“Laugh.”
The word hung between us.
I didn’t know what to do with it. At the station, Liam was always cracking jokes, always trying to get a reaction from the crew. I’d never laughed at any of them. Never let myself be charmed by his easy humor, his self-deprecating stories, his attempts to lighten the mood after hard calls.
I’d kept my distance. Kept my walls up. It was safer that way.
But sitting here in the dark, something had shifted. Something I wasn’t ready to examine.
The silence settled back, easier now. Liam tipped his head toward the sky again.
“My grandmother used to say you could tell the weather by how the horses slept,” he said, gaze drifting toward the pasture. “Lying down meant rain was coming. Standing meant clear skies.”
“Is that true?”
“Not even a little bit.” He smiled at the memory. “Buck laid down for three straight days once and it didn’t rain a drop. But she believed it, so we all pretended. Checked on the horses every night, reported back like we were weather forecasters.”
“That’s sweet.”
“She was wrong about a lot of things. But she loved this place.” His voice softened. “She had a way of making you feel like you belonged to it—not the other way around. Like the land remembered you, and you were just returning the favor.”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure I’d ever belonged anywhere. Every place I’d lived had been temporary—something to pass through until it was time to leave again. I’d never let myself imagine staying.
“Thank you,” I said quietly after a moment. “For today. For her.”
Liam shrugged, deflecting. “She’s a good kid.”
“She is.” I hesitated, then added, “She hasn’t smiled like that in two years. Not since our mom died.”
He turned to me. Our eyes met in the darkness, and something passed between us—recognition, maybe. Or the beginning of something neither of us was brave enough to name.
“She just needed someone to be patient with her,” he said softly. “That’s all any of us need, really.”
The moment stretched. Heavy. Full.
This is working, I thought. Maybe this could be real.
I shut the thought down immediately.
But it didn’t stay shut.
I lay in the guest room, staring at the ceiling, sleep impossible.
The day replayed behind my eyes. Mia’s face when Honey took the apple. Her laughter at dinner—bright, unguarded. The way Liam had looked at me on the porch, like I was something worth looking at.
I was falling for him.
I could feel it happening, like slipping on ice—that moment when you know you’re going down and there’s nothing to grab. The ground rushing up. The certainty of impact.
It terrified me more than Todd ever could.
Because Todd was an enemy I understood. A monster I knew how to fight. I’d spent years learning his patterns, his weaknesses, his tells. I knew how to survive him.
But this? Wanting someone. Needing them. Letting them matter.
I didn’t have armor for this. I’d never needed it before.
I’d built my entire life on not wanting things. Wanting was dangerous. Wanting meant losing. Every time I’d let myself want something, it had been taken away—my mother’s love, twisted by addiction; my childhood, stolen by Todd; every place I’d tried to make into a home, ripped away before I could settle in.
