12. Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Wyatt
Dad corners me after breakfast, coffee in hand and an expression I don't trust.
“Somebody needs to walk the bike parade route before the fundraiser. Check for potholes, low branches, anything that'll cause trouble with sixty kids on bicycles.”
“I can do that this afternoon.”
“Good. Savannah's coming with you.”
He takes a slow drink of coffee.
“Why?”
“She offered to help with whatever still needs doing.”
“She doesn't need me to walk Main Street with her.”
“Nope.”
I wait.
Dad drinks his coffee.
“You planned this.”
“I asked two capable adults to do one job.”
“Together.”
“Efficient that way.”
I shake my head and reach for my keys.
“You're welcome,” he calls after me.
I tell myself, driving into town to pick her up, that it's exactly what it sounds like—an afternoon of town business that happens to involve both of us.
Then she climbs into my truck, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, notepad already out.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
She smiles at me.
It's ridiculous how much better the inside of my truck feels with her in it.
“You ready?” I ask.
“Depends. How dangerous is this bike parade?”
“Last year we lost three children.”
Her head snaps toward me.
“I'm kidding.”
“Wyatt.”
I laugh and pull away from the curb.
She shakes her head, but she's smiling too.
I've gotten entirely too used to being the reason for that smile.
The route runs the length of Main Street, cuts down by the school, loops back past the square. We drive it slow, windows down, and she's got her notepad balanced on one knee, sketching measurements and banner placements as we go, occasionally telling me to stop so she can eyeball a distance.
“Here,” she says, at the corner by the hardware store. “This is where the banner should go. High enough that the bike parade can pass under it, but low enough that people can read it from the sidewalk.”
“You've done this before.”
“I've done a hundred campaign launches. A parade banner isn't that different.” She's writing as she talks, quick, sure strokes. “It's really about sightlines. Same principle either way.”
She notices things I've driven past a thousand times without seeing — the way the light hits the old clock tower in the afternoon, the crooked porch railing on the Hendersons' place that's been crooked so long I'd stopped registering it as crooked at all.
She points at a mural on the side of the feed store, half-faded, painted sometime before either of us was born.
“Who did that?”
“No idea. It's been there my whole life.”
“It's beautiful. Somebody should restore it.” She's still looking at it as we pass, craning around in her seat. “This whole town is beautiful, Wyatt. I don't think I appreciated that when I lived here. You don't, when it's just where you're from.”
“Most people don't notice their own front yard.”
“I'm noticing it now.”
I don't know why that makes me so glad.
The route swings past Iron Ridge on its way back toward the square — just a stretch along the fence line, nothing more — but I slow down anyway.
“Can we stop?” she asks, before I even suggest it. “I haven't walked the property for a long time.”
We leave the truck near the house. Dad's pickup is gone, but Ellie's bike is tipped against the porch railing.
“Where is everybody?” Savannah asks.
“Dad took Ellie into town. She needed something for school, which means they'll come back with six things she didn't need and probably ice cream.”
Savannah smiles. “Your dad hasn't changed.”
“Not where Ellie is concerned.”
We head toward the barn.
Iron Ridge has changed over the years, but not enough to erase what it used to be. Grandpa planted the orchard and built the barn. Dad spent most of his life working this land. Now I run it, though Dad would strongly object to anyone suggesting he's retired from anything.
Savannah stops in front of the barn. She runs her hand along the weathered frame.
“I remember this barn.”
I stop beside her. “Same one. Held up better than it should have.”
“You used to hide out here. When your dad was working you too hard in the garden.”
She's smiling, the memory clearly surfacing whole.
“You'd disappear for an hour and I'd find you up in the loft reading.”
“I remember that being your idea half the time too,” I say.
“Maybe.” She doesn't deny it. “It was a good hiding spot.”
“It wasn't much of a hiding spot once you knew where to find me.”
She starts toward the barn door. “Maybe you wanted me to find you.”
I watch her walk inside.
Maybe I did.
We walk the orchard next, rows of apple trees Grandpa planted before either of us was born, half of them still bearing fruit every fall out of pure stubbornness.
The old rope swing's still hanging from the biggest one, frayed but intact, swaying slightly in the breeze.
“You never took that down,” she says.
“Never had a reason to.”
She walks toward it. For a second I can see exactly who she used to be standing there—seventeen, laughing, daring me to push her higher than either of our parents would've approved of.
“Push me?”
I laugh. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“You're thirty-six years old.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
She sits before I can argue.
I walk behind her and take hold of the ropes.
“Ready?”
“I am ready.”
I pull her back and let go.
She swings out beneath the branches, laughing when she comes back.
I push her again.
And again.
For a few minutes, it's easy. The creak of the rope, the orchard going gold in the afternoon light.
Until it isn't.
She comes back toward me slower this time, and I catch the ropes to stop her.
I'm directly behind her, one hand wrapped around each rope. If she leaned back even a little, she'd be against me.
She tips her head back over her shoulder and meets my eyes.
“Hi,” she says, almost laughing.
“Hi.”
“You're very close.”
“I noticed.”
“Are you planning to let go?”
“Eventually.”
Her smile gets wider. “Good to know.”
I let the ropes go before I give myself a reason not to.
The woman in front of me built Blake Co. from nothing. She employs people, makes decisions that affect more lives than she probably realizes, and can walk into my honey shop and spot six things I'd never thought about before she's been there ten minutes.
She still climbs through windows when somebody needs help. Still talks fast when she's excited. Still laughs at me when I deserve it.
She's not the girl I loved fifteen years ago.
I'm starting to think I might like this Savannah even more.
We sit on the porch steps after, water bottles from the truck, the farm quiet around us except for the chickens muttering near their coop.
“Tell me about the years I missed,” she says.
So I tell her about the years she missed. The good parts and the hard ones.
I tell her about the jobs I took before I became a deputy, and how I ended up running for sheriff. About Grandpa teaching me leatherwork in the barn and losing him a few years later. About Dad and the farm, and Mom, and what those last years with her were like.
I tell her about Casey. About losing my sister and becoming Ellie's guardian almost overnight. The parts I got wrong in the beginning and how the three of us figured out how to be a family.
Savannah listens without interrupting, asking questions here and there but mostly letting me talk. When I finally stop, she twists the cap on her water bottle.
“I wish I'd known Casey better as an adult.”
“She'd have liked you. She used to ask about you, actually. Years ago. Whatever happened to Savannah Blake?”
Something crosses her face.
“What did you tell her?”
“That you were doing exactly what you said you would. Living out your dreams.”
Savannah fidgets with the water bottle she’s holding and I notice her hesitation.
“Can I ask you something?” she finally says.
“Sure.”
“Was there ever anyone? Someone serious?”
I know what she's asking.
“A few relationships. Nobody I came close to marrying.”
“Why not?”
I think about that for a second.
“Timing, mostly. The job. The farm. Then Mom got sick. After Casey died, Ellie needed me, and dating wasn't exactly high on the list.”
“For all those years?”
“Not all of them. I went out. I just never met anyone I wanted to build a life with.”
She nods, but doesn't say anything.
I could tell her there was probably more to it than that. That some part of me had already known what it felt like to love somebody enough to picture forever, and nothing after ever quite got there.
I don't.
“I was always proud of you, Savannah. Even from here.”
“You were?”
The question catches me off guard.
“Of course I was.”
She seems genuinely surprised.
“I don't think I knew that.”
“Why wouldn't you?”
A small smile touches her mouth, but there's no humor in it.
“Because you were very good at letting me go, Wyatt.”
There it is.
Quiet. Not accusing.
Still enough to knock the air out of me.
“I thought that's what you wanted.”
“I know.”
She says it softly, and I wish she sounded angry instead.
For a few seconds neither of us says anything.
There are fifteen years sitting between us on those porch steps, and for once I don't feel the need to pretend they aren't there.
Then she bumps her shoulder against mine.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being proud of me anyway.”
“There was never an anyway.”
That quiets her.
“You really mean that.”
“Every word.”
Her smile comes slowly.
“I wish I'd known.”
“You know now.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I do.”
We sit quietly for a while.
“It's peaceful out here,” she says eventually.
“Timeless, almost. Like the rest of the world just agreed to leave it alone.”
“Doesn't always feel that way from the inside,” I tell her. “But yeah. Mostly.”
And I find myself wishing we had another twenty miles of parade route to check.
She talks most of the drive back into town—Ellie's favorite books, the fundraiser, whether the library needs more chairs for story time. Easy, comfortable, the kind of conversation two people have when neither of them is watching the clock.
I pull up in front of Texie's and put the truck in park.
Savannah gathers her things but doesn't reach for the door right away.
“Today was nice.”
“Even the potholes?”
“Especially the potholes.”
I smile.
She reaches for the door, then stops.
“Wyatt?”
“Yeah?”
She turns and hugs me.
No warning. No hesitation. Just leans across the space between us and wraps her arms around me like it's the most natural thing in the world.
For half a second, I freeze.
Then instinct takes over and I hug her back.
She's warm and familiar and completely different.
And she fits there too easily.
That might be the most dangerous thing that's happened all day.
She pulls back first.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
She gives me a small smile. “For letting me come back today.”
Before I can figure out whether she means Iron Ridge or something bigger, she reaches for the door.
“See you tomorrow?” she asks.
Tomorrow.
Not someday.
Not before I leave.
Tomorrow.
“Yeah,” I say. “I'll see you tomorrow.”
She climbs out and heads up the walk.
At the porch, she turns and lifts a hand.
I lift mine back.
Then she's inside.
I sit there another few seconds before I remember I'm supposed to drive.
Driving home, something occurs to me.
Not once today did Savannah mention New York.
Not once did she talk about going back.
I know better than to make that mean something just because I want it to.
But for the first time, I let myself wonder if Savannah's reasons for staying are becoming bigger than the reasons she came.