On the bruise I forgot to hide.
I lower my gaze to my coffee before she can say anything.
“Well,” Penny says gently, “it’s nice to meet you, Lexy.”
Summer appears then, setting a coffee and a muffin in front of her.
“On the house,” she says then looks between us. “You know each other?”
“Yes,” Penny says, slipping into the chair across from me. “Lexy’s Dex’s new bartender.”
Summer’s brows knit for a second, then her expression softens when she looks at me again.
“Well then,” she says, “welcome to Lander.”
“Thank you.”
“Dex is my brother-in-law,” she adds.
I blink. “Yours too?” I ask Penny.
She laughs. “Yep. Sisters-in-law and best friends.”
She leans back slightly. “The Hawthornes are… a lot.”
Summer snorts softly.
“Six kids,” Penny continues. “Cas is the oldest, my husband. Ethan’s next, Summer’s husband. They just got married last year.”
I smile before I can stop myself.
“Then there’s Dex and his twin, Jude,” she says.
I think of the quiet man at the bar. Same face. Different weight behind it.
“And Jace and Grace. Grace is at the University of Wyoming.”
“My little brother goes there,” I say before I can stop myself.
Both of them look at me more closely now.
“Oh?” Penny asks. “What’s his name?”
“Mason. He started in September. Football scholarship.”
Penny’s eyes light up. “No way. They might know each other.”
“It’s a big campus,” I say quickly, lifting one shoulder, trying to sound casual even as something tightens in my chest. “They might not.”
I hope they don’t.
Because Mason can’t know I ran.
That I don’t have a home.
That I’m sitting here, holding onto borrowed warmth, wrapping my hands around a cup of kindness I didn’t earn.
CHAPTER 3
