It’s easy. A silence that grows between people who are learning each other by feel instead of talk.
When he reaches for the pepper, his hand brushes mine.
We both pause.
His gaze lifts, meets mine.
My breath stops.
He doesn’t pull away.
Neither do I.
The next week passes in a rhythm that feels suspiciously like a life forming around me.
We fall into a routine. Not planned. Just… natural.
I wake before him for the first time on Monday. I make the coffee—strong, the way he likes it—and tea for me.
On Tuesday, he fixes the creaking hinge on the front door. I fold laundry by the stove, humming under my breath. He pauses in the doorway, watching me as if the sound surprises him in a good way.
Wyatt cooks the eggs while I take Maisie on a gentle walk to the edge of the pasture on Wednesday. The snow crunches softly beneath my boots, the sky just beginning to blush with light.
On Thursday,Wyatttunes the old radio, and we listen to the wind and old country songs while I patch the worn blanket that Maisie has grown attached to at the kitchen table.
When Shay texts to ask if I can help with an irritated eye on a barn cat on Friday, something inside me loosens, a part I didn’t know had gone numb.
Wyatt drives me over. Stays nearby. Watches with that look again—quiet awe.
“You’re really good at that,” he says.
I shrug, though my chest warms.
It feels like coming home. Like my hands remember the girl I was before fear rewrote me.
Wyatt must sense it because he threads his fingers through mine on the way back to the truck.
And there are other touches.
Light. Subtle. But building.
The brush of his hand on my back when he reaches for a dish.
The way he tugs my hair gently when I tease him about his neatly folded flannels.
The moment he catches me watching him chop wood and grins—quiet, private, devastating.
Those grins are happening more often. And every time, they loosen something knotted inside me.
Our days keep stacking like that.
Small tasks. Shared space. Quiet trust.
A life, brick by brick.
But still, under the warmth, the calm, the growing trust, is a pulse of tension I can’t shake. A voice in the back of my head whisperingwhat if?
What if they come back?
