“As if I ever needed to be quiet.”
He wiped his hands on a rag. “We’ll see.”
“You’re a good handyman. What would I do without you?” I feigned a Southern accent.
“I think we both know you’d turn this place into a whirlwind of controlled chaos,” he said, voice low but certain.
I shook my head and stuck my tongue out at him. “Would not,” I shot back, feeling twelve again.
“So,” Austin looked at me seriously, and my heart dropped. What now? “I’m thinking,” he paused for dramatic effect, “dinner and a movie on the couch, followed by copious amounts of ice cream and popcorn.” His serious face stayed firmly in place.
“Hmm.” I pretended to think, tapping my chin. Somewhere in the distance, Sherlock complained like an old neighbor, and the wind died down for the night. “If we must,” I answered, trying and failing to hold back a smile. Of course I wanted ice cream and popcorn, but I had to eat dinner first. Then I was willing to suffer through it. I laughed at my own thoughts.
Austin had apparently been planning this, because just then, Mike showed up with pizza. I stopped by the kitchen shelf for some paper plates and napkins. Aunt Penny’s recipe book leaned in its usual spot, the spine cracked from years of gravy and stubbornness. When I opened it, a slip of paper slid free, yellowed at the edges, her looping handwriting unmistakable:
Choose love, and home will follow.
I read it twice, then tucked it back into the book.
In the living room, Austin was pulling out the dinner trays. He looked up, caught my gaze, and nodded.
I stepped into the living room and handed him a napkin and plate. “For the pizza.”
“Thanks.” He hesitated. “Everything okay?”
“Yep,” I said, but a part of me was still working on it. Austin was a trained and skilled Navy SEAL, and I didn’t know how long his training could be held back before it resurfaced again.
He nodded once, accepting that as truth enough.
When he turned back to the TV, the pizza on the coffee table, it looked so mundane and domestic that a smile touched my lips. I touched the pendant at my throat, fastening it for the first time since the fight. The compass settled warm against my skin.
The mountains shifted colors again, trading blue for amber. Weather, like people here, changed its mind often. I figured I could, too.
Chapter 18
One Is the Loneliest Number
Austin
October blew in without ceremony. Montana had decided overnight that fall was here. The mornings bit a little now; frost rimmed the grass, silvering the pasture fences. Montana does seasons, but it never commits—it just changes its mind whenever it wants.
I heard Milly humming in the kitchen, the sound drifting down the hall into the office where I was buried in piles of receipts. The tune was soft and absentminded, one she’d known since childhood. A tune that came quickly and without thought. I lingered at the doorway of the office long enough to hear a few bars, the melody from history, a whimsical sound that warmed the house beyond the fire in the fireplace.
We were still on shaky ground, but we were rebuilding, laying new footing over the cracks. My training and instincts shadowed every move, arguing with the promise I’d made to keep her informed. A duel of habit and heart—familiar and foreign at the same time.
The grandfather clock in the main hall chimed six times, the sound reminding me it was time for a barn check. Milly’s horse had figured out how to unhook its latch, a trick that needed solving before winter.
The yard stayed quiet and still as I stepped out onto the porch. Sherlock and the goats hugged the fence line, and the chickens clucked low in their pen, pecking at the ground for hidden treasure. I hugged my jacket closed and zipped it, walking the perimeter out of habit, boots snapping twigs, cold biting through my collar. The air smelled of wood smoke from the chimney and about half a dozen stoves up the road—a hint that Montana was just teasing, and real cold wasn’t far off.
By the time I circled back, the porch steps complained under my weight. My boot prints were still visible in the frost. Inspector brushed against my leg as I opened the door.
“Come on, old boy,” I said, holding it for him. He sauntered in like he owned the place.
The fire I’d lit this morning still crackled in the hearth, throwing lazy light across the old pine boards. The coffee pot hissed, promising the rustic, dark bitterness I practically lived on. I poured a mug, took a swallow, and let the warmth take over.
“Hey, Austin.” Milly breezed past, calm as ever. She topped off her cup, checked her watch, and darted toward her room, leaving half a mug on the counter—lipstick faint along the rim. The warmth was gone, but the imprint of her was there, and it made my chest ache. I touched it without thinking, then pushed it away. I missed the mornings when we traded quips and she accused me of reorganizing her sticky notes just to watch her twitch, then pretended not to smile.
The kitchen table was buried under camera logs and printouts. I flattened one sheet, read through the week’s patrol notes, and penciled new times in the margin. The house felt lived in again but too neat—our truce measured in straightened stacks and polite silences. What I missed was the noise, the teasing, the laughing. The chaos she wrapped around me and pulled me into.A comfortable free-for-all she tried to organize that made this home.
