Chapter 3
A Week Later
Heat pressed in beforeKyla swung her boot clear of Marisol’s pickup.The air felt thick with hay and burned brisket from two aisles over.It moved close around her collar and dampened her shoulders before she even hit the ground.She dropped to the gravel, rolled her neck once, and hauled the folding table out of the backseat.
The cooler took more work.Her arms stretched wide and her elbows ached while she wrestled it down.She gritted her teeth until the plastic hit the ground.For one second, she missed having kitchen runners.This market did not come with help.
She snapped the table legs open and set it upright.She checked the latch that always fought her before she found her place in the narrow strip of shade between the honey vendor and the hand-dyed wool.The morning sun already bit through the thin white canopy.She hooked her thumb beneath the cooler latch, lifted the lid, and watched steam rise from the test tamales.They remained warm from the stove.
To her left, the honey vendor’s grandkids lined up plastic bear jars and argued in a soft local drawl.The wool lady had already planted herself on the other side.She gave Kyla one brisk nod and a sharp look that sized her up as an outsider.
Kyla met the stare without blinking.She set out her inventory in silence.One hundred tamales.A small batch of mango-habanero sauce.
A hand-printed sign that readNew!Pork or Veggie $3.
One roll of singles.Three stacks of change.She never had enough napkins.
Sweat gathered at the nape of her neck while she stacked foil-wrapped tamales on the cutting board.She pressed them into a pile so none of them tipped.A faint shake moved through her fingers, but she blamed caffeine.
The knot low in her stomach refused a name.She checked her apron, pulled her shirt down over her jeans, and adjusted the fabric over her hips.Those extra pounds did not make her soft.They gave her leverage.
Today she would belong here if she sold out and kept her chin up while people heard the city in her vowels.No one needed to know she had been awake since four.She had spent hours testing ratios and tracing the scent of chiles through the farmhouse kitchen until memory put Lola near her shoulder.
New town.New name.No one handed her a place.She built one and then fought to keep it.No Montana irritation with opinions about shirts would rescue her from that work.
She slid both hands beneath the cutting board to center it.Behind her, one of the honey twins let out a squeal and darted into the aisle with a face sticky from syrup.A grin came to her mouth before she could stop it, but it vanished the moment she looked up.
Titus leaned against a fence post twenty feet down the row with his boots crossed at the ankle.He was shirtless.He had not even thrown a shirt over his shoulder.Sun ran over his chest and picked out every line ranch work had put there.
His arms crossed over his torso.His face gave away nothing, but his attention stayed fixed on her as though the market existed only to deliver this view.
Her stomach dropped.Nerves ran through her thighs, and her tongue caught against her teeth.Something beneath her ribs pulled tight.He treated clothing like a suggestion whenever the day turned hot.
She had seen how the market grandmothers stared, but he was not looking at anyone else now.His eyes stayed on her.One side of his mouth lifted in a patient wait to see if she would color under the attention.
She wondered if he did it on purpose.Every aisle she had crossed that morning, he had surfaced.He appeared near the goat cheese booth and again in the produce tent.Now he stood where he could see her first table and every inch of this attempt to make a place for herself.
Her hands turned clumsy, but she kept moving.She straightened her sign and nudged the napkins into the center of the table.She acted like nothing about him pressed between her skin and the rest of the world.
She frowned at the sweat slipping down her elbow and blamed the weather.When she checked again, his gaze had not shifted.That hunger sat there in plain sight.Open air gave her nowhere to hide.Kyla squared herself toward her food and ordered her pulse to settle.
She did not care how he looked with sun on his skin.She was here to sell.She wanted to prove that she belonged.
The canopy did nothing for the feeling that slid down her spine.That came from Titus Brooks in full daylight.She pretended to fuss with the sauce labels while the sound of boots crossed the gravel toward her.Even before he reached her, the air changed.
Titus carried the scent of woodsmoke and sage.The whole day drew into sharper focus when he stepped close enough to block the sun from her cutting board.
