* * * *
Macon could turn a blueprint into a love letter. I’d watched him work before, at the shop or out on the barn steps, but never like this—sleeves rolled to the elbow, pencil hovering in his grip as if the tip might spark if it touched the paper wrong.
The kitchen table was littered with crumpled sketches, graph paper squares and triangles, magazine cutouts marked up with my increasingly deranged notes: dog doors, porches, woodstoves, hidden alcoves for reading.
He was blocking out the main floor when I drifted up behind him, mug in hand, and leaned over his shoulder. My stomach brushed the back of his arm, and for a second he went statue-still, as if the weight of me was some kind of blessing.
“You’re drawing the mudroom too big,” I said, nodding at the far corner of the page. “We don’t need a football field for boots.”
He glanced up at me, then flicked the pencil’s eraser over the wall in question. “You ever see Jojo come in from the chicken run? The man is ninety percent mud, ten percent regret.”
I snorted. “Still too big. We need a bigger pantry. For, you know, all my jam hoarding.”
He muttered, “Priorities,” but erased and re-drew the line, moving it in three precise increments. When he was satisfied, he slid the plan toward me, watching my face for approval. The paper was already soft around the edges, smudged from his thumbs.
“This look right?” he asked.
I stared at the sketch, at the house that wasn’t real yet but could be, if we just kept wanting it hard enough. I traced my finger along the front porch, around the bend where the cottonwoods would block the afternoon sun. I could already picture the swing, the cheap metal chairs, the goats harassing anyone foolish enough to eat outside.
“It’s perfect,” I said, and for once, I wasn’t lying.
He looked at me like he was trying to memorize my face.
Then my phone buzzed, vibrating itself across the table. I caught it before it hit the floor, and saw the subject line:“URGENT: Call Requested by Harrison Steele.”The body of the email was short and sharp, just like my father.“Video meeting tomorrow. Mandatory attendance. Details attached.”
My stomach dropped. I’d known it was coming, but the cold in my chest said otherwise.
Macon read my face before I could hide it. “Him?” he asked, voice so quiet it barely broke the air.
I nodded, flicked open the message, scanned the details. “Tomorrow morning. He’s not even in the country—he wants to Zoom from Madrid.” I laughed, a sound with no humor in it. “He never requests anything. He only demands.”
Macon reached over and closed his hand around the back of my neck, warm and steady. “We’ll be ready.”
I met his eyes, desperate for the certainty I saw there. “What if he—?”
He squeezed, gentle but insistent. “Doesn’t matter what he says. Or what he tries to pull. We have options. We haveresources. Hell, we have a lawyer with a mean streak and a taste for blood.”
I tried to smile. It wobbled at the edges.
He let go and tapped the plan with his pencil. “Tomorrow, after you talk to him, we’ll go to the spring. Put a stake in the ground. Make it official.”
That helped. The idea of a future that couldn’t be negotiated away. I nodded, then scrolled to the bottom of the message and clicked “accept.” The confirmation pinged back instantly—Steele efficiency, always.
“I need air,” I said, pushing up from the chair.
He started to follow, but I stopped him with a look. “I just need a minute. Alone.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Yell if you need me.”
I stepped out onto the porch. The world had gone blue and gold, the horizon bleeding out into night, the stars just starting to pinprick the dark.
The porch swing was occupied. Jojo sat there, feet tucked up, a bundle wrapped in flannel cradled to his chest. The baby was tiny, barely more than a rumor of a person, all fuzzy hair and pink fists.
I didn’t want to disturb them, but Jojo patted the space beside him without looking up.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.
I shook my head and sat, the swing groaning under my weight. For a minute, neither of us spoke. The silence was easy, threaded with the soft noises of the baby breathing and the wind in the cottonwoods.
