Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Rosalie
“Oh, hello gorgeous.”
The words were out before I could stop them. A cocker spaniel was weaving through the market crowd, Cal behind the dog with the leash in hand.
He'd traded his usual work clothes for a faded olive linen shirt, short-sleeved, leaving his arms—and every muscle in them—on full display. Hair still slightly messy, in a way that looked almost intentional today.
“I assume you're talking about the dog.” Cal's ears had gone pink.
I burst out laughing, the sound startling a nearby customer. “Obviously! What else would I be—” I stopped mid-gesture, reality catching up with my mouth. “Oh.”
Now my face was heating up. Fantastic.
Cal didn't look away. Neither did I. A moment stretched between us, slightly ridiculous, like we'd both stepped into a puddle and were deciding whether to acknowledge it. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling and failed completely.
He looked down at the dog.
I looked down at the dog.
“Right.” Cal cleared his throat. “So. This is Tucker.”
The cocker spaniel sat at Cal's feet, watching me with those liquid brown eyes. His tail moved in a slow, cautious arc. I crouched down and offered my hand, letting him come to me. He stretched his nose forward, sniffed twice, then gave my knuckles a single tentative lick before pulling back.
“You're a sweetheart, aren't you?”
Tucker's tail picked up speed.
“He is.” Cal crouched beside me, and Tucker immediately leaned into him, earning a gentle scratch behind the ears. “His previous owner kept him indoors most of the time. He needs a new family with a yard. People who won't leave him alone all day.”
Tucker looked at me with those soft eyes, and something squeezed in my chest.
“Tucker.” I cupped his velvet face in both hands. “That is criminal. You were made for wide open spaces.” He leaned into my palms, tail sweeping the ground. “Don't worry. We're going to find you someone absolutely perfect.”
I looked sideways and caught Cal watching me. Something in his expression had gone soft and unguarded, the way it did sometimes when he thought I wasn't paying attention.
I held his gaze a beat too long.
He looked away first, back at Tucker. But the tips of his ears were pink again.
We straightened up at the same time and nearly collided. Cal caught my elbow, a quick steadying grip. His thumb rested against the inside of my arm, warm and unsettling.
When his hand dropped, it left a hollow little ache where his fingers had been.
“Sorry.” His voice came out low.
“My fault.” Mine came out too bright.
Tucker looked between us, utterly unbothered, and sat down by Cal's feet.
“So.” Cal glanced toward my booth where a small cluster of customers was browsing. “How's it going today?”
“Better than last week.” I fell into step beside him as we drifted back. “The lotion testers are flying. I've already had three pre-orders for the soap.”
Cal's mouth curved into something close to a smile. “Your business plan is working.”
“Don't sound so surprised.”
“I'm not surprised.” He said it simply, like he'd never doubted it for a second.
Cal settled Tucker beside the booth, and I let myself steal one last glance at him before turning to my customers. He'd already crouched down to let a small boy pet Tucker, one hand braced on his knee, saying something that made the boy giggle.
I snapped back to the booth with a smile I didn't have to fake.
“Hi! Can I help you find something?” A woman in a wide-brimmed straw hat was lifting one of my lotion testers, turning it over in her hands. “That one's lavender and goat milk. Made right on the farm.”
She unscrewed the lid and held it to her nose. Her eyebrows lifted. “Oh, that's lovely.”
“I have a pre-order sheet for the soap if you're interested. First batch ships in four weeks.”
She signed before I'd even finished the sentence.
The next hour blurred into the best kind of chaos.
A retired couple bought two flower bouquets and asked about free-range eggs.
Three teachers from the elementary school placed a group soap order and took every last lotion tester.
A woman tasted a sample of my sugar snap peas, declared them life-changing, and came back twenty minutes later with her sister.
I wrapped bundles, scribbled names onto the pre-order list, and barely kept up.
The booth hummed with energy, and I felt it move through me like a current, warm and electric and familiar.
This. This was what I'd been chasing since I handed in my resignation letter.
Not the farm specifically, not even the market.
This feeling of making something real and watching people love it.
I caught myself grinning at nobody in particular.
Turning back to my booth, my eyes drifted to where Cal stood, Tucker's leash in hand while two women crouched in front of the dog. Friends, maybe early thirties, both laughing as Tucker worked his way between them. The one checked her phone and touched the other woman's arm before slipping away.
The other stayed.
She straightened up, tucking her hair behind her ear, and turned the full wattage of her smile on Cal.
She was pretty in an effortless way. Blonde, athletic build, the kind of easy confidence that came from knowing exactly what you looked like.
She said something, and Cal responded. She laughed.
Not a polite laugh either. A full laugh, hand landing briefly on his forearm, like he'd said the most charming thing she'd ever heard in her life.
Cal had said maybe twelve funny things total since I'd met him.
“Your change.” I handed the customer two dollars and fifty cents without looking at him.
The woman leaned in slightly to look at Tucker. Which meant leaning slightly toward Cal. Her shoulder practically grazed his arm.
Cal didn't step back.
He didn't step back.
“Miss?” My customer waved the money at me. “This is too much.”
I looked down. I'd handed him a ten. “Sorry. Sorry, I—” I fumbled with the cash box. “Long morning.”
He gave me a sympathetic smile and moved on. I did not deserve it.
Blondie laughed again. Loud, delighted, head tilting back. Tucker wagged his tail at her, the absolute traitor.
I sold another dozen eggs and signed two more soap pre-orders. I did not look over there again.
Only twice.
Fine. Three times. But the third one was purely accidental.
When I finally looked up for real, she was gone.
Cal stood with Tucker, watching the crowd thin out around the adjacent booths, completely unbothered.
Like nothing had happened. Like a beautiful woman hadn't just laughed at everything he'd said and touched his arm and probably handed him her number on the back of a receipt.
I wiped down my table with more force than necessary.
Cal ambled over with Tucker. “What did that table do to you?”
“Nothing.” I set down the cloth. “Just cleaning up.”
“Must've been pretty dirty.”
Tucker pressed his nose against my knee. I scratched his ear and avoided Cal's face.
“How'd it go over there?” I nodded toward where Blondie had been standing. Very casual. A completely normal question.
“Good, actually.” Cal glanced down at Tucker with something close to satisfaction. “Amanda works from home. Has a big yard, a daughter around ten who's apparently obsessed with dogs.”
Amanda. He knew her name.
“Hmm.” I smoothed Tucker's silky ear between my fingers. “How convenient for her.”
“She seemed really taken with him.”
“Not just him.”
Cal tilted his head. “Are you—”
“Did she fill out the adoption form?”
He blinked at the subject change. “Yeah, she's coming by the clinic Monday.”
“Great.” I smiled. Bright, breezy, completely unhinged. “Tucker deserves a big yard.”
“He does.” Cal studied me for a beat too long. “You're being weird.”
“No, I'm not.” I picked up my cleaning cloth again, mostly so my hands had something to do. “I just hope Amanda and her daughter and her enormous yard make Tucker very happy. That's all.”
The corner of Cal's mouth moved. “Her yard isn't that big.”
“You said—”
“Big. Not enormous.”
I threw the cloth at him.
He caught it, because of course he did, and held it out to me with a perfectly straight face.
I snatched it back.
“You know,” Cal said, “for someone who isn't being weird, you're doing a remarkable impression of someone being weird.”
“I'm fine.”
“You've cleaned that same corner three times.”
I looked down. He wasn't wrong. I moved to a different corner.
Cal watched me for a moment, then looked down to scratch Tucker's chin. Tucker melted sideways against his knee with a groan of pure contentment.
“Are you interested in adopting him? Is that why—”
“No.” The word came out before I'd finished thinking it. I set the cloth down. “That's not it.”
Cal waited.
“I'd love a dog,” I added. “I'd love six dogs. But I can't.”
“Because of the farm.”
“Because of everything.” I pulled the tablecloth and spread it back over the table, smoothing it flat. “The farm is already more than I can keep up with. Adding a dog right now would be—it wouldn't be fair to him.”
Cal kept his eyes on Tucker, giving me space I hadn't asked for but apparently needed.
Because I don't even know if I'm staying.
Uprooting Tucker from the farm to follow me back to Seattle would be cruel.
I watched him lean his whole soft weight against Cal's knee, completely trusting, completely surrendered.
It wouldn't be fair to him.
The thought settled, and then kept settling, spreading into territory I hadn't meant to wander into. Because it wasn't really about Tucker.
It was about the expiry date stamped on everything in my life right now.
You didn't bring a dog into that kind of uncertainty. You didn't ask someone sweet and trusting to build a life around you when you didn't know if you'd still be here.
Tucker nudged my hand with his nose. I gave him one last scratch, the silk of his ear sliding through my fingers, before stepping back.
“Amanda will be perfect for him,” I heard myself say. “She will.”