And, most surprising of all, the farm was solvent. Not just surviving, but turning a profit for the first time since the Bush administration.
A year ago, I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d written it in ink and made me sign in blood. But here we were, living the dream. Or at least my version of it.
The door behind me creaked open and I didn’t flinch. I’d unlearned the flinch. It had taken a solid six months, but I’d replaced it with something better—a bone-deep awareness of who I was and who was coming for me.
Knox stepped out, shirtless, coffee in one hand and the other rubbing the sleep from his face. His hair was a disaster, beard three days old, and he looked at me like he hadn’t seen anything better in his life.
Sometimes I wondered if he realized he was still staring at me that way, or if it was just a reflex now, the same way he checked the weather or counted fence posts as he drove.
“You’re up early,” he said, voice like gravel and honey.
I shrugged. “Sunrise doesn’t wait for the weak.”
He grunted, which was McKenzie for “that’s my boy,” and crossed the porch in three strides. I felt his hand come down on my shoulder, heavy and warm, and instead of bracing for the impact, I just leaned back into it, let him steer me until my spine was flush with his chest.
It never got old, the way he fit around me—like a straightjacket or a life preserver, depending on the day. I could feel the solid weight of him, the slow, measured breathing against my neck. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
The first time he’d touched me from behind, months ago, I’d stiffened so hard I nearly chipped a tooth. Now, it was a comfort, a promise, a reminder that I was safe even when I wasn’t looking.
My body had learned him by heart.
The porch groaned under our combined weight, but the view was worth the risk of structural collapse. We stood like that for a long time, just taking in the morning.
After a while, I felt him nuzzle the side of my head. “You know what day it is?” he murmured, lips close enough to tickle.
I did. “Sunday. That means pie.”
He snorted. “You’re such a child.”
“And you’re the one who keeps sneaking whipped cream before breakfast.”
He tightened his arms, a quick squeeze. “Don’t rat me out. You know how Ma gets.”
Ma’s pies were legendary, but her temper when it came to kitchen discipline was the stuff of cautionary tales. She’d banned Ransom from the kitchen for life after he’d eaten a raw apple crisp off the cooling rack and blamed it on the cat.
I sipped my coffee, hiding my smile. “I won’t tell. If you let me lick the bowl.”
He made a low, approving noise. “We’ll see.”
The peace of the moment was interrupted by a crunch of tires on gravel. I turned my head, and Knox’s chin settled on my shoulder, both of us watching the approach.
It was the Sunday ritual—extended McKenzies arriving for breakfast, three generations of cousins and hangers-on, each in their preferred mode of transport.
The convoy usually started with Bodean’s battered pickup, which always lost a hubcap at the bend by the river and had to be reassembled in the yard. That was followed by Aunt Georgia’s old Subaru, bright blue and driven at speeds that terrified the local wildlife.
This time, Bodean brought a passenger—his latest “project,” a skinny city boy with dark-rimmed glasses and the haunted look of someone who hadn’t realized rural Oregon meant “no Starbucks within thirty miles.” The kid clutched a foil-covered casserole to his chest like it was the only thing keeping him alive.
I shot Knox a look. “Ten says he lasts a week.”
“Give him three days. Bo’s taste is worse than his judgment.”
We watched the trucks and cars roll in, parking haphazardly under the elms. Kids exploded from the backseats, chasing each other across the yard. I recognized most of them; they’d all grown two inches and acquired new scars since the last gathering.
Ma stepped onto the porch, apron already on, and started directing traffic with her trademark blend of scolding and love.
I set my mug on the rail and stretched, feeling the satisfying pop of vertebrae. Knox kept his arm around my waist as we went inside. We were a unit now—inseparable, indivisible, the kind of team that people envied or hated, depending on how often we beat them at horseshoes.
If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be waking up on a McKenzie farm, not just alive, but in charge of the books and making plans for the next five years, I’d have called you a liar and then passed out from anxiety. But here, in the golden hour between chaos and breakfast, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
