I pressed my fingertips lightly against Pudding's back, grounding myself.
You came here to start over. This is not part of the plan.
I was still patching the holes Aaron had left. Still relearning which opinions were mine and which ones I'd borrowed from someone who thought my taste was embarrassing. I had a farm to save and soap to make and?—
“Should we tackle the soap?” The words came out too bright, too forced. “It's getting late.”
Cal studied me for a beat too long, like he could see straight through the deflection.
“If you want to.”
“I do.” I carefully extracted myself from under Pudding, who huffed in protest but didn't wake.
Cal gathered the sleepy puppy against his chest, and I busied myself shaking out the blanket. Anything to avoid looking at him. At that face. At the way his hands cradled Pudding like he was something precious.
“We can put him in the living room.” I folded the blanket with more precision than it required. “He'll be far enough from the soap making to be safe. The couch is pretty comfortable—well, comfortable for a couch that is over two decades old. Walt always said?—”
Stop rambling.
“—that furniture with good bones is worth keeping. So. Yeah. Pudding can sleep there.”
Cal followed me inside, his footsteps quiet behind me. Too quiet. Like he was trying not to spook me.
Which was ridiculous. I wasn't some skittish rescue puppy who needed careful handling.
Except maybe I was, and he knew it, and that made everything worse.
I grabbed a throw blanket from the basket beside the couch, spreading it across the cushions. Cal set Pudding down gently. The puppy circled twice before curling into a tight ball, already drifting back to sleep.
“There.” I straightened, brushing my hands against my overalls. “All set. Perfect. Great.”
Three synonyms for the same thing.Real smooth, Rosie.
Cal stood too close in the small living room. Not actually close—there was plenty of space between us. But it felt close. Like the room had shrunk around us.
“So.” I backed toward the kitchen doorway. “Soap. Let's try to rescue some soap. That's why you're here. For soap making. Not the— Just the soap.”
His mouth quirked, almost imperceptibly. “Just the soap.”
“Exactly.” I spun toward the kitchen, nearly tripping over my own feet.
The kitchen looked worse than I remembered. Sticky residue coated the counter, my abandoned measuring cups scattered across the surface like evidence of a crime scene.
I grabbed a spatula and started scraping hardened soap residue into the trash, working faster than necessary.
“Rosie.”
“Hmm?” I didn't look up.
The silence stretched. I could feel him watching me, but I kept scraping, the spatula making harsh sounds against the counter.
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing's wrong. Just trying to salvage this mess.” I scraped harder at a stubborn spot. “Did you know lye can stain wood? Walt probably knew that. He knew everything about this farm and I know nothing?—”
“Stop.”
I froze mid-scrape.
