CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Abilene
Tuesday
The thing about living alone is that you learn the language of your own house.
You learn what every creak means. What every pipe groan means. Which floorboard complains, and which one screams like it’s auditioning for a horror movie.
You learn the rhythm of your space so completely that anything outside that rhythm feels wrong.
So when there’s a knock at my front door, sharp and decisive, my entire body jolts as if I’ve been caught doing something illegal.
Which is ridiculous, because the most illegal thing I’m doing right now is arguing with a roll of twine.
“Okay,” I mutter to myself, hands full of market stall carnage. “Okay. You are fine. You are a normal adult. Adults answer doors.”
The second knock comes, polite but firm.
I glance down at my kitchen table, which looks like a honey tornado hit it. Jars lined up in neat rows, labels stacked as tiny paper accusations, beeswax candles waiting to be wrapped, aclipboard with an order list from the general store in town, and in the center of it all…
My grandmother’s journal.
Open. Watching me.
Beside it: the letters.
Two envelopes, both plain, both too quiet, both somehow loud enough to make my chest feel tight when I look at them.
I should be focusing on those.
I should be focusing on the clues, the cryptic lines, thelook where she worked when she didn’t want to be interruptedandlook where you learned patienceand the way it all feels like someone is trying to lead me by the hand through my own life.
Instead, I’ve been focusing on…
Other things.
Jesse’s hands. Jesse’s mouth…
I clear my throat, as if that will clear my brain too, and I set the twine down before it becomes a weapon. I wipe my hands on my apron and smooth my braid like it hasn’t been smoothed eight times already.
Then I go to the door and open it.
And for half a second, my mind doesn’t compute what I’m seeing.
Wyatt Tucker is on my porch.
Not in his vet clinic version. Scrubs, tired eyes, that faint “I’ve been peed on by something” energy.
Not in his cabin version. Rumpled, barefoot, looking weirdly vulnerable as he spoke softly about his parents and chamomile and the way steadiness can be a kind of love.
This is… Wyatt in the wild.
Jeans. Work boots. A jacket. Hair still slightly damp like he showered and then immediately regretted it. Glasses sitting straight on his nose for once, which makes him look more put-together than usual.
He’s holding a small paper bag with a yellow ribbon looped around the handles. Like he’s at my door to deliver a present and not to give me a heart attack.
“Hi,” he says.
