“It’s cleaner than the day my grandmother bought it.” Miss Maggie’s boots appear at the edge of my vision. “Which is saying something, considering you’ve already bleached the grout in the mudroom, reorganized the entire pantry by expiration date, and scrubbed the baseboards in the hallway with a toothbrush.” She pauses. “A toothbrush, Delaney. At six in the morning.”
“The baseboards were disgusting.”
“The baseboards were fine. You, on the other hand, are wearing a hole in my grandmother’s skillet because you can’t sit still longenough to think about whatever’s got you spinning like a barn cat in a thunderstorm.”
My hand falters. Just for a second.
Marry me.
Daniel’s voice echoes through my skull, rough and graceless and so painfully earnest it made my chest crack open right there in the barn. The way he couldn’t meet my eyes when he said it. The way his hands curled into fists at his sides like he was bracing for a blow.
The way I walked away without giving him an answer.
Because I’m a coward. Because I don’t know how to accept something good without bracing for it to be ripped away. Because some broken part of me still believes that wanting things is dangerous, that hope is just disappointment wearing a pretty dress.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mmhmm.” Miss Maggie doesn’t push. She never does. Instead, she moves to the counter and starts pulling vegetables from the basket by the window. “Well, when you’re done murdering my cookware, I could use help with dinner. Potatoes need peeling. It’s harder to spiral when your hands are doing something useful.”
I set Lucille on the drying rack with more care than I’ve shown anything else this morning. My hands are trembling. I didn’t notice until now, but there it is—a fine vibration running through my fingers like a current I can’t switch off.
The peeling helps. It always does. I station myself at the counter with a pile of russets while Miss Maggie dices carrots, herknife moving in quick, efficient strokes that speak of decades of practice. The rhythm settles something in my chest. The familiar comfort of being useful. Of having a task that requires just enough focus to keep my brain from eating itself alive.
We work in silence for a while. Carrots. Potatoes. The tick of the clock above the stove marking time I’m not ready to face.
“I should thank you,” I say when the quiet gets too heavy. My eyes stay fixed on the potato in my hand, on the brown skin curling away in long spirals. “For making me feel welcome here. The little things you’ve done. They’ve helped more than you know."
“What little things?”
“The pens on my desk. The good ones, the brand I mentioned liking.” Another curl of skin falls away. “And the flowers in my room. I don’t know how you figured out I loved wildflowers, but every few days, there’s a fresh bunch on my nightstand. Makes the whole room smell like—” I stop. Swallow. “Like home. It smells like home.”
Miss Maggie’s knife pauses against the cutting board. The silence stretches for one heartbeat. Two.
“Wasn’t me, sugar.”
The peeler slips. I catch it before it clatters to the floor, but my hands have gone still, frozen around a half-naked potato.
“The tea, then. My favorite brand appeared in the cabinet one morning. I assumed you’d noticed me making faces at the generic stuff and?—”
“Wasn’t me either.”
I set down the potato. “The schedule. Someone adjusted the Sunday rotation so I could have lunch with Kitty without rushing back for afternoon chores. I thought you must have talked to Daniel about it, asked him to?—”
“Now, why would I have anything to do with the work schedule?” She reaches for an onion and peels away the papery skin with infuriating calm. “That’s Daniel’s domain. You know how that man is about his systems. Won’t let anyone touch them.”
The kitchen shrinks around me. The clock ticks. The knife thunks against wood.
“You know what I’ve learned, watching people for forty years on this ranch?” Miss Maggie slices the onion in half, her movements steady and unhurried. “The ones who are bad with words are usually the best with actions. Any fool can make pretty speeches. Talk is cheap, and most of it isn’t worth the breath it takes to say it.”
She still won’t look at me. Just keeps working, letting the words land where they will.
“But a man who pays attention? Who notices what you need before you’ve figured it out yourself?” The knife resumes its rhythm, steady as a heartbeat. “That’s rare, sugar. That’s the kind of thing worth building a life on.”
I stop breathing.
The pens appeared the day after I complained about the cheap ballpoints that skipped and smeared. I mentioned it once in passing while we were reviewing supply orders. I didn’t think anyone was listening.
The tea showed up the morning after I wrinkled my nose at the generic brand and muttered something about missing my usual. I didn’t even say it to Daniel. I said it to the cabinet.
