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“So, Sawyer, have you been seeing anyone lately?” Sandy asked.
Sawyer was eternally grateful that he hadn’t been about to take a bite of his dinner because he definitely would have choked on it. It took all of his self-control not to shoot a sideways glance at Josie, who once again was eating with the determination of a soldier under a time limit.
“Uh, no,” he said, trying and most likely failing to act natural. “No one at the moment.”
“Hence the continuous string of random dates?” asked Luke, and Sandy slapped him on the arm.
“What?!” he cried. “I’m not poking at him. I’m just clarifying.”
“Sure you are.”
“I was trying to be nice,” Luke said sincerely.
“I know,” Sawyer said, throwing him a lifeline, and Luke nodded gratefully.
“What about you, Josie?” Luke asked, teasing her across the table. “Any dates lately?”
She sighed, giving him a scathing look, and Luke just grinned even wider while Sandy rolled her eyes. So this was clearly a long-standing topic of debate between them.
“See, Sawyer, you haven’t been here for a while,” Josie said, turning to face him. Sawyer froze, not expecting to have her attention on him so completely while he was currently trying to pretend that he barely knew she existed.
“It’s not exactly the most populous place in the world, Willow Ridge,” she continued. “And dating isn’t really high up on my list of priorities anyway, but your sweet baby brother thinks that it’s justhilariousthat the same three old widowers that frequent the diner every day of their lives think that they have a chance with me.”
She said it all with such a dry, deadpan look that Sawyer couldn’t help but start to laugh. Meanwhile, Luke was pretty much cackling over his dinner and Sandy was shaking her head at the lot of them. Sawyer was just happy to have an excuse to let out some of the awkward tension that had slowly been building up in him throughout the course of the meal, when a few minutes ago he’d been ready to explode like a powder keg at any moment.
“Uh, well…” Sawyer asked, determined not to notice the glint in Josie’s eye as she kept on looking at him. “Do you need a big scary football player to come in and tell them to stop?”
Josie’s face softened into a smile. She knew that despite the disguise of a joke, Sawyer meant every word. Luke, however, started protesting.
“No, please don’t. There’s only so much entertainment we get here these days.”
“You’re all ridiculous,” Sandy muttered, like a mother hen.
“I don’t need you to fend off these fellas, no, but thank you,” Josie said, turning back to her meal. “They’re very sweet and just lonely, and I’m pretty sure Mr. Wilkins has dementia, so I don’t hold it against him for asking every day.”
“Poor thing,” Sandy said with a shake of his head. “I discount his meals to whatever he managed to bring in his pockets that day. I’m amazed he can still walk the three blocks to the diner.”
“Luke’s food is probably the only thing keeping him steaming ahead at this point,” Josie added.
“Thank you,” Luke said, a hand over his heart. “It’s good to hear you finally saying something nice to me, Josie.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Yeah, I really wouldn’t,” Sandy chimed in.
With the claustrophobic atmosphere shattered, the rest of the dinner passed without incident and Sawyer was able to relax his shoulders at least a fraction of an inch, only occasionally bumping knees with Josie under the table and forcing himself to resist the urge to reach out and lay a hand on her thigh.
As they finished up and were clearing the table, Sawyer made a mental note to himself to, at some point, tell Josie what a phenomenal actress she could be.
Sawyer had taken to sitting on the porch steps in the evenings, sometimes late into the night, like some old-man farmer, straight out of a stereotype. All he needed was a rocking chair and some chewing tobacco and he’d fit the part perfectly. But hecould understand the appeal of it. It was a place where you could be quiet and still, just like the world around you, nothing louder than the buzz of crickets. You could just let go for a minute or two and let nothing matter.
When he’d first come back, all of this emptiness, this silence, had been overwhelming. He had hated every second of it, stuck with his own thoughts and fidgeting hands, not knowing how to justsitstillanymore. But here he was, looking forward to being outside by himself for just a little bit each night. Had he really changed that much in such a short amount of time?
The door creaked open and shut behind him and Josie stepped out onto the porch, now wearing her cowboy boots with her strappy dress, and Sawyer allowed himself the luxury of letting his eyes roam over every inch of her now that there was no one else looking on. She smiled down at him, saying nothing, just lifting up the corner of her mouth, her eyes bright even in the pale light of the moon and stars. Still silent, she tilted her head in afollow megesture and left the porch, making her way to her truck.
Sawyer followed. Of course he did. If she asked him to, he would probably follow her to the ends of the earth and back. Josie climbed in the driver’s seat and started the engine while Sawyer folded himself into the passenger’s side and, still without a word, she started driving. He didn’t really understand where they might be going, especially when Josie turned off the main driveway and headed out into the fields, the truck rocking and rolling over patches of uneven ground. Mostly, he was just thinking how much more comfortable it was to be stretched out in the passenger seat of Josie’s truck than squashed up into his sports car. He didn’t even attempt to ask what they were doing,and Josie didn’t explain. They didn’t talk at all, and somehow it was peaceful and perfect, like a bubble frozen in time.
Then, when they got to the last field of the property and, under the ghostly moonlight that made everything shades of silver and gray, Sawyer could see the line of trees that hid the creek from view, he understood.
