After that, the rest of the market was noise and color and not much else. Kids darted in and out of legs. Old men haggled over the price of beans. Someone sang, badly, into a microphone, but nobody cared enough to ask them to stop.
Newt relaxed, eventually. Not completely, but enough that he stopped looking over his shoulder every five seconds. He even made a joke at the honey stand, something about bees and communism, and I almost laughed out loud.
We bought what we needed—milk, eggs, a sack of potatoes that would last us a week if Harlow didn’t get into it—and circled back toward the truck.
It wasn’t until we were almost to Rosie’s booth that I realized how many people had watched us the entire time. We were news now. Not just a curiosity, not just a spectacle. We were the new normal.
I liked that.
As we reached the corner of the lot, Newt said, “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“Do what?”
“Parade me around. Make a scene.”
I stopped, turned to face him. “If I wanted a scene, I’d start a fistfight in the parking lot.”
He rolled his eyes, but there was a glimmer of something in his expression—relief, or maybe just gratitude. “Still, it’s a lot.”
I shrugged. “Better to get it over with.”
He looked away, chewing his lip. “I don’t think I’m good at this.”
I smiled, smaller now. “You don’t have to be.”
Newt looked thoughtful for a moment and then unwrapped the scone and took a bite. Sugar stuck to the edge of his mouth. I reached over, thumbed it away, and licked my finger.
“You got something,” I said.
He blushed, but this time, he didn’t apologize.
We were almost home free—bags packed, Newt a little less green around the gills—when the universe decided it wasn’t done fucking with us.
I saw James Bridger before Newt did. He was at the far end of the farmer’s row, half-hidden behind a display of heirloom tomatoes, pretending to inspect the stock, but really just waiting for us to notice him.
He hadn’t changed since the last time I’d run him off McKenzie land—crisp suit, hair so well-groomed it looked shellacked, jaw clenched in a way that made his cheekbones pop like fence posts under strain. He stood perfectly still, arms folded behind his back, as if being the most rigid man in the valley was a full-time job.
He waited until we were within striking distance, then made his move. A step forward, a tilt of the head, and a soft, sinister smile—barely there, but enough to send a chill up the spine of any reasonable person.
Newt went rigid at my side. The change was immediate and total, like a wire getting yanked tight enough to snap. His pulse, which I’d been tracking with my thumb on the small of his back, sped up. He almost dropped the bag of scones.
“Don’t,” I said, not loud, but not gentle either.
He nodded, but the panic was radiating off him. I squeezed his hip, grounding him, then angled my body to put myself between Newt and his old man.
James didn’t say anything. He just looked at Newt, then at me, then at Newt again, like he was trying to calculate how the hell we’d ended up here.
I wanted to say something clever. Something that would make him back off, or at least make him question his own authority, but the only words that came to mind were direct and ugly, so I went with those.
“He’s not yours,” I said, loud enough for the booth vendor to overhear. “Not anymore.”
James Bridger’s lips tightened. He flicked his gaze past me, as if looking for backup. All he found was Ransom, leaning against a crate of honey, grinning like he’d just won the lottery.
I hadn’t even noticed my brother until that moment. He winked at me, then at Newt, and sauntered over, hands in his jacket pockets.
“Is there a problem here?” Ransom asked, voice light, eyes deadly.
James took a breath, straightened his jacket, and put on the fake smile he reserved for donors and the press. “None at all,” he said. “Just surprised to see Newton out and about. I was under the impression he was… unwell.”
