She picked it up, turning it between her fingers. Beside the pig sat a tiny cow and goat. Dana must have snuck the other two out of her pocket when Mia wasn’t looking.
“Good luck,” she murmured to the trio. “Yeah, I’ll take it.”
She stared at the trio; the sunlight caught their glossy, smiling faces. They made the barn feel lighter for just a moment.
Mia sighed. She needed all the good luck she could get. She was used to hard work. But add in maintaining a farm, a new barn and her dad, and sometimes it was overwhelming. Although she had her work, Roy helped when he wasn’t being ornery, the new barn was coming along, and she had her dad. It was all good. Or as good as it was going to get.
She grabbed a sponge and got to work, her shoulders easing for the first time all day.
CHAPTER 19
Caleb had been irritated,more than he wanted to admit, when Mia shut him down this morning. It wasn’t about the barn. That could wait. It was the way she brushed him off—curt, like he was just another problem she didn’t have time for.
And that stung.
He honestly thought they were getting somewhere.
It had been slow. Months of circling each other, keeping things carefully on the surface. When he started building the barn, he hadn’t been looking for more. But the more time he spent with her, the more he liked her. She was hardworking and smart. The women in his friends’ group liked her, and that wasn’t nothing. Family was important to her in a way he understood, and she carried not only the weight of her business but the farm and taking care of her father. That kind of loyalty hit close to home.
And no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, she was sexy as hell.
Somewhere along the way, liking her had turned into something deeper. Something he probably shouldn’t have let himself want. And still, he’d started to believe she felt it too.
Caleb told himself to drop it. To forget it.
Still, part of him replayed the scene anyway. Her distracted tone. The way she hadn’t even met his eyes.
The sudden unwelcome thought landed hard. Maybe she didn’t see him at all.
By the time he turned onto the sand road leading into Cedar Run Preserve, he’d put that thought away. His jaw clenched as the truck rattled over ruts that could swallow a tire. Palmetto scrub pressed in close, tall grasses lining the edges of the road. Ranger lifted his head from the passenger seat, ears twitching, tail thumping once.
“Yeah, buddy,” Caleb muttered, reaching over to scratch his ears. “It’ll be fun. You’ll see.”
The farther he drove, the quieter it got.
He parked in the small clearing, stepped out of his truck, boots hitting soft sand. Ranger hopped down beside him, his nose already to the ground. Caleb took a deep breath. The air was clean and dry, sharp with pine and damp earth. The wind blew gently through the mixed pine and cypress. Ford and Nate were already there.
“Dex, Linc, and Liam will be here shortly,” said Ford, leaning against his truck. He jerked a thumb toward the bed. “I have all the tents and most of the gear. We’ll have to carry it down to the water. Nate and I already hauled the canoes to the water.”
Caleb nodded and took a deep breath, letting the place settle him. The next two days were Ford’s unofficial GearUp test run. No pressure. No schedules. Just men, gear and time to think, whether he wanted to or not.
GearUp was Ford’s project. It was an outdoor shop offering everything from handmade knives, hand-tied flies and fishing rods to guided trips. With Nate on board, it had expanded into a full-blown wilderness adventure. This weekend was about testing new gear, seeing what worked, what didn’t. Nate wantedto map a few backcountry routes, and in between they would fish and eat what they caught.
Another truck barreled down the road in a cloud of dust and skidded to a stop.
The rest of their party had arrived.
“About time,” Ford called.
Liam leaned out the window. “You miss us already?”
“It’s only a short hike to the water,” said Ford, shouldering a pack like it weighed nothing.
Liam snorted. “Says the man who thinks two miles trekking through scrublands and ankle-deep muck counts as a casual stroll.”
Caleb grinned as he hefted his pack. Ranger circled once, then fell into step beside him. The familiar weight grounded him. Out here, problems didn’t vanish, but they stopped taking over his mind. No cell service. No interruptions, just friends and nature.
For the first time since morning, the tightness in his chest eased.
