoline, all about Laurel’s husband’s wandering eye and—
Holy shit. This town and its knack for gossip had really rubbed off on me.
Anyway, with Laurel's mom living near the Oklahoma state line, there was no way she could keep working for Red so…that made the job all mine. The second he said the words, relief washed over me so hard that my knees almost gave out. I probably would’ve hugged him had Red been the hugging sort, but instead we sealed the deal just like we had almost two months ago the first time I approached him for work: with a shot of whiskey.
I’d also worked out a payment plan with Willy for the Camaro, and while I wished I could’ve paid him in full, I just couldn’t swing it because Norah and I had finally found a house.
The perfect house.
After weeks of searching ads and viewing rentals with sagging floors, suspicious stains, and—my personal favorite—a family of raccoons living in the attic, we finally found the one. Or, I guess, more accurately, it had found us…at the Feed & Seed, of all places.
Norah and I had been picking up more bags of feed for Mr. Caldwell (this time for his chickens) when the kind lady who ran the register moseyed up to the counter with a look that said, Have I got somethin’ for you. And that something was a house. Her house.
Apparently, Miss Ida (as Norah had called her) had moved in with Merle (the owner of the Feed & Seed) almost a year ago, but she had held out on doing anything with her house as she waited to see if their late-in–life romance would stick—which, she’d decided, it was going to.
She hadn’t advertised anything yet with the house because she didn’t want just anybody living in it.
But, seeing as she’d known Norah for years—and witnessed her grow into a hardworking, kind, and dependable woman—and me by association with Norah—and also maybe because Ida claimed she could “spot a good heart a mile away”—she wanted to offer it to us first.
That very afternoon we became the proud renters of the cutest, coziest two-bedroom cottage on the corner of Bluebonnet and Tumbleweed that did not have any sagging floors or suspicious stains or unwanted house guests squatting in the attic.
Thank God.
Even though the house had been vacant for the past year, Miss Ida had kept up with the maintenance outside and inside, making it move-in ready…
which is what we were doing today. And as Norah and I waited for her brothers to show up with the horse trailer loaded with Norah’s bedroom set and my new-to-me bedroom set, we sat there in her truck and just… took it all in.
The mix of vertical wood and shingle-style siding in warm, beige-y tones modernized it some, but overall, it just looked and felt like a comfortable countryside retreat.
There was a screened-in porch that ran along most of the front, and a smaller, covered, open porch off to the left supported by slim square posts.
Both lounging areas had rustic outdoor furniture that Miss Ida offered to let us keep, as well as the other furniture in the main areas of the house.
I, personally, was so grateful for that, considering how the security deposit and first month’s rent upfront wiped out a good portion of my savings.
I’d had just enough left over after that and putting money down on the Camaro repairs to purchase the pre-loved bedroom set, a new mattress, some sheets, and a comforter.
None of it was fancy, but it was mine. The job.
The house. The furniture. A man I loved and who I hoped quite possibly loved me, too.
All that was left was getting my dad’s car back.
Not because I was planning some great escape—God knows I wasn’t—but because having it meant staying here truly was my call.
“What the hell?” Norah said, sounding annoyed and exhausted.
My eyes cut away from taking in our new home to follow her line of sight, and I seconded her “What the hell?” as I saw our new mailbox lying in the ditch, its post cracked and leaning sideways like someone had run it clean over.
The driveway connected to both Bluebonnet and Tumbleweed, curving around the right side of the house in a stretched-out horseshoe shape, and with us pulling up to the house from Bluebonnet and the mailbox on Tumbleweed, we hadn’t noticed it until just now.
“People can’t drive for shit,” Norah mumbled as we both exited her truck and made our way over to examine the damage more closely.
We made it over to the ditch just as Luke’s dually hauling the horse trailer rumbled up Tumbleweed Drive and turned into our driveway.
The passenger side window rolled down, revealing Zane riding shotgun as Luke leaned over the console with a low whistle.
“Guess your mail’s gonna be delivered into the ditch for a while. ”
“Shut up, Luke,” Norah shot back, retrieving the bent mailbox from the ditch as Luke let out a low laugh.
I made eye contact with Zane right after he’d backhanded Luke across the shoulder, and the smile he gave me…gosh, I didn’t know how to describe it. It was his normal, easygoing smile but there was something…more to it.
“We’ll fix it,” he said, so reassuringly that it made my heart tug. I knew he was strictly talking about the mailbox, but for one, strange, overwhelming second, I read more into it.
I’d been broken in so many ways when I first stumbled into this little town—practically cracked down the middle and held together with nothing but fear and sheer stubbornness.
And Zane? He had his own fractures. His own pieces that didn’t quite fit like they used to.
But the past month with him had slowly become this…
quiet miracle that I still couldn’t fully wrap my head around.
Because somehow, without either of us meaning to, our broken edges had started to line up.
Not perfectly. Not even neatly, but enough.
Enough that something as simple as “we’ll fix it” felt less like a comment about a busted mailbox and more like an unspoken promise we were already living out—one small repair at a time.
“There y’all go again with those damn googly eyes,” Luke grumbled, earning another backhand to the shoulder from Zane and a strongly worded order to drive up to the house.
For the next hour, the four of us worked together, with Norah taking charge of directing where things went. Kitchen. Her bedroom. My bedroom. Bathroom. We had a whole system going where the two of us carried in the boxes from her truck and the guys unloaded the furniture off the horse trailer.
Luke pretended to drop Norah’s dresser twice, which he thought was hilarious.
Norah? Not so much. I swear the two of them must’ve bickered throughout the entire move and didn’t say one nice thing to each other.
But while their constant jabs and quick comebacks kept us all laughing and entertained as we carted things into the little cottage, it was the quieter moments with Zane I shamelessly sought out.
Each time he passed me, either bringing in a box or helping Luke angle some heavy piece of Norah’s furniture inside, he’d give me this…look. A soft, wry little smirk that was equal parts apology for his siblings and you’re a part of this now.
And if I hadn’t already been madly in love with him, that look right there may have just done it for me.
A short while later, Luke and Norah were busy in her room in the back of the house, loudly disagreeing over the assembly of her bed, while Zane and I were in my room in the front of the house, sliding my new mattress onto my fully assembled bed frame.
What can I say? We made a good team.