Chapter 22
Molly
I know the exact time because I was already awake, feeding Clem in the rocking chair my grandmother used to rock me in, watching the heat lightning flash silent and purple through the window.
The temperature hasn't dropped below ninety in three days, and the old farmhouse doesn't have air conditioning, just box fans and prayer.
Clem's been fussy all night, too hot and too young to understand why.
Then there's a crack like the world splitting open, and the house shudders, and half a tree comes through the ceiling of the living room like a fist.
I'm on my feet with Clem clutched to my chest before I even register moving.
Dust and leaves rain through the hole where my grandmother's ceiling used to be, and I can see stars through the gap, actually see them, which means the roof is just...
gone. The old oak, the one that's been standing in that yard since before my grandmother was born, has dropped a limb the size of a car directly into my house.
"Okay," I hear myself saying, my voice strange and high. "Okay, okay, we're okay, we're fine, we're—"
My phone is in my hand. I don't remember picking it up.
Taz answers on the first ring.
"Molly?" His voice is thick with sleep and already sharp with fear. "What's wrong?"
"The tree." I'm stepping backward, away from the debris, my bare feet crunching on what might be glass. "The oak tree, it—there's a hole in my roof, there's a hole in my—"
"Are you hurt?" he demands. "Is Clem hurt?"
"No, we're—we're in the kitchen, we're fine," I say, "but I can't—"
"I'm coming," he says. "Get outside, away from the house."
He hangs up, and I get us outside and sink onto the grass, holding Clem so tight she starts to fuss in protest. My hands are shaking. My whole body is shaking. The air smells like sawdust and heat and broken things.
Taz is here in under three minutes.
Tonight is one of the outside shifts we agreed on after the diner. His arrival text is still on my phone: parked by the barn gate. Close enough to reach us fast, exactly where I knew he'd be.
"The house isn't safe," Taz says quietly. "That limb compromised the whole ceiling structure. You can't stay here."
"I know," I say.
"Come to the ranch," he says. "Just until we can get someone out to assess the damage, figure out what needs to be done."
"Taz—" I begin.
"Guest room across the hall," he says. "Your rules. I knock, I wait to be invited. We're not—this isn't me trying to move you back in. This is your house having a tree through it and you needing somewhere to stay."
I look at my grandmother's house, at the whole life I've been trying to rebuild here, and I know he's right.
"I need my things where I can find them," I tell him. "And I need somebody to tell me what's repairable before everybody decides for me."
"We'll call from the ranch," he says. "Get you and Clem out of this heat first."
By dawn, I'm installed in the guest room at Topa Ridge with Clem's portable crib set up in the corner and a growing pile of my essentials stacked against the wall. Maggie came by at sunrise with coffee and didn't say a word about the honey house encounter, which I choose to interpret as mercy.
And Taz—
After the damaged area is cordoned off and the crew is cleared to retrieve our things, the first truck arrives at Topa Ridge. Taz climbs out and starts unloading.
"Where do you want the bookshelf?" he calls.
"Storage for now," I call back. "I don't want the guest room full of furniture."
"Barn's dry," he says. "We can cover it there."
"You don't have to bring everything," I call, shading my eyes against the glare.
"The crew said we could get these things out before the roof work starts," he says. "I thought you'd rather have them somewhere dry."
"I would." I shift Clem against my shoulder. "Sorry. I woke up with a tree in my living room and apparently left my manners under it."
"Leave them there," he says. "I'll have Rudy dig your manners out when he's back there."
Rudy's truck pulls up behind him. He climbs out, bowlegged and white-mustached, holding a small box.
"Photographs," he tells me. "Found them in the safe part of the hall. Figured you'd want these in the house."
"Oh." My voice goes thin. "Yes. Thank you."
"Wherever you want them, Molly," he says.
I point to the table inside the guest room. He carries them in without looking at me as if I'm about to break. That kindness nearly does the job instead.
Taz lowers the tailgate, his soaked shirt clinging to his back. The rocking chair is strapped upright beside the boxes.
"The rocking chair," I say when he passes me on the porch. "Be careful with—"
"I know." He meets my eyes briefly. "I remember."
Of course he does. He was there when my grandmother gave it to me, the week before she passed. He held my hand at her funeral and never once told me to stop crying, even when I soaked through three of his shirts.
He carries the chair across the yard on one shoulder, steady and sure, and I press my lips together hard and don't cry now, either.
At noon, I stand at the guest room window with two glasses of water. Taz has sent the others into the shade, but he's still unloading. Shirtless now, because apparently the damage to my judgment wasn't complete.
"Call him in," Maggie says from the doorway. "He'll listen to you before he'll listen to his knees."
"I have been," I tell her. "He's discovered one more box six times."
"Then take away his truck keys," Maggie says. "I used to threaten it when he was sixteen. Remarkably effective."
"Maggie," I say, "I'm not moving back into our marriage because he carried a bookshelf."
Her face softens. "Of course you're not, sweetheart. You called because you needed help. You're allowed to accept it. Nobody gets to charge you more than that."
I look out again. Taz straightens, and I catch sight of small new ink on his ribs.
"Taz!" I yell down. "Water. Now. Or I'm coming down there."
He looks up and raises a hand, then puts the box down. At last.
Maggie smiles. "I'll check Clem while you make sure he drinks it."
I hand him the glass at the bottom of the stairs.
"You sent everybody else to rest," I say. "They'll take you more seriously if they don't have to carry you inside afterward."
He drains half the glass. "Point taken."
"The chair made it?" I ask.
"Beside your window," he says. "Same way it faced at home."
I look away before he sees what that does to me. "Thank you."
"The house can be repaired, Mol," he says. "We just have to find out how much needs doing."
"In theory," I say. "I need a minute to believe it."
He sits on the step beside me and takes another drink. For that minute, he lets the boxes wait.
That night, I discover what it's like to be three a.m. neighbors with Taz again.
The first time is just before four. She's hungry and furious about it, and we end up in the ranch kitchen together, Taz measuring formula by the stove light while I supervise from a stool with our daughter yelling on my shoulder.
"Level scoop," I tell him. "That's a heaping scoop. That's a scoop with ambitions."
"I see it," he says, reaching to level it.
"She's got a delicate stomach," I tell him, "and a father who measures powder like feed ration."
He levels it with a butter knife, deadpan, and shakes the bottle like it's personally wronged him. "Level. Exactly what the label says."
I don't know why that's funny. It isn't funny.
But it's four in the morning and the kitchen smells like warm milk and there's a six-foot-four man in boxers holding a butter knife like a surgeon, and I start laughing, and then he's laughing, both of us bent over the counter wheezing at nothing at all while Clem screams her objection to the delay.
She drains the bottle and conks out cold. It lasts exactly an hour.
At five I'm up with Clem again, who has decided that sleep is optional and screaming is mandatory, when I hear footsteps in the hall. A soft knock on my door.
"Yeah?" I call.
Taz appears in the doorway, shirtless and sleep-rumpled and clearly only half awake. "Need help?"
"She won't settle," I tell him. "I think the heat's bothering her, or the new room, or she's just being a tiny dictator. Any of the above."
He holds out his hands. "Can I try?"
I hesitate. But my arms are tired and my patience is shot and Clem shows no signs of winding down, so I hand her over.
Taz settles her against his bare chest immediately, her tiny body fitting into the space over his heart like she was made for it. And then he starts walking, pacing the length of the hallway with a slow and steady rhythm while he talks to her in a low murmur.
"The thing about soil chemistry is nitrogen fixation," he's telling her, "which is way more interesting than it sounds.
You've got your legumes, right, they've got these little root nodules that harbor bacteria.
Rhizobia. They pull nitrogen straight from the air and turn it into food the plants can actually use.
Pretty efficient system if you think about it. "
I lean in the doorway and watch them, too tired to pretend I'm not.
"If her first word is nitrogen, I'm blaming you," I whisper.
"I'll settle for anything that isn't accompanied by screaming." He turns at the end of the hall. "The pace seems to help. I tried stopping at the window, and she filed an immediate objection."
"She likes a moving audience," I tell him. "I walked past the same cupboard thirty times before you knocked. I've begun to resent the handles."
He smiles down at her. "Go sit. I'll bring her in when she's settled."
The nightlight catches the ink on his ribs. A small bee, delicate and detailed, right over his heart. The lines are freshly healed.
I stare at it.
"When did you—" I start.
"Few weeks ago." He doesn't elaborate. Doesn't explain. Just keeps walking, keeps murmuring to Clem about nitrogen cycles and cover crops.
My eyes sting.
"I didn't know you wanted another tattoo," I say, and my voice comes out strange.
"Kept thinking about the day we met." He finally looks at me. "I wanted to remember it even on days you didn't want to see me."
I don't know what to say to that. I don't know what to do with any of this: the man in my hallway, the permanent mark he put on his body, the baby falling asleep on his chest like she knows she's safe there.
"She's out," Taz whispers. "You want me to put her down?"
"Yeah," I say. "Crib's in the corner."
He transfers her with practiced ease, settling her on her back with the swaddle tucked just right. Then he straightens and we're standing in my temporary room together, too close, the night pressing in around us.
"Thank you," I say.
"Anytime." He moves toward the door, then pauses. "Hey, Molly?"
"Yeah?" I ask.
"That invitation to the honey festival in Paso Robles," he says. "Sagebloom's old recipe got invited, did you see?"
"I saw. This weekend." I'd gotten the email yesterday and had been ignoring it because the logistics seemed impossible. A booth and a baby and no help. "I don't think I can make it work."
Taz leans against the doorframe, and the hallway light catches that bee tattoo again.
"I've got a truck," he says. "And a whole weekend free."
"Taz—" I start.
"Just as your Sherpa," he says. "Booth setup, baby wrangling, heavy lifting. Whatever you need."
I should say no. I should definitely say no. But Clem is finally asleep and Taz has a bee on his ribs and I'm too tired to keep fighting everything.
"Fine," I say. "But I'm driving."
His smile in the darkness is bright enough to light the whole room.
The next afternoon, I have the honey house to myself while Taz takes Clem.
It smells right again.
I stand at the blending table, two honeys in front of me—orange blossom and sage from the colonies at Miguel's orchard. He's kept the hives healthy for two years. He's gone on harvesting, too, and the sealed containers from this season are ready to blend.
My hands remember what to do. Ratio by weight. Taste, adjust, taste again.
The labels are already printed. SAGEBLOOM ORANGE-BLOSSOM SAGE, three cases to fill for the Best Blend category at the festival.
My phone buzzes on the table. Taz.
Management called. They want a personal appearance in LA for the transition. I told them I can't—I've got Clem this afternoon.
I stare at the message. Read it twice.
He's not asking me to rearrange my schedule.
He's not hinting that this opportunity is important, that maybe I could take her early, that surely I understand how much he's sacrificed.
He just... delegated. Rescheduled. Chose the baby over impressing old colleagues whose approval used to decide our weekends.
I don't thank him for parenting his own daughter. That's not how this works.
But I notice.
I put down the phone and go back to blending.