Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Jesse
Sunday
If there’s a medal for surviving a church potluck as a single parent, I should’ve won it by now.
Maybe two. One made of gold, one made of… chocolate, because everyone knows chocolate is the only currency my kids understand.
Eliza and Caleb are sticky from wrist to elbow, hyped up on honey sticks, lemonade, and probably the raw energy of madness itself. And honestly? I blame one woman:
Abilene Kentwood.
Not in a bad way.
Not in a “my kids are devils because of you” way.
More like… Hell, I don’t know.
In a “my kids adore you, and I’m low-key jealous about it” way.
We’re walking back home now, the long dirt path that winds behind the church, past the old oak tree, past Millie McDougal’s bakery that still smells of cinnamon rolls this late in the day, and toward the neighboring houses that sit at the far end of Willow Ranch.
The twins run ahead, chasing each other with a stick that Eliza insists is a “unicorn wand” and Caleb insists is a “sword of destiny.”
I let them decide among themselves which it is.
Beside me, Abilene walks quietly.
Not shy in a shrinking way, just quiet. She’s tuned in to a different frequency. The evening breeze pushes strands of her hair out of her braid, and she tucks them behind her ear with gentle fingers.
There’s a smear of lavender honey on her wrist.
I notice it before she does.
Silly for me to notice these things.
“Sorry about the volume back there,” I say, breaking the silence because talking is kind of what I do. “They get a little wild at potlucks.”
She glances at me, a small smile tugging at her lips. “They’re kids, Jesse.”
“They’re my kids. Entirely different species.”
That earns a soft laugh. I live for those.
“Seriously,” I continue, “I swear they’ve got a sixth sense for sugar. They could smell one of your honey sticks from a mile away.”
“I don’t mind.” She hesitates, then adds, “I like being around them.”
The warmth that hits my chest is instant.
Dangerous.
“It’s mutual,” I say, keeping my tone light. “If you ever go missing, I’ll know where they hid you.”
She laughs again, and damn, that sound does a lot to me. Not a hit-you-over-the-head kind of thing. More a soft ache. A tug.
We walk in comfortable silence.
It’s strange. I don’t usually do comfortable silence. I fill silence as if it’s my job.
But with her, I don’t have to.
When we reach her house, not far from mine, the twins take off across the yard as fast as two feral goats finally freed from a pen. I wince as Caleb trips, somersaults in the grass, jumps up unharmed, and shouts, “I did it!”
He did not “do it.” Gravity did it.
But I appreciate his confidence.
Abilene smiles softly at them, then turns her gaze toward her front porch. The wind chimes are singing, delicate and tinkly, the kind you’d find in an old-fashioned garden shop.
She steps onto her porch, pauses, and looks back at me.
I stop, too.
Why do I stop? Good question.
She tucks another strand of hair away. “I’m glad I sat with you today.”
My chest tightens with a sensation I haven’t felt in a long, long while.
“Me too,” I say.
The sky’s darker now, storm clouds thickening, rolling in slow and heavy from the west. The kind of storm that makes the air smell charged. Makes you feel it in your ribs.
Abilene looks up at it, listening to something only she can hear. Maybe she is. Bees probably sense storms better than the rest of us, and she spends so much time with them… maybe she feels the world differently.
“You should get inside,” I say gently. “Looks like it’s gonna let loose any minute.”
She nods. “Yeah.”
But she doesn’t go in. And I don’t leave.
We stand there in a strange, soft little bubble.
Me on the walkway. Her on the porch step.
Close enough that I can see the freckles on her nose.
Close enough that I realize something:
I want to kiss her.
Badly. Embarrassingly badly.
But I don’t move.
Because wanting something and taking it are two different things. And I’ve lived long enough, been left hard enough, to know the price of wanting the wrong way.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks softly.
Damn. She sees too much.
I force a grin because that’s what I do. “Honestly? I’m thinking about how I should probably wrangle the twins before they start climbing the barn roof again.”
Her lips twitch. “Again?”
“Not my proudest parenting moment.”
She steps down one stair. Just one. Just enough to make those hazel-green eyes level with mine.
“They’re good kids,” she says.
“They’re wild.”
“They’re sweet.”
“They lie straight to my face.”
She laughs. “They do not.”
“Eliza told me yesterday that the cat asked her to paint the hallway wall.”
Abilene covers her mouth to hide a smile. “Creative storytelling.”
“Destructive storytelling,” I correct. “But yeah.”
The wind blows stronger.
The first drop of rain lands on her shoulder.
She startles at it, glancing back at the clouds, worry ghosting over her features.
“Your bees will be okay,” I say gently, reading the fear on her face before she even speaks it. “Storms come through all the time.”
“I know,” she whispers, though I can tell she’s not convincing herself.
Another drop of rain.
Another flicker of instinct, of me wanting to step close, tuck a hand to the small of her back, and pull her inside where it’s safe.
But I don’t.
Because the last woman I pulled close ran the first chance she got.
Hayley wasn’t built for small-town life. Or ranch life. Or motherhood. She said she loved me, loved the babies, loved the idea of a family…
But she loved the idea more than the reality.
And I’ve spent six years making sure my kids never feel that absence. Making sure no one sees the cracks I keep patching with jokes and charm and “I’m fine.”
I swallow and look toward my house. The kids are on the porch now, arguing about whether frogs can survive tornadoes.
I turn back to Abilene. She looks caught between waiting for me to leave and wanting me to stay.
It’s a dangerous place for both of us.
“You should get inside,” I tell her again, this time softer.
She hesitates. “Will you, um, be okay getting them settled?”
“I’m always okay,” I say automatically.
Her expression softens. “You don’t always have to be.”
That sentence hits me straight in the sternum.
I don’t know how to respond, but she doesn’t seem to expect me to.
“Goodnight, Jesse,” she whispers.
I open my mouth.
Close it.
Open it again.
“Goodnight, Honeybee.”
She bites her lip to hide a smile. “Honeybee?”
“Yep. Honey sticks in the purse. Wind chimes on the porch. Freckles like pollen. Definitely Honeybee.”
She shakes her head but can’t help grinning wider.
“Goodnight,” she repeats.
She turns toward the door, and I turn toward the twins.
But before she disappears inside, she says, “I’m glad you were there today.”
I freeze.
Just long enough for her to step inside and close the door gently behind her.
The walk back to my porch is short, but tonight it feels long. The storm’s pushing on my shoulders.
Eliza is crouched beside a flowerpot, whispering to a bug. Caleb is poking the railing with a stick.
“Alright, tornado twins,” I call, “time to get inside before we blow away.”
They run at me full speed and tackle my waist. I pretend to stagger back because they love that.
“Daddy,” Eliza says, tugging my shirt, “can we see Miss Abilene again tomorrow?”
My breath catches.
Caleb nods. “Yeah. She smells like flowers.”
Eliza wrinkles her nose. “Caleb, she smells like honey.”
I ruffle both heads. “We’ll see.”
The wind picks up, whipping my daughter’s loose braid around.
I glance toward Abilene’s house.
Lights on. Shadows soft behind the curtains. Safe.
Good.
Inside my chest, everything shifts.
I haven’t felt this way in years. It’s not just desire or attraction. It’s hope.
And hope is dangerous.
Too dangerous to rush.
So even if I wanted to kiss her tonight, even if I’m still feeling the ghost of that impulse like a hand around my heart, I shove it down.
Because the last thing I want is to ruin this by moving too fast.
But damn… I wanted to.
I wanted to let myself have something quiet and good.
But tonight, I settle.
I carry my kids inside. I get them into pajamas. I read them a story. I kiss their foreheads and turn off the lights.
And when I stand alone in the hallway, rain tapping the windows, I let myself feel it.