Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Dressed for Possibility
Emma
The late-afternoon sun slanted across the driveway, turning the dust to gold and making Mom’s ten-year-old blue sedan shine like it had something to prove.
It wasn’t fancy, but it ran smoothly as a heartbeat, thanks to Hank, who insisted on paying for every oil change, tire rotation, and inspection since Mom had started traveling more for craft shows.
“Are you absolutely certain this box isn’t too heavy?” I asked, nudging it gently with my foot before attempting to lift it. “I’d hate for your precious quilts to burst out of the boxes somewhere between here and Missoula.”
“It’s fine,” Mom said, leaning in to double-check the tape anyway. “I used that extra roll you said I didn’t need.”
“Honestly? These deserve security. Award-winning quilts should travel in style.”
She let out a snort, trying to hide it behind a cough.
“I’m serious,” I added, sliding the box into the trunk. “Your work is good enough that someone might steal it.”
“Emma!”
“What? I’m saying your art is grand-theft-worthy. Some people dream of that kind of notoriety.”
She shook her head at me, but a warm smile crept across her face, wide and proud.
“You worry too much,” she said, her voice bright, the same tone she’d used for years when she read stories to her preschoolers.
“I don’t worry too much,” I replied. “I worry the appropriate amount. You’re driving an hour alone to meet a man in Missoula. This is how horror movies start.”
“That man is Hank,” she reminded me, teasing. “And if anyone should be afraid, it’s him. I critique his birdhouses like I’m judging a presidential debate.”
I slid another box into the trunk, the weight of my concern heavy in my chest. “How many quilts are you taking?”
“Six,” she said proudly. “Three to display, three to sell. Hank says the Missoula crowd loves anything ‘authentically Montana.’” She mimicked his cowboy drawl, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“What does that even mean? Are they expecting elk antlers embroidered into the corners?”
“Could be a market for that,” she teased.
The breeze lifted the scent of cut grass and distant pine.
Our little house sat on the edge of Lovelace—close enough to town to hear Saturday-night music from a block away if the wind was right, and far enough that coyotes still sang after dark.
The mountains loomed purple and stubborn on the horizon.
“Do you have everything?” I asked. “Display stand? Business cards? Square reader? Snacks?”
“The reader is in here,” she said, patting her jacket. “Cards are in my tote. Snacks are on the passenger seat. And no, I’m not texting you every hour. I’m a grown woman.”
“You say that,” I muttered, checking the backseat anyway.
She arched a brow. “You’re providing the same energy you used to give to overdue library books.”
“Overdue books have consequences,” I argued. “So do bald tires and bad brakes.”
“Hank had the shop go through everything last week. Full inspection. You saw the paperwork.”
I had. And I’d read it twice.
“You know,” she continued softly, “he didn’t have to pay for that. But he wanted to.”
“Because he wants you alive,” I replied, a hint of seriousness in my tone. “That’s a very strong start for a relationship.”
Her cheeks deepened to a rosy pink. “You think it’s a relationship now?”
“I think any man who pays for routine car maintenance is emotionally invested.”
She hummed—low, pleased, vulnerable in a way I didn’t see often. “I like him, Em.”
“I know,” I said gently, feeling a tightness in my throat.
“No, I mean…” She looked down at her hands, tiny pricks from her quilting needles visible. “I like him in a way I thought I’d never feel again. Not after your father. Not after all those years alone.”
A lump formed in my throat. My father was little more than a fading photograph in my memory, a story Mom told with soft edges. But I knew what losing him to cancer had done to her. She’d thrown herself into work, into raising me, into surviving.
“He makes me feel…” She searched for the right word. “Seen.”
I swallowed hard. “Then he’s a smart man.”
She touched my cheek, her thumb brushing lightly. “And you, my girl, make it possible for me to do all of this.”
“I don’t—”
“You do,” she said firmly. “If you hadn’t pushed me to sell online, I’d still be sewing for church raffles. These quilts pay more of this mortgage than my pension does some months. Don’t pretend that salary of yours covers everything.”
“It covers enough.”
“Barely,” she countered. “Emma, you work so hard for the Historical Society. You pour your whole heart into preserving the past. Just don’t forget you’re allowed a future, too.”
I looked away, blinking against the sting in my eyes.
She softened. “Go to Ropers tonight. See people. Let someone notice you.”
“I’m not—”
“Emma.”
Her tone said everything.
She glanced at her watch. “I should get going. I want to check into the motel before it gets too late.”
I leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Call me when you get there.”
“As soon as I’m settled. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
The engine turned over smoothly—quiet, steady, dependable—everything Hank ensured it would be. She waved and pulled out of the driveway.
I stood on the porch until her car disappeared around the bend, dust settling in her wake. The silence that followed felt heavy. Not lonely exactly… but close. Too close. Mom was driving toward something. Toward possibility. Laughter. Romance. A weekend spent with a man who adored her.
And I was standing still.
Inside, the house felt too big. Every sound echoed—the ticking clock, the hum of the refrigerator, the faint creak of the hallway floorboards that always made me think someone else was home.
No one was.
I drifted into my bedroom, flopped onto my bed, and stared at the ceiling where a hairline crack had been slowly spreading for months—a physical manifestation of my stagnation.
My eyes drifted toward the bathroom, where my birth control pack peeked out from the shelf.
I’d been on it since college—my cycles were a disaster without it—and forgetting it meant days of pain and mood swings that I didn’t have the patience for.
Romance had never been the reason; practicality always was.
Twenty-eight years old, and my big Saturday night choices were either rewriting a grant proposal for the Historical Society’s Indigenous artifacts exhibit or reorganizing the junk drawer that had been swallowing batteries and rubber bands since Mom’s Christmas baking frenzy.
Not exciting. Not romantic. Not… anything worth mentioning at next week's book club, where everyone else would share stories of weekend getaways or spontaneous dinner dates.
My eyes shifted to the half-finished romance novel on my nightstand, dog-eared at page 167, where the heroine was about to surrender to her desires.
The cover showed her with her head thrown back, laughing in the arms of a man built like he'd been carved by a Greek sculptor with a cowboy fetish—all bronze skin and impossible abs beneath a partially unbuttoned flannel shirt.
I glanced at my reflection in the mirror on my dresser, the antique one Mom had rescued from an estate sale and refinished as my college graduation gift. The ornate frame seemed to mock the plainness it contained.
I looked tired. The kind of tired that sleep couldn't fix.
My light hair hung limp around my shoulders, and the circles under my eyes had taken up permanent residence despite the expensive cream I'd splurged on last month.
Not tragic. Not hopeless. Just… worn by routine, like the path between my bed and bathroom had been walked so many times it might as well be paved.
"When was the last time I even had sex?" I asked the ceiling, my voice echoing slightly in the empty house.
My brain, ever helpful, supplied the memory with HD clarity: A frat party in college.
Junior year. Too much cheap beer in red plastic cups that left a film on my teeth.
A guy whose name started with J and ended with disappointment—Jason?
Justin? Jake?—who'd quoted poetry badly while fumbling with my bra clasp.
A small bedroom that smelled like old pizza and unwashed laundry, with a Bob Marley poster watching our awkward fumbling.
An encounter so unremarkable that I'd spent the next morning googling whether intimacy was supposed to feel like awkward furniture assembly, complete with missing parts and instructions that made no sense.
I sighed, blowing a strand of hair off my face. "Wow. Truly living the dream."
My phone buzzed. I rolled over, grabbed it, and froze.
Easton Maddow
Missed Call—4:17 PM
A slow breath left me.
He’d called. At some point while I’d been loading quilts with Mom, Easton had dialed my number and let it ring.
I stared at the notification, pulse hitching.
My thumb hovered over the button. I could practically hear his voice—low and smooth, a little amused, the way it always sounded like he’d been smiling or working outside all day.
Why had he called? To check on me after the thunderstorm? To apologize? To ask if I wanted another ride? My stomach fluttered traitorously. “Don’t be that girl,” I whispered. “The one who rearranges her whole life because a man with good hair makes a phone call.”
But still… I stared at his name.
If I called now, I’d sound eager. And I didn’t want to be eager. Not with someone like him.
I wanted him to want me.
With a frustrated breath, I locked the screen. “Not calling you,” I told it. “Not yet.” If something were going to happen, I wanted to see it in person—somewhere like Ropers. The thought planted itself and refused to leave.
Saturday night at Ropers wasn’t unusual. The regulars would already be there—music, beer, laughter—predictable, familiar. But tonight, I wouldn’t be going just to pass the time.
I’d be going because of him.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I opened my closet. Most of my clothes leaned toward the librarian spectrum: button-downs, cardigans, long skirts that whispered "reliable" and "sensible" when I moved.
Then I saw the denim skirt pushed to the far corner, tags still attached.
I'd bought it on impulse during a rare shopping trip with Lilly, who’d insisted it looked "killer" on me. I’d never had the courage to wear it.
Shorter than I usually wore. A little daring.
A little hopeful. The kind of skirt that invited glances.
I paired it with a cream western blouse—embroidered, feminine, with mother-of-pearl snaps that caught the light when I moved. When I buttoned it, I paused, fingers hovering over the third snap from the top.
One more undone.
"What would Mom say?" I whispered to my reflection, then laughed softly. She'd probably applaud.
The effect was subtle. Just a hint of curve where usually there was only propriety. Yet it made something inside me spark, a tiny flame I'd almost forgotten existed.
I brushed my hair out, letting the waves fall loosely over my shoulders instead of pulling it back into my usual practical ponytail.
A touch of mascara. A little blush. The cherry lip gloss I'd bought months ago and never opened.
Enough to feel alive. Enough to feel seen.
Enough to acknowledge that beneath the curator of Lovelace history lived a woman with a beating heart.
"Who are you trying to impress?" I asked my reflection, knowing full well the answer. In the mirror, I looked like a woman who was ready for romance. A woman who might turn heads at Ropers. A woman Easton might notice.
My phone lay on the bed, silent and judgmental as if it knew I was being pathetic. I picked it up and checked the screen, heart fluttering with anticipation.
Still no new messages.
Easton’s name sat there in the call history, bold and undeniable. A reminder he'd thought of me. That, for at least a moment, I'd been worth the effort of ten digits. "This is ridiculous," I muttered, but I couldn’t stop the smile spreading across my face. "You're acting like a teenager."
I tucked the phone into my purse, drew a steady breath that did nothing to calm the butterflies in my stomach, and headed for the door.
The sky outside shifted to pink and blue, the first stars faint against the fading light.
A distant rumble drifted on the breeze. A motorcycle growled somewhere beyond Pine Street, and even though it was likely someone else, the sound curled through me like an echo of him—uninvited, stubborn, impossible to shake.
My pulse jumped, a physical response I couldn't control. It might not be him. But what if it was?
I stepped out, locked the door behind me, and stood on the porch as the evening wrapped around me. The world felt wider, brighter, pulsing with something new. I walked to my car, slid in, and started the engine.
Toward Ropers. Toward music and laughter. Toward the possibility of Easton. Toward whatever came next.