Chapter 14 #2
I nod, already stepping off the porch. “Yes ma—” I glance over my shoulder. She’s already giving me that look. “I mean, Molly.”
“There it is. We’ll beat those old-fashioned manners out of you yet, Mr. Hart,” she says with a smirk before heading back inside and closing the door behind her.
I let out a quiet chuckle as I head toward the barn. I’ve always liked Molly. Spitfire, for sure, but with a soft heart. Just like her daughter.
The barn doors creak when I push them open.
A few horses shift in their stalls, tails flicking, eyes following me as I walk down the center aisle.
Dust floats in the air, catching in the shafts of sunlight spilling through the windows.
The scent of hay, cedar, and something faintly floral—maybe whatever shampoo they use on the horses—settles around me.
And then I see it.
Near the back, where the barn opens up a little wider—there’s a tarp laid out on the ground. A paint palette resting on one side. A canvas propped on a low easel.
I stop walking.
The painting is…beautiful. Not just good, not just talented—striking.
Like it doesn’t want to be stared at, but dares you to anyway.
It’s a pair of hands—older, worn, the lines and grooves of a life’s work captured in the brushstrokes.
Every tendon, every scar, every wrinkle painted like it matters. Like it’s worth honoring.
And it feels…familiar. Not in the way I know whose hands they are, but in the way I know what they mean. The weight of them. The quiet sacrifice tucked in the joints.
I’m still staring when the tack room door creaks open. Wren steps out, two paintbrushes in her hand.
She’s in black leggings and an old, over-sized Dolly Parton T-shirt that’s seen better days—splattered with dried paint and tied in a knot at her waist. Her hair’s piled in a messy twist on top of her head, loose pieces falling out to frame her face.
She’s barefoot and there’s a smudge of blue paint on the side of her neck.
She stops when she sees me.
“Oh,” she says, blinking. “Uh. Hi.”
I smile. “Hi.”
She looks surprised, caught off guard in the way people do when they weren’t expecting company and don’t know whether to be flattered or mildly alarmed.
For some reason, I find it endearing as hell.
“I just…figured I’d swing by. See how you were doing,” I say, stepping a little further in. “I haven’t heard from you in a while.”
She nods, slowly, like she’s still catching up to the fact that I’m standing here in her barn. She walks over to the canvas, crouches to set the brushes next to the palette, and stands again, brushing her hands off on her thighs.
“I’ve been…” she pauses, then lets out a breath, puffing a piece of hair out of her face, “decent. Trying not to freak out about—well. Everything.”
I laugh quietly. “Yeah. Same.”
She gives a small smile.
“I wanted to apologize,” I say, before I can talk myself out of it. “For the texts a few days ago. I know I was short with you. I didn’t mean to be.”
She lifts her hand, palm out. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Sawyer. It’s okay.”
“I want to, though,” I say, stepping closer. “It wasn’t okay. I just…had a lot going on.”
She watches me for a second, like she’s trying to read between the lines but isn’t sure how far she’s allowed to look.
Then she nods once. “It’s okay. Really.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “You pinky swear it?”
That makes her laugh—an actual laugh, bright and caught off guard.
Her laugh sounds like the color yellow.
Not the artificial kind, not highlighters or taxi cabs. But soft yellow—sunshine through a mason jar. Candlelight catching on a kitchen wall. It’s sunlight on your skin after too many gray days, a warmth you didn’t realize you needed until it found you.
It reminds me of butter and chamomile. Of honey on a spoon. Of the brief moment after a storm when everything smells clean and new and like it might be okay again, even if it’s not.
It’s a sound you don’t realize you’ve been missing until it shows up and stays for a second longer than it needs to. One that makes you wish you were the one who caused it every time.
She shakes her head, still grinning. “A pinky swear?”
I hold mine out toward her, firm. “What? It’s our thing now.”
Her smile shifts a little then. She reaches up and hooks her pinky around mine, light and tentative, like we’re both pretending it’s a joke so we don’t have to admit it feels like more than that. And it does. Somehow it does.
The space between us thins, and for a second, it’s just me and her and this tether we didn’t mean to tie.
There’s paint on her hands. One smudge of it on the side of her neck.
A streak of yellow across her wrist like she dipped it in sunlight and forgot to wipe it off.
Her bare feet shift on the tarp, toes curling slightly.
She’s a little messy and a little guarded and so stunning it knocks the wind out of me.
And suddenly I’m aware of how close we are. How warm her hand is. How my pulse just picked up for no logical reason.
I clear my throat, glancing down at the tarp—not because I need to, but because I have to look at something that doesn’t make my chest feel tight.
“Your painting,” I say. “It’s amazing.”
She looks down at the painting as if she forgot it was there. Then back at me like she’s trying to figure out if I really meant what I said, or if I’m just being polite.
“Thanks,” she says, her voice low and unsure. Her teeth catch the corner of her bottom lip. “That’s…that means a lot.”
There’s a pause. Then she says it—soft, like she’s not entirely sure she should, “No one’s ever seen my art before.”
I blink. “Seriously? No one?”
She shakes her head once, quick. “No.”
“Why not?”
I kneel down, easing onto one knee so I can look closer.
Up close, it’s even more layered. There are colors I didn’t catch before—faint washes of blue and violet buried under the warmth of the skin tones. Hints of green in the shadows. The brushstrokes are purposeful, but not rigid. There’s movement in them. Story.
She shrugs, her arms still crossed. “It’s just always been…for me. Something I didn’t want to share.”
I glance up at her.
She adds, quieter this time, “And I didn’t want people to tell me it was bad. I know that’s probably stupid, but…”
I shake my head. “It’s not stupid.”
She exhales, a short huff of a breath that lands somewhere between resignation and amusement. There’s a small smile tugging at her mouth now, even if she’s trying not to let it all the way out.
I sit back on my heels, tilt my head. “You want my very professional artistic opinion?”
She groans, but the smile stays. “You’ve already seen it. Might as well ruin it for me completely.”
I laugh. “Alright then.”
I look at the painting again.
“It’s…raw,” I say, still trying to find the right words. “But in a way that feels intentional. Like it’s not trying to impress anyone. It’s just trying to be something.”
I pause, squinting slightly at the hands—at the lines, the texture, the quiet dignity in them. They look like they’ve built things. Held grief. Given more than they kept.
“It feels like a memory,” I tell her. “Not perfect, but honest. Something you carry with you whether you want to or not.”
Wren swallows, her throat bobbing slightly. “Wow,” she says, after a beat. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
I stand back up, brushing my palms on my jeans. “You thought I was just a meathead with no depth, didn’t you?”
That pulls a laugh from her. She nudges me with her elbow as I pass. “I never thought that.”
I raise a brow, and she sighs. “Okay. I did. A little.”
I grin. “Glad we’re establishing some trust.”
She nods toward the painting, her expression shifting. It softens, in that way people do when they let something matter.
“They’re my dad’s hands,” she says, kneeling beside it again. Her fingers touch the edge of the canvas, then trace the knuckles like she’s still memorizing them. “I’ve painted them a bunch of times, but this one…I don’t know. This one felt different.”
She’s quiet for a minute. I don’t move.
“It’s weird,” she says, her voice softer now. “The things you remember about someone after they’re gone. I mean, you remember the big stuff—who they were, how they made you feel, the things you did together.
She presses her hand flat against the canvas, right over one of the painted palms.
“But then there’s these random details that get stuck in your brain. Things that don’t seem like they should matter at all. Like the way they walked. Their nervous habits. The way their hands looked when they were tired.”
She exhales through her nose, not looking at me.
“For me, it’s always been his hands. That’s what I remember first. The calluses, the way they were always warm even when it was freezing outside.
The way he’d rub the back of his neck when he was thinking hard about something.
They were so big, but when he held something gently—like a baby bird, or a broken piece of tack—it was like watching strength slow down.
Like he knew exactly how much power he had and chose, every time, not to use it. ”
I don’t say anything. There’s nothing to say.
She’s not trying to perform for me. She’s not telling me this for comfort or praise. She’s just…sharing. Like maybe holding the memory out in front of her makes it a little lighter to carry.
And God, if I don’t know exactly what that feels like.
She brushes her fingers over the edge of the painting again, eyes still on the canvas. “I know most people think of my dad as this hard-ass.”
She pauses, her voice dipping. “But when I think of him, I think of his hands. Not the ones holding a rope or fixing fence line. The ones he used to rub circles on my back when I couldn’t sleep. Or the ones that picked wildflowers and brought them home in the pocket of his shirt.”
Her eyes flick up to mine. “People didn’t see that side of him very often.”
I nod. “You miss him.”
She nods too. “All the time.”