1
MIA TORRES
My phone buzzes on the kitchen counter at midnight. One look at the screen and my stomach drops—unknown number, blocked, same three words like a fist against the skull: You’re letting him go.
I pull the blanket tighter around Leo and peek through the blinds. The street is a dark ribbon. A van idles two blocks away, headlights off. Someone who knows our rhythm—when I leave, when I come back.
Leo turns in his sleep, a small fist to his mouth. I count his breaths. Slow. Even. I tell myself the driver is a delivery guy, a neighbor. I tell myself a lot of things I don’t believe.
By one a.m. I have to make a choice. There’s a meeting at work I can’t miss in the morning. A custody hearing the week after. If I don’t prove I provide reliable childcare, the judge will notice. If I don’t show up, I hand my ex the one thread he’s been tugging at for years.
“Mom?” Leo asks, half-awake. His voice cracks like a twig. I crawl into his bed and kiss the top of his head.
“Everything’s okay, baby.” I lie because he needs that. Because I need to believe it too.
I don’t sleep.
An hour later the classifieds are up and down. I call numbers, read profiles, listen to robotic messages. Cabs won’t take kids after midnight. The city hushes and hides things you can’t afford.
He shows up like he owns the night.
Caleb Stone is on my porch before dawn, boots crunching on frost. He looks like someone who can fix anything—oil under his nails, denim worn where thighs meet saddle. He smells like leather and summer hay and—something deeper—rain on asphalt and wind-blown earth. My insides do a thing that has nothing to do with logic.
“You Mia?” he says as if he’s been waiting to hear the name.
“Yeah.” I open the door a crack and keep my voice low. “You’re early.”
“Couldn’t wait.” He shifts his weight. Hands big enough to do harm, or to help. He has a child-sized backpack slung over one shoulder; a plastic truck peeks out. Leo blinks awake and becomes, instantly, a magnet.
“Hi,” Leo peeps, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He’s in yesterday’s dinosaur pajamas. He hates strangers. He loves muscle cars. He hugs the truck like it’s a promise.
Caleb crouches. He doesn’t perform. He just gets on Leo’s level and hands the truck back. “You gonna let me crash here for a couple hours?” he asks, the way you offer a dog a treat.
Trust settles into Leo like a blanket. My suspicion melts, inch by stubborn inch.
I was raised to keep receipts, to lawyer up on instinct. I’m a single mom who stretches every dollar; I’m not supposed to let strangers take my son’s tiny, perfect body in the dark.
“You’re a contractor,” I say, testing. The ad said “overnight contractor willing to be guardian for emergencies.” Vague. I need specifics. Names. Numbers.
Caleb nods. “Ranch hands, odd jobs. I work in the city sometimes. I babysit when the boss has rodeo or the wife’s in labor. I’m on a couple of day-to-day guardian lists.” He hands me a folded piece of paper. An actual contract.
My fingers tremble when I take it. The text is plain: duties, hours, emergency contacts, liability. There’s a clause about a refundable deposit for overnight stays. He’s thought of everything. Practical. Respectful. Reassuring in a way that makes my muscles unclench.
“You have references?” I ask.
He slides a worn phone across the porch without breaking eye contact. “Call Vera at the ranch. Or Tanner—he works with horses downtown. Tell them you’re Mia Torres. They know me.”
I do the thing I always do—measure risk like spare change. I dial Vera. The line rings. One, two, three. On the fourth ring a woman answers, no-nonsense. She calls him Cal and says he’s never left a kid hungry, never missed a shift, knows CPR, once saved a calf and a kid in the same day. It’s the kind of voice that does not hand out praise. I write it down on the contract without thinking.
“You’re a fast caller,” Caleb says. Up close, his jaw is square. He watches me with an expression that holds no pity—something like calculation. I don’t trust men like him. I have to be right more often than not.
“Insurance?” I ask. “Liability?”
He produces a folded card from his back pocket: city contractor’s license, a small business no one would notice but an accountant. He points to the emergency medical authorization and the temporary guardianship clause. The words feel official in my hands.
“You sign this, I watch Leo weekdays,” he says. “You keep custody. It’s temporary. Refundable deposit if I need to camp at your place when I’m caught out.”
A stray brush of his hand when he hands me the pen sends a ridiculous current through me. He’s a stranger. The air near him feels narrower, denser—like someone closed a door.
