He’s different.
You asked for this.
Did you, though?
I dress in jeans and a fitted tee and my oldest boots, the ones with the scuffed toes that make me feel like I’m wearing armor with a little history. When I am ninety-three and someone asks me what I did with my life, I want to say I saved this place in boots that already knew the dirt.
Downstairs, Mama is already in the kitchen pouring coffee with the kind of intentional calm that says she’s refusing to panic on principle.
“You sleep?” she asks.
“Sure,” I lie.
“I heard boots around midnight.”
I choke on my coffee.
She smiles over the rim of her mug. “Not yours.”
“Oh.”
“And I heard your father telling the Lord this morning that if he ends up with grandbabies out of a disaster plan, he will accept that as a blessing.”
“Mama.”
She just hums like she’s savoring the chaos.
“I’m going to the store,” I say, grabbing my keys out of spite.
“Good. Be polite. And try not to stab him in public.”
“Again, Mama?—”
“I’m teasing.”
She isnotteasing.
Outside, the sun is already loud. Texas doesn’t ease into a day. It kicks the door wide open.
Nash is by the truck, leaning a shoulder against the door with a coffee in one hand and a phone in the other. The hat is on—of course it is—and the brim cuts his eyes in shadow.
He looks like a man built to haunt women who believed in promises.
He lifts his gaze when I step onto the porch. Not a lingering sweep. Not a hungry look. Just a quick, professional check like I’m part of a perimeter he’s responsible for.
And then his mouth curves like he can’t help the second thought. “Morning, Laney.”
I tell myself my pulse is reacting to caffeine. “Morning.”
He pushes off the truck. “We’re doing the grocery run first. Town needs something to gossip about besides weather and who’s secretly on a cleanse.”
“I’m not on a cleanse,” I say automatically.
His smile deepens a fraction. “Didn’t think you were.”
Why does that sound like he remembers how I used to sneak cornbread off the cooling rack?
I climb into the passenger seat and put distance between my knees and his, purely as a matter of national security.
