She drove away.
I stood in the driveway and pressed my fingers to my lips. I could still feel her skin. The warmth of her forehead. The flutterof her pulse that close, that real, that mine for three seconds before she took it back.
In the barn, a carrot wrapper with horse stickers was still on the floor outside Starlight's stall. I picked it up. Put it in my pocket. Evidence — that they'd been here, that somewhere in the accumulation of Saturdays, something was being built that I didn't have the blueprints for but could feel taking shape.
Momma appeared on the porch. "Good day?"
"Yeah, Momma." I was still looking at the place where her taillights had been. "The best day."
She went inside. The screen door closed behind her. The last light turned the dust gold, and I stood in my family's driveway with a carrot wrapper in my pocket and the warmth of her still on my mouth and the feeling that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Chapter 10
Callie
The deposition was supposed to end at four. It didn't. Opposing counsel kept fishing, the mediator called a recess, and my phone was at twelve percent.
Maisie's school pickup was at five-fifteen. It was now four-fifty. I was forty minutes from Copper Creek in no traffic, and this was not no traffic. Savannah was in the room with me. Bev was across the table. Theo was at the office but didn't have a car seat.
I had one person on my list.
One person I'd put there myself, on a porch, six days ago, while his shoulder burned warm against mine and the evening turned everything gold.
I stepped into the hallway, phone at nine percent, and called Clay Blackwood.
He picked up on the first ring. Not the second. The first.
"Callie."
"I need —" My voice cracked. I pressed my forehead against the cold hallway wall. "Maisie. School. I can't get there.Savannah's with me and the deposition ran over, and my phone is dying and I —"
"I've got her."
No hesitation. No questions about logistics or timelines or whether I'd tried anyone else first.
"The pickup code is —"
"Butterfly. Maisie told me three weeks ago. Unsolicited. She also told me her teacher's name is Mrs. Hannigan, and she thinks Mrs. Hannigan has a secret boyfriend because she smiles at her phone too much."
I laughed. It came out wet and ragged and not really a laugh at all. "Clay —"
"Go finish your deposition. I'll have her."
"I don't know when I'll be done."
"Doesn't matter. We'll be at your place. I'll figure out dinner."
My phone flashed the eight percent warning. "Thank you. I — thank you."
"Callie." His voice dropped. Warm. Steady. "This is what the list is for."
The line didn't go dead because I hung up. It went dead because my phone died, right there in the courthouse hallway, and I stood with it pressed against my ear for three seconds after, breathing in the silence where his voice had been.
Then I went back in. Did my job. Held the line.
I drove home with my hands tight on the wheel and my heart somewhere in the vicinity of my throat, picturing every worst-case scenario. I gripped the wheel tighter. Breathed. Counted exits.
I pulled into the driveway. Clay's truck was there. The porch light was on.
