Chapter 6 Sedona
CHAPTER SIX
Sedona
I move through the kitchen with a dull fog in my head, hands drifting over the cabinets. The hinges groan when I pull the pantry door.
Old spices sit in crooked rows. A half-used box of pancake mix leans against a jar of something I don’t want to investigate.
I grab two granola bars from the pantry shelf. The wrappers crinkle as I set them on the counter. They taste like cardboard, but they will keep us from passing out during the meeting with Elvis.
Clara is upstairs with the shower running, singing off-key. The sound drifts down the hallway with a familiarity that makes the house feel less haunted.
I slept in fragments, the kind of half-dream sleep that doesn’t soothe anything. My eyes feel raw. My chest is hollow enough that every inhale pulls a sting. Still, I woke early, body alert like it knew I needed to be.
The clock on the stove reads 10:04. We have just under thirty minutes before we meet the funeral director.
I push my palms into the counter and inhale. The tile under my bare feet is cool and grounding. The house smells faintly of pine cleaner, which makes no sense. No one should have been in here. Yet everything feels tended to.
Maybe the realtor. Maybe the neighbors. Maybe—
I hear the front door.
Not the wind. Not a creak. The actual door opening.
A sharp rush goes through me, and my breath stutters. I turn toward the entryway. Footsteps thud across the hardwood. Heavy, confident.
Before I can move, a large shape barrels through the doorway.
A dog. Huge. A muscular body that takes up the entire hallway. One ear jagged where the top is missing.
He charges straight toward me.
A scream tears out of me before my brain catches up to anything. My knees lock, fingers splay, instinct rising like a shot.
Then he stops right in front of me, and all that energy folds into frantic tail wagging. He presses his enormous head into my thigh with a low rumble that sounds like pure affection.
My hand flies to my mouth. My heart surges. Recognition slams through me so fast I sway.
“Boone,” I breathe.
I crouch down, fingers shaking, and press both hands into his thick fur. He shoves his face against my chest with an excited huff.
My throat tightens as I run my palm along the place where his right ear used to be. The skin there is smooth, healed, and misshapen.
“Oh, Boone,” I whisper. “What happened to you?”
He licks my jaw like he’s greeting me after a long shift at the clinic. His tail whips the air and knocks into a chair leg. The sound snaps something warm open inside me.
He remembers me. After everything. After five years.
I push my forehead against his and close my eyes. Boone wiggles his entire body, and I laugh in a shaky rush that barely holds itself together.
Then I lift my face and finally see him.
The man in the doorway.
My breath falters.
Tex Carson fills the entrance like he owns gravity. His dark brown hair has been kissed lighter by the sun, turned to chestnut waves that fall to his shoulders. He pushes a hand through it as he steps inside.
The movement draws attention to his arm, strong and tan, muscles shifting under skin that looks shaped by hard work. There’s even an outline of a tattoo of what looks like a huge bull on his upper arm.
His blue-gray eyes land on me. They match Billy’s, but his hold something softer, easier, more amused.
He’s taller than I remember. Broader too. Worn jeans sit low on his hips with a rodeo belt buckle catching the kitchen light. A fitted vest hugs his torso. Dirt-smudged boots thump the floor.
He takes me in with a slow survey that makes my stomach swoop.
“Sedona,” he says.
His voice is deeper than it used to be. Rougher. Like gravel smoothed by a Tennessee drawl.
“Tex,” I say. The sound of his name on my tongue does something strange to my chest.
Boone shoves under my palms again, panting hard.
Tex lifts his chin slightly. “You the one driving that sedan outside?”
I nod, still crouched, still holding Boone like he is the only thing keeping me from sinking into the floor.
Tex steps farther into the kitchen. Boone dances around me in frantic circles, tail thumping cabinets and walls. Tex watches him with a twitch of a grin, then looks back to me.
He closes the distance in a few long strides, and before my brain can catch up, he pulls me into a hug.
Not a polite hug. Not a quick, shoulder-touching tap. This is full-body. Warm. Solid. His arms wrap around my back.
My face presses into his chest, and the scent rises around me like a jolt: tobacco, sunshine, hay carried in summer wind.
My stomach clenches so hard I almost gasp.
I haven’t been held like this in months. Maybe years. Someone grounding me. Someone smelling like home.
Someone who remembers the girl I used to be.
For a moment, my arms stay frozen at my sides. Then they lift on instinct and settle lightly on his waist. His body is firm under his shirt.
Heat radiates through the fabric and right through me.
What the hell is happening?
Before I can even start forming an answer in my own mind, pounding footsteps hit the stairs.
Clara bursts into the hallway in nothing but a towel with one heel raised like a weapon.
“Sedona, what happened?” she shouts.
I jerk back from Tex, cheeks burning. Boone trots toward Clara, eager and clueless.
She stops when her eyes land on Tex. Total disbelief spreads across her face. “Who the hell is that?”
My face goes hotter. I can feel it. A flush spreads up my neck, and I step back from Tex so fast Boone bumps into me.
“This is Tex Carson,” I say.
Tex tips his head politely. “Ma’am.”
“And Tex, this is Clara.”
Clara blinks like she needs a second to process the fact that a cowboy, one that looks like the epitome of every country song ever, is standing in our kitchen.
Tex kneels to whistle at Boone. The dog sprints to him instantly and bumps his head against Tex’s palm like he was waiting for that signal.
Tex rises again and pushes his hair back with a rough sweep of his fingers. “Didn’t know you were in town,” he says to me.
“I… just got here,” I manage.
He nods once, then glances around the kitchen. “I was driving home. Saw the car parked out front. Town’s had a run of squatters lately, so I stopped by.”
“It’s just silly old me,” I say without thinking.
A smirk touches his mouth. “Yeah.” Then something shifts in his posture. The humor drains from his eyes. He lowers his voice. “I guess you’re here for the funeral.”
Heat drains from my face and settles into a heavy ache behind my ribs. I nod slowly.
“Yeah,” I say.
His jaw ticks once. “I’m really sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
Those words feel too small for the moment, but they are all I have. Boone nudges my leg like he senses the change in the air.
Tex lets his gaze travel between me and Clara. His expression settles into something thoughtful, maybe even protective.
“I’ll let you get to it,” he says. “See you around.”
He turns away. His boots scrape the floor softly as he walks. My eyes betray me and follow the curve of his back.
The vest pulls tight when he reaches the doorway. His shoulders stretch the fabric with an easy strength. Then my gaze drops.
His jeans frame his body in a way that hits lower in my stomach than I want to admit. My face heats again. My breath stutters on the inhale.
When I glance up, Clara is staring right at me with a look that says she saw every last bit of that.
I choke on my own saliva at the exact wrong second. A cough rips out of me, loud and messy. Boone jumps in alarm, and Clara bumps into the counter trying to help me.
Tex turns back sharply. “You alright?”
I cough again and manage a nod. “Fine. I’m fine.”
He pauses in the doorway, eyes scanning my face like he wants to be certain. When he seems satisfied I’m not dying, he shifts his stance.
I inhale. Something inside me moves before I can stop it.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
His mouth quirks. “Sure.”
I glance down at Boone and run my hand along the jagged edge of his missing ear. “What happened to Boone’s ear?”
Tex looks at the dog with a fondness that warms his entire expression. “Three years ago. He got into a fight with a coyote on the ridge behind the west pasture. Your dad helped stitch him up.”
My breath slows. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” His hand drifts to Boone’s head and scratches behind the good ear. “Tough dog.”
Boone presses into the touch with total devotion.
Tex steps back toward the doorway. “Alright. I’ll let you get ready.”
He lifts two fingers in a small wave, then turns. His boots fade down the steps. The screen door squeaks, then closes with a soft click.
His truck rumbles to life outside, a deep engine growl that rolls through the house for a few seconds until it fades down the road.
The silence left behind pins me in place.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe. My body feels suspended between adrenaline and something warm enough to make my pulse thrum hard in my neck.
Clara drops her heel onto the floor with a thud. “Wow,” she groans.
I swallow around the dryness in my throat. I have no words. My chest feels off kilter. My pulse bumps too fast.
Clara grabs a granola bar off the counter and sets it down again because her hands are shaking with leftover adrenaline and amusement.
I pull in a breath and realize I’m still rooted to the exact spot where Tex hugged me. My skin hasn’t forgotten the feel of his chest.
My body hasn’t forgotten the scent. Something inside me digs up memories I thought I cemented over.
I straighten slowly. Clara watches me with narrowed eyes and a smug tilt to her mouth.
This house keeps giving me pieces of the life I buried. One of the Carson brothers walking through that door was the biggest piece yet. And I am nowhere near as prepared for it as I told myself I was.
The clock on the stove reads 10:11.
We still have nineteen minutes before we meet Elvis, but everything inside me feels different now.
Like the past has rewritten the air.