42. Tessa #2
“What?” She shrugs. “I called in the date I paid for on Valentine's Day.”
The porch light catches him as he steps out of the truck and heads toward us, hat in hand, expression carefully neutral in the way people get when they are trying not to stride into the middle of a family crisis and make it worse.
“You all right?” he asks quietly when he reaches the steps.
“No,” I say truthfully. Then, because it is also true: “But I will be.”
His gaze softens.
Grandma sets the suitcase down and gives him a look so measured it almost makes me smile. “You will take care of her.”
Nash inclines his head, serious all at once. “Yes, ma’am.”
“She’s been through enough.”
“I know.”
“And if you upset her,” Grandma adds, “I have survived too much in this life to be frightened of burying a cowboy.”
Nash blinks.
I close my eyes briefly. “Grandma.”
“What?” she asks. “He should understand the stakes.”
To his credit, Nash doesn’t laugh; he just nods solemnly. “Understood.”
I turn to Grandma before the emotion can get any worse and hug her hard. She holds me just as tightly. For a moment, I’m twelve again and newly orphaned and trying not to drown in all the things that changed overnight.
Then I’m twenty-two, standing on the porch of the house that shaped me, leaving it by choice.
“Come see me tomorrow,” she murmurs against my hair.
“I will.”
“I packed you the lemon cake from the kitchen before you go.”
I pull back enough to stare at her. “In the middle of this, you’re thinking about cake?”
“In the middle of this,” she says with perfect dignity, “I’m thinking that men are useless in a crisis unless fed.”
That earns a watery laugh from me.
Nash, to my right, says, “That is the wisest thing anybody’s said to me all year.”
Grandma pats my cheek. “Go on now.”
So I do.
Nash takes the heavier suitcase without argument, then the second when I try to keep hold of it out of reflex. We walk to the truck in the cold quiet of the evening, the gravel crunching beneath our feet.
I don’t look back until I’m at the passenger door.
Grandma is still on the porch, one hand lifted.
The sight of her standing there, small but unshakable beneath the porch light, lodges somewhere painful and permanent inside me.
I raise my hand back.
Then I get in the truck before I can lose my mind and run back into the house to unpack everything.
For the first few minutes, neither of us speaks.
Buckhorn rolls by in pockets of yellow light and shuttered storefronts. The town square looks almost dreamy at night, the gazebo outlined in strings of bulbs, the world quiet in that deceptive way small towns manage after dark, as though all their sharp edges disappear once people go home.
My suitcases are in the back. My document box is at my feet. My whole life feels suspended between one address and another.
Nash drives with both hands on the wheel for once, which tells me he is being careful on purpose.
Finally, he says, “Do you want to tell me how bad it was?”
I stare out the window. “Bad enough.”
He nods once. “All right.”
I glance at him. “That’s it?”
He shrugs lightly. “You looked like you didn’t want me marching back there and punching your uncle in the teeth, so I’m trying a more measured approach.”
Despite myself, I smile. “How noble of you.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“Mostly poor decisions.”
“Historically, yes.”
I lean back into the seat and let out a breath. “He said if I left, not to expect to come back when it falls apart.”
Nash’s grip tightens on the wheel. “That’s cruel.”
“Yes.”
“He mean it?”
“I think he wanted to.”
Nash is quiet. “You coming to stay with me doesn’t mean anything’s falling apart.”
The passing streetlights cut across the sharp line of his jaw, the tired set of his mouth, the steadiness in his expression.
He keeps his eyes on the road when he says, “Could be the start of something instead.”
My throat tightens unexpectedly.
I look away before he sees too much.
Outside town, the road opens into dark fields and long fences silvered by moonlight. The air feels different out here.
Less watched.
By the time we turn onto the ranch road, the knot in my chest has eased enough that I can finally breathe without feeling like I’m doing it around broken glass.
The guest house sits exactly where it did the other night, just beyond the stretch of land Nash plans to turn into more.
In the dark, the little place looks golden. Light spills from the windows onto the porch. The shape of it is modest but welcoming, tucked slightly apart from the main house, private without feeling lonely.
Hope flickers in me so suddenly that it is almost alarming.
Nash parks and comes around to open my door before I can protest.
“I am perfectly capable of exiting a truck by myself,” I inform him.
“I know.”
“Then why are you standing there like a chauffeur?”
He offers me his hand anyway. “Because tonight, I’m making an effort to be irritatingly reliable.”
I should roll my eyes.
Instead, I take his hand and let him help me down.
The cold bites at my cheeks immediately, but the porch light and the warmth beyond the windows make the whole place feel impossibly inviting.
He carries my things inside.
I step in behind him and stop.
The house is simple, but it’s been made ready.
A woven throw over the back of the sofa. Lamps switched on low. A fire already laid in the stove. Fresh towels folded on a chair. A kettle on the hob. There are wildflowers in a jar near the sink, winter dry and sparse, but chosen carefully.
For one stunned moment, I can’t speak.
Nash sets my suitcases by the wall and turns, suddenly looking unsure of himself.
“I didn’t know what you’d want,” he says. “So I just… guessed. Which isn’t my strongest skill set, but Faith helped with some of it, and Rose said lamps make places feel less temporary, and—”
I cross the room and kiss him.
It is not especially graceful. More relief than elegance.
His hands come up, warm at my waist, and I just stand there in the circle of his arms, kissing him because I do not know how else to express the size of what I am feeling.
When I pull back, he looks a little dazed.
“Well,” he says softly. “I’m going to assume that means the flowers were not offensive.”
I laugh, and this time the sound doesn’t shake. “They’re lovely.”
Then I kiss him again.