Five
The Next Day
Thedford, Nebraska, was starting to grow on her.
Not in size. Jackie could see all of Main Street from where she stood outside of Hank’s Hardware, two whole blocks of businesses that folks throughout the county would need. A bank, a general store, a grocery store, gas pumps, a single diner. There was probably a church somewhere, too.
Not in grandness, either. She didn’t need big department stores, fancy restaurants, or streets filled with automobiles like other big cities she’d been in.
But she did need friendliness. Familiarity. Folks giving her a smile and a nod, as if she was already one of them. If they were curious about who she was, if they didn’t already know she was the new pilot living in Halsey, it likely meant they were too polite to ask.
That would come in time, she knew. Folks knowing about her, just as she would know about them.
The bell above the door at Hank’s Hardware jingled cheerfully, and Jackie went inside.
She already knew the store’s smells from the last time she’d been here—oil, metals, leather—and the odor of stale coffee.
Shelves climbed high to the ceiling, each crowded with nails, tools, coils of wire, and more paint cans than she could sort through in one morning.
“Mornin’, Miss Jackie.” Hank stood behind the counter, wiping his hands on a rag. “What brings you in today? Get that airstrip of yours all staked out?”
“I did, thanks to your help.”
She smiled. The first time she’d come in to buy supplies for the airstrip, he hadn’t made her feel out of place or in over her head. He merely listened, asked a few questions, then walked her aisle by aisle, pointing out what she’d need, what she wouldn’t, and what she could do without until later.
“Trouble deciding?” he asked, joining her in front of the paint display.
“Just trying to make sure I don’t pick something I’ll regret halfway through a wall.”
He gave a low chuckle. “That’s most folks’ problem right there.”
“I need something for the inside,” she said, studying the row of sample cards with colors fanned out in strips. “Nothing too bold. Nothing that shouts at me. Just something that feels… right.” She eyed him. “The walls haven’t been painted in ages.”
“Sounds like something Kincaid would let go.” With a mildly exasperated shake of his head, he reached for a can.
“You’ll want something that’ll cover well, then.
” He tapped the lid. “Most folks still go with oil. Holds up better. Washable. Got a good Sherwin-Williams here—covers well, won’t give you trouble. ”
Jackie glanced at the label, then back at him. “What’s the catch?”
“Smell,” he said. “Takes longer to dry. And you’ll need spirits to clean your brushes.”
She frowned. “Sounds like a big catch to me.”
Hank studied her a second, then nodded again. “In that case—” He set the can aside and reached for another. “Latex is coming in more these days. Not quite as durable, but easier to work with. Soap and water cleanup.”
“Ah.” She laughed. “Now, that sounds perfect.”
“Figured it might.” He gestured toward the color cards. “You got a color picked out?”
Her gaze drifted over the colors again. Whites. Creams. Pale yellows. Until a soft green caught her eye. Not bright, not showy, but reminding her of the pastures just beginning to come in, that first hint of green pushing through after winter.
“This one,” she said, her tone decisive.
Hank leaned in, squinting at it. “That’s a good color,” he said. “Easy on the eyes. Won’t show dust the way white does. How much you figure you’ll need?”
After she gave him her measurements, she added brushes and rollers, he tallied her bill, and she wrote the check for payment.
“This ought to do you,” he said afterward, sliding her purchases across the counter toward her. “You run short, you come back.”
“I appreciate your help, Hank,” she said.
He leaned on his spread hands. “You’re doing right by that place, you know,” he said. “It’s been needing some care for a long time.”
Jackie paused from the unexpected rub from his comment.
That place.
He didn’t think of it as her house. Or her home. Instead, it was like someone else’s ghost stayed on, hovering over the entire east pasture, refusing to let go.
Roy Kincaid’s? Or Beck Archer’s?
“It has, yes,” she said instead, and loaded up her purchases, a paint can in each hand and the paper-wrapped bundle of brushes and rollers tucked under her arm with her purse. “It’ll look real nice when I’m done with everything I want to do.”
She was doing right by her house, she told herself firmly.
She meant to make it hers.
But the worry came hurtling in—what if it wasn’t hers to paint and care for?
What if it really was Beck’s, like the memorandum implied?
A heaviness settled in her chest and pulled her mood down before she could shake it. She nudged the door open with her shoulder, and the bell jangled its familiar jangle. Sunlight embraced her on the sidewalk, warmed her, freed her from the hardware-store smells and welcomed her with fresher air.
Just as she set out to cross the street to her Willys parked next to the gas station, her stride faltered at the familiarity of a man just leaving the bank. Beck stood at the door and pulled it closed behind him.
He looked up then—like he’d felt her presence right there, a half block away.
Their eyes met and held.
She couldn’t break that pull if she tried.
Which she didn’t.
Even with the distance between them, he appeared taller than most. Broader, too, given the way his chambray blue shirt pulled smooth along his shoulders and back, sleeves rolled to show corded forearms browned by sun and work.
He wore his Levi’s snug at the hips, the shirt tucked to reveal his lean waist and flat belly.
His Stetson sat low over his eyes, in the way she’d come to recognize, with the brim shading the sun.
He started toward her, not hurried, not hesitant. But certain.
His stride had that loose, rolling ease of a man who spent plenty of time on horseback. He moved with an agile grace, every step steady, measured, perhaps from his years as a soldier. More, perhaps, from his life as a cowboy.
And still his gaze didn’t leave hers. Maybe he couldn’t break its pull, either.
She knew only that something had shifted, grown between them, and wasn’t settling back the way it had been.
The awareness drew her in, so strongly she’d lost what she’d been thinking. Her mood lifted, too, freeing the weight from her chest.
Her grip tightened on the paint cans. The anticipation built inside her to be with him again, making her forget her fingers had started to ache.
He was nearly there, in front of her on the sidewalk.
One muscular arm reached toward her, then the other, as if he knew how heavy the paint cans would feel.
He took both, saying only her name in greeting, his tone low and pleasing.
“Hello, Beck,” she said softly, a tiny part of her realizing she’d shortened his name, like he wanted. “What brings you into town?”
He checked for traffic before they stepped into the street, crossing toward her Jeep.
“Had a few things to take care of.”
His evasiveness forced a dip in her stomach.
If one of those things were Tom Caldwell….
No, Tom was her banker. He’d assured her his responsibility lay with her and not the Archers.
Whatever business Beck had, it wasn’t his to interfere with hers. Surely, Tom would honor his assurances, wouldn’t he?
Convinced he would, buying her some time, Jackie’s worry eased.
A little. She busied herself laying her purchased brushes and rollers in the back seat of her Willys, next to several sacks of groceries.
Beck loaded both cans of paint into the back.
He straightened and turned toward her, but a dark-painted pickup rolled up into the gas station toward a pump.
The tires crunched over gravel before the driver cut the engine.
Whatever Beck had intended to say never got said.
Jackie’s stare locked onto the truck and the stock rack on the back, built of simple, weathered wood slats rising above the bed. Stock racks weren’t uncommon. Plenty of ranch vehicles had them.
Still—a memory flared. The color of the truck. Not dark green like she’d thought from the air, but black. Barely black since parts of the metal had been sun-bleached to a dull gray.
Her stomach tightened. It could’ve been the same vehicle she saw tucked into the timber, but from a plane, shadows and distance played tricks on a person. She couldn’t be sure, couldn’t say anything just yet.
The door opened. The driver got out, slammed the door shut, and headed toward the pump. An unlit cigarette poked from the corner of his mouth. He gripped the nozzle, loosened the gas cap—and saw them.
His expression changed. Not with surprise, but recognition.
He returned the nozzle to the pump and started toward them, in no hurry. Grease stained his baggy jeans, manure caked his boots, and his plaid shirt hung a couple sizes too big on his rangy build.
Beck leaned an elbow on top of the Jeep’s frame and watched him come.
“Well, now,” the man said, voice easy around the cigarette. “Didn’t expect to find an Archer in town.”
Beck didn’t move beside her. Didn’t speak. But something in him went still. A quiet warning, Jackie sensed, like the shift in air before a storm.
“Varner,” he said.
The man’s measuring gaze slid to Jackie. “You must be the new neighbor. The lady pilot everyone’s talking about.”
Her instincts paired with Beck’s, and she lifted her shoulder in a small shrug. “If that’s what you’ve heard, then you’ve got me figured.”
His mouth curved faintly. “Funny how folks come a long way to land themselves in a place like yours.”
Beck shifted his stance. Jackie could feel him move closer to her. Protective. Maybe a little wary, too.
“Jackie, this is Clint Varner.” He paused, as if choosing his words with care. “Known each other for a long time.”