Emmy tugs on Harper’s sleeve. “Why does Mommy look like a scarecrow?”
That earns a full-blown wheeze-laugh from Harper, who tries to muffle it with her cookie.
I am trying my hardest not to laugh while Avery squirms.
Avery looks like she wants to melt into the barn floor. “Okay, moving on now.”
“Oh no. This is going in the group chat,” Harper grins, pulling out her phone like she’s preparing evidence for trial. “Hashtag: HayloftHeat.”
“Harper,” Avery hisses.
I hold up both hands. “For the record, I tried to talk her out of it.”
Avery whirls on me. “Liar.”
Emmy blinks between us, wide-eyed. “Did you fall in the hay?”
“Something like that, sweetheart,” Avery mutters, smoothing Emmy’s hair and trying to redirect the chaos.
Harper just smirks and tosses me the broom. “Well, cowboy, since you’re already dressed for manual labor... how about helping us finish sweeping the kitchen?
And to you miss Avery, you and me have some catching up to do apparently”
I groan. “I' will sweep the kitchen only if you promise never to mention this again.”
“Not a chance,” Harper says, already backing toward the house with Emmy skipping beside her. “You two better pray there’s not a straw shortage in town.”
Chapter seven
Locked Doors and Family Secrets
Cash
We’re in the west barn, the older one tucked behind the paddock and barely touched since Avery's dad passed. It’s not the main barn we use, or the feed barn where the hands rotate shifts. This one sits a little removed from the rest of Painted Sky, quiet, brooding.
The kind of place built to hold old ghosts, old tractors and lockboxes. The barn smells like secrets.
Not the fresh kind that stir in the hay or cling to Avery’s skin after she’s been working the fences. No, this is the kind of secret that seeps through old wood, curls into corners, and waits. It’s quiet out here, too quiet, which should feel like peace after the chaos of the last few days.
But peace and I don’t have the best track record. The last time I thought I had a moment of calm, it was the morning before my old man skipped town. Since then, quiet feels more like a warning than a blessing, like something’s about to break.
Avery trails a few steps behind me, boots crunching over packed dirt, her fingers brushing along the dusty edge of the stalls. I don’t know why I brought her out here. Hell, maybe I just needed an excuse to keep her close after what happened in the hayloft.
That moment, that heat, is still clinging to me like sweat, and the last thing I need is another distraction.
And yet, here she is.
"You sure we’re allowed back here?" she chuckles, nodding toward the back of the barn.
“I’ve been working this ranch longer than anyone else. I thought I'd seen every corner of it, top to bottom. I stay just down the hill in the bunkhouse with the rest of the hands, nothing fancy, but it’s always been home. And yet somehow, there is corners, I've never looked in.” I mutter.
Her eyes flick to mine, all fire and curiosity. “You sound like you’ve been curious.”
I grunt but don’t answer.
The door is tucked behind a broken feed trough and an old tack cabinet no one’s opened in years. I’d noticed the warped frame before but never had the time, or the interest, to force it open.
Jack used to keep things off-limits with nothing more than a look. That look kept everyone at arm’s length, even me. Especially me.
