6. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
REGAN
When I walk into the Briar Rose Diner, a bell above the door rings and makes every head turn.
Cool. Love that. Walk of shame, but for veterinary calls.
The air is filled with the smell of bacon, fresh coffee, and something cinnamon that I can’t identify but want in my mouth immediately.
It’s a little after eight. The morning light comes through the front windows at an angle that turns the whole room amber, catching the dust motes above the counter and the scratched chrome of the napkin dispensers. The vinyl booths are red and cracked, and a chalkboard menu sits on the counter.
Eight stools are lined up by the bar, half of them occupied by men in work boots and caps who glance at me, realize I’m nobody they recognize, and go back to their eggs.
Two booths are already taken. A woman in the corner is reading a paperback with her shoes off.
It’s a shoes-off diner. I make a mental note to tell Tyler.
The woman behind the counter is probably my age, moving between the coffee machine and the griddle like she could do this blindfolded. She catches my eye and smiles.
“Sit anywhere. I’ll be right with you.”
I take a stool at the bar because booths are for people who have someone to sit across from. My closest relationship in this town is with a pony named Birdie and a man who looked at me yesterday like I’d crawled out of a drain.
The menu is laminated and sticky. I don’t need it. I need coffee and carbohydrates and for nobody to ask me how I’m settling in.
“You must be the new vet.”
So much for that.
The woman sets a mug in front of me and fills it without asking if I want any, which already makes her my favorite person in Wild Briar Creek. “I’m Amy. This is my place.”
“Regan. New vet. Day two.”
“How’s day two?”
“Haven’t had to examine anything yet, so it’s already an improvement.”
Amy laughs. She’s wiping down the counter while she talks, the way people who run their own businesses never stop moving. “What can I get you?”
“Whatever that cinnamon thing is. And eggs. And whatever amount of bacon is socially acceptable at eight in the morning.”
“Honey, this is Tennessee. There’s no upper limit on bacon.” She writes nothing down. Either she’s got an excellent memory or the order doesn’t require notation. Either way, I’m impressed.
While Amy cooks, I drink my coffee and look at this town through the diner windows.
Main Street is two blocks long, maybe three.
My clinic is at the far end, its sign still reading DR. HENLEY because I haven’t changed it yet.
The mountains rise behind everything, blue-green in the morning haze, and the air through the propped-open door is fresher than any I’ve known, even in the late summer heat.
I could like it here. If the universe hadn’t parked the one man I never want to see again directly in my path.
Don’t think about him. Eat your breakfast. Be normal.
Amy slides a plate in front of me. It’s enormous. The biscuits alone could anchor a small boat.
“You weren’t kidding,” I say.
“I never kid about food.”
The bell above the door chimes. Amy looks up and smiles.
“Maeve,” she says. “You’re early.”
The woman who comes through the door is late-twenties, wearing a denim jacket over a sundress and boots.
She moves through the diner with confidence, squeezing one of the counter men’s shoulders, scratching a dog I hadn’t noticed under a booth, dropping her bag on the stool next to mine like it’s reserved.
“Jack’s dropping Mason at school as Quinn had to go in early,” she says to Amy. “I have exactly forty-five minutes of freedom before I need to start work, and I intend to spend them eating carbs.”
“Mason is Noah’s son,” Amy tells me. “Maeve and Jack are the unofficial backup parents.”
“Official,” Maeve corrects. “We have a laminated schedule.”
She turns to me. Up close, her eyes are sharp and warm at the same time. “You’re Regan,” she says. “The vet. Ethan mentioned you.”
“Word travels fast.”
“Word doesn’t travel fast. Ethan texts a group chat, and then word travels at the speed of a Callahan family thread, which is roughly light speed with worse grammar.” She extends a hand. “Maeve Callahan. I’m the sister.”
I shake it. Her grip is firm, her smile genuine, and my guard goes up because Callahan is the last name of the man who gutted me yesterday in a stable yard.
She’s not him. Eat your breakfast.
“Ethan said you were great with Birdie,” Maeve says, settling onto the stool. Amy puts a coffee in front of her without being asked. “That pony’s been off for a week. Noah was worried.”
“Mild strain. He should be fine with rest.”
“Noah will rest him. He takes the animals more seriously than he takes himself.” Maeve wraps her hands around the mug. “So. New town. No one you know. First week. How are you actually doing?”
There’s an emphasis on actually that tells me she doesn’t want the polished answer. I consider giving it to her anyway, because the polished answer is all I’ve got, but she’s looking at me with an intensity that makes lying feel like more effort than it’s worth.
“I’m okay,” I say. “It’s a lot. New place, new job, new everything. I think I’m still running on adrenaline.”
“That’ll carry you about two weeks,” Maeve says. “Then the drop hits, and you’ll eat an entire pie in your car at eleven p.m. and wonder what you’ve done with your life. Ask me how I know.”
Amy snorts from the griddle. “She ate the pie in the diner. I watched.”
“I was going through a transition.”
“You were going through my pecan inventory.”
They grin at each other, and I feel myself relax. This is easy. This is two women who know each other well, ribbing each other the way Tyler and I do, and being near it is like finding a warm patch of sun on a cold floor.
“Can I ask,” I say, because the question has been sitting in my mouth since yesterday and I can’t not, “the Callahans at the ranch. Ethan, Noah, and…” I let it trail off, hoping they’ll fill in the gap without me having to say his name.
“And Luke, and me, and our cousins Caleb and Ben,” Maeve finishes.
“Big family. Ethan runs the ranch. Luke runs the diner with Amy, although he’s off at a rodeo today.
Noah handles the horses and the trekking program.
Ben manages the business side. And Caleb…
” She pauses. Sips her coffee. “Caleb’s the mechanic. Lives out on the edge of the property.”
I remember Caleb mentioning cousins who lived miles away. Summer visits, maybe, but I’m not sure he ever named the town. But ten years is a long time to remember everything we talked about during our thousands of conversations.
“You all grew up here together?” I ask as innocently as I can, given I know they didn’t.
“No, not Caleb and Ben,” Maeve says. “Their dad was my dad’s brother.
He died when they were small.” She says it matter-of-factly, without drama, the way you talk about family pain that’s been carried long enough to have its own shelf.
“They left Wild Briar Creek soon after and moved with their mom to Virginia. I don’t think they had it easy, she was a, um, difficult woman.
When Dad died a few years back, they came out here to help us keep the ranch going.
Ben runs the numbers. Caleb fixes anything that’s broken. ”
She takes a bite of the coffee cake Amy’s put in front of her. “He served too. Army. Two tours. Came home different, which is what happens, and doesn’t talk about it, which I guess is understandable.”
I’m gripping my fork too hard. I loosen my hand. Set it down.
Two tours, when he should have been building a life with me.
My mind fixates on prom night and the morning after. His empty house. The weeks of silence. Ashley, finally, telling me she’d heard from someone who’d heard from Drew that he’d shipped out for basic.
Caleb had never mentioned wanting to join the military, and it’s tormented me for ten years now what I did or didn’t do that made him run.
Maeve is watching me with what I hope is curiosity and not suspicion.
“Anyway, enough about my family. What about you? How long do you think you’ll stick around for?
This town has a way of pulling people in,” she says.
“I fought it when I first came back. Thought I could keep my distance. Keep my old life and my new life in separate boxes.” She shakes her head.
“You can’t build a fresh start on top of something you haven’t dealt with. The foundations crack. Every time.”
She’s not talking about me. She’s talking about herself, or Ethan, or the ranch, or something general enough that it doesn’t require a response. But the words sit heavy while I pick up my fork and eat my breakfast.
Amy refills my coffee. Maeve tells me about the annual town festival, the band, the way the town works in winter when the tourists go home and you can’t buy milk without a twenty-minute conversation.
I listen. I laugh at the right parts. I let the Callahan warmth wrap around me like a blanket I didn’t ask for and can’t seem to shrug off.
By the time I leave, I’ve got Amy’s number in my phone, an invitation from Maeve to a family dinner I have no intention of attending, and a coffee cake wrapped in foil for later.
I stand on Main Street in the morning sun and look at this town that’s trying to be mine.
He lost his father. He served. He came here after and built a life, helping his family.
None of it explains why he left me. None of it excuses the silence. But the picture is bigger than I thought, and the man inside it is more complicated than I wanted him to be.
I walk back to the clinic and bury my thoughts in work.