Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Four
Ruby
The Next Day
Cold December air bites at my cheeks as I carry the feed bucket toward the pig pen. Samson is already waiting at the gate.
“You’re impatient.” He grunts like he disagrees while the piglets tumble through the straw.
The familiar routine settles something inside me. The pigs don’t care about hospitals or stalkers. They want breakfast.
A truck door slams behind me. I freeze.
“Easy, kiddo.”
Dad. I let out a shaky breath as he approaches, carrying two coffees, Squirt lumbering beside him. “You okay? Brought this mooch back. Figured you missed him.”
“I’m okay.” The lie comes automatically. “Thanks. I was going to get him this afternoon.”
“It’s decaf.” Dad hands me a coffee. “You stayed here alone last night.”
“Yeah.”
“How’d it go?”
I stare into my cup. “I checked the locks three times. Woke up twice because I thought somebody was outside.”
“That doesn’t disappear overnight.”
“I know.” I wrap both hands around the warm cup. “Lindsey is in jail. Jake increased patrols. The cameras work. And I still feel like somebody’s watching me.”
“Your brain’s trying to catch up.”
Squirt bumps my leg, nearly knocking the coffee from my hand.
Dad smiles faintly. “You heard from Xavier?”
My stomach tightens. “Yeah.”
“And?”
“He wants a relationship.” I swallow. “He says he’s sure.”
“But you’re not.”
“What if this changes later? What if right now he feels responsible because of the baby?”
Dad watches Samson shove his snout into the trough. “You know what obligation looks like?”
“Not anymore.”
“Obligation helps because it has to.” He glances at me. “Love sleeps on your couch because it’s afraid to leave you alone. Love learns how much feed Samson gets because it wants to make your life easier.”
A small laugh escapes me.
“That boy was out here before sunrise feeding these pigs every day while you were gone.”
My smile fades. “What if he leaves anyway?”
Dad is quiet for a moment. “People who leave usually leave when things get hard.” He nods toward the house. “That boy walked straight into hard.”
Emotion burns the back of my throat. Because he did. The notes. The attack. The hospital. Me pushing him away. And he kept showing up.
Dad bumps my shoulder. “Doesn’t mean you have to forgive everything today.”
“I don’t know how to trust it yet.”
“That’s fair.”
No lecture. No pressure.
Across the pen, Squirt flops dramatically into the straw while the piglets scramble around him.
Maybe trust doesn’t come all at once. It may come one choice at a time.