Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Rosalie
“I'm ready!”
I bounded down the stairs, wringing water from my braid. The lye smell had washed away, replaced by my lavender shampoo and the clean cotton scent of my favorite overalls.
Cal turned from where he'd been examining my soap disaster. His eyes tracked from my bare feet up to my damp hair, lingering somewhere in the middle.
He didn't say anything.
“Cal?”
“Yeah.” He blinked, clearing his throat. “Good. That's—you look clean.”
“That was the goal.” I grabbed my sneakers from beside the door. “Can we see Pudding now?”
“Right. Yeah.” He moved toward the door like he'd forgotten why he was here.
The evening air hit my damp skin, still warm enough to feel pleasant. The sun hung low over the mountains, painting everything gold. Chickens clucked contentedly from their coop, and somewhere in their pen, the goats were probably plotting tomorrow's chaos.
Cal opened his truck's passenger door carefully. Pudding was curled on a blanket, one floppy ear perking at the sound.
“Hey, handsome.” I crouched beside the truck, keeping my voice soft. “Remember me?”
The puppy's tail gave a small wag.
Cal clipped a leash to Pudding's collar before lifting him out. The little guy trembled slightly, pressing against Cal's chest.
“He's still nervous around new people.” Cal set Pudding down gently. “Takes time.”
Pudding sniffed the dirt road cautiously, his little paws barely making an impression. Every few seconds, he'd glance back at Cal like checking for permission to exist.
My chest squeezed. Too much. This was too much for him—the open space, the unfamiliar smells, everything overwhelming his little system.
An idea sparked.
“Wait here.” I darted back inside, scanning the kitchen before grabbing a picnic blanket from the linen closet. Then a muffin tin from under the sink. The crisper drawer yielded three carrots, and I snatched them before racing back outside.
Cal watched me spread the blanket across the grass in front of the porch, one eyebrow raised. “What are you doing?”
“Creating a less terrifying world.” I patted the blanket. “Come on, both of you.”
Cal hesitated, then scooped Pudding up and settled cross-legged on the blanket. The puppy immediately burrowed against his thigh.
I broke the carrots into puppy-sized pieces, dropping them into the muffin tin's compartments. “Is this okay for him? Carrots?”
“In small amounts, yes.”
I set the tin down a few inches from Pudding's nose. He sniffed, tentative, then pawed at the edge.
“That's it.” I stretched out on my stomach, propping my chin on my hands. “You've got this, Pudding.”
The puppy managed to nose a carrot piece out of one cup. His tail wagged once, then twice, gaining confidence.
Cal stretched his legs beside me, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from him. “How'd you know to try this?”
“My mom's ex-boyfriend.” I watched Pudding nose another carrot free. “She dated this guy, Dave, when I was seventeen. I couldn't stand him, he wore too much cologne and called me 'kiddo' even though I asked him not to. But he had this dog, Rocket. Beautiful border collie.”
Cal shifted, angling toward me. “You bonded over the dog?”
“Yeah. Dave mentioned Rocket loved carrots, so I'd bring some whenever I had to be around them.” A smile tugged at my lips. “Rocket would sit at my feet the whole time Dave droned on about his fantasy football league. Best part of those dinners.”
Pudding discovered another carrot piece, his tail wagging steadily now.
“When they broke up,” I continued, “I was more upset about losing Rocket than Dave leaving. Is that terrible?”
“Sounds reasonable to me.” Cal's mouth quirked. “How long did that last?”
“Eight months? Maybe nine.” I plucked at the blanket's fringe. “After that, Mom had a couple more boyfriends, but I never met them. She's been single for years now.”
“By choice?”
“Yeah.” I watched Pudding find the last carrot piece. “She says she's done with that whole circus. Swore men off entirely.”
Cal went quiet, studying Pudding with more focus than the situation warranted.
I rolled onto my side, propping my head on my hand. “What about your parents?”
“Still together.” He scratched behind Pudding's ear. “Thirty-eight years.”
“That's amazing.”
“Depends on how you look at it.” He pulled up a few blades of grass, letting them fall through his fingers. “I'm not sure they really love each other anymore.”
I sat up straighter, careful not to break whatever door had just cracked open. “What do you mean?”
Cal's jaw tightened. He kept his attention on Pudding, who'd curled against his leg, content after his carrot treasure hunt.
“They're just...” He exhaled. “Stuck. Going through the motions.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“Yeah.” The word came out flat. “They care about each other, I think. But it's more obligation than affection. Everything's about appearances—what looks right, what people expect.”
I kept my voice gentle. “Were they always like that?”
“Pretty much.” He turned a blade of grass between his fingers. “My dad's a surgeon. My mom ran the household like a project. Everything needed to be perfect.”
“Including you?”
A pause. “Especially me.”
Pudding let out a small sigh. Cal watched him, and something in his face went quiet and unguarded in a way I hadn't seen before.
“Did they push you toward vet school?”
“Medicine.” He let a blade of grass go. “My dad wanted me to go into surgery. My mother wanted something she could brag about at dinner parties.”
“But you chose animals.”
“My first act of rebellion.” The corner of his mouth lifted, but it didn't reach his eyes. “They came around eventually. A doctor is a doctor, apparently.”
I watched his hands move through Pudding's fur. Slow, methodical. Like he did it without thinking.
“Is that why you work so much?” The question slipped out before I could stop it. “Sorry. That's—”
“Probably.” He finally met my eyes. “I thought moving here would fix it. Fresh start, small town, simpler life. Turns out I just packed up all my bad habits and brought them with me.”
“Well, if running away from problems doesn't work, I'm screwed.” I spread my hands wide. “That's basically my entire strategy right now.”
Cal's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close enough to feel like progress.
“I didn't realize you were running from something.”
“Really?” I laughed, gesturing at the farmhouse behind us. “It wasn't obvious? Who abandons a perfectly good life in Seattle to move to the middle of nowhere and wrangle goats?”
“I figured you'd always wanted the farm.”
“Not even close.”
The admission sat heavy in my chest. I'd never imagined myself here, not permanently at least. Those childhood summers were golden memories, sure, but my life? That had always been Seattle. Coffee shops and art galleries and the hum of city traffic.
I'd never pictured myself anywhere but Seattle until suddenly I couldn't picture myself there at all.
“What changed?”
“Everything.” I met Cal's gaze, finding something steady there that made me want to keep talking. “My job stopped feeling like mine. Seattle stopped feeling like home. My ex...” I trailed off, shaking my head. “I was living someone else's idea of my life.”
Cal studied me, those brown eyes too perceptive. “And now?”
“Now I'm living my own disaster.” I grinned. “But at least it's mine.”
His mouth curved—actual amusement lighting his features. “That's one way to look at it.”
“Besides, running away is working for you.”
“Oh, is it?”
“You're here, aren't you?” I gestured between us. “Sitting on a blanket with a rescue puppy, teaching a clueless farmer how not to poison herself with lye. Seems very inefficient to me.”
“That's not because I ran away.” He held my gaze. “It's because of you.”
The air shifted between us. My heart did something complicated in my chest.
“I don't usually do this.” Cal's voice had gone rough. “Sit around on blankets. Talk about my parents. But you make it...” He paused, his gaze lifting up to meet mine. “Easier.”
The confession hung between us, raw and unfinished.
Heat crept up my throat. I opened my mouth, closed it, tried again. “I—that's—”
“Don't make it weird.”
“You made it weird!” I gestured wildly, nearly knocking over the empty muffin tin. “You can't just say things like that and expect me to be normal about it!”
His mouth quirked. “You're never normal.”
“Rude.” But I couldn't stop smiling, warmth blooming in my chest. “For the record, you make things less awful, too.”
Pudding's head popped up, disturbed by my flailing. He blinked at us with sleepy confusion, then stood on wobbly legs and padded across the blanket.
Straight to me.
He circled once, twice, then plopped down with his tiny head resting on my thigh.
I froze.
Cal's eyes widened slightly—the most shocked I'd ever seen him.
I looked down at Pudding, then back at Cal, my mouth falling open. Look. Look at this. Are you seeing this?
Cal's expression softened into something that made my chest squeeze. A real smile, slow and genuine, transforming his entire face.
“Don't move,” he whispered.
“Wasn't planning on it.” I barely breathed the words, afraid any movement would shatter the moment.
Pudding's ear twitched against my leg. His breathing evened out again, trusting and warm.
Cal watched us both, that smile still there, and something inside me shifted.
This man—grumpy, exhausted, terrible at saying no—had spent his evening rushing over to save me from lye burns. Had fixed my irrigation system at dawn. Had given me flowers at the farmers market because he didn't know how else to say thank you.
And now he sat on my blanket, looking at me like I'd done something wonderful instead of just existing in the same space as a sleepy puppy.
I couldn't remember the last time someone had looked at me like that.
“What?” Cal's brow furrowed slightly.
“Nothing.” I shook my head, careful not to disturb Pudding.
I looked down at Pudding, willing my brain to focus on the soft weight of him against my leg. How his little ribs rose and fell. How his floppy ear twitched.
It didn't work.