I knew the thing.
"She informed me that she needed a snack immediately or she would 'perish' — her word — so we stopped for apple slices and peanut butter."
I laughed. It came out shaky but real. "That sounds about right."
I put my fork down. The plate was almost empty. My hands had stopped shaking. My eyes hadn't. Every time I blinked, I sawthe boots — his and hers, side by side — and my eyes burned around something I couldn't name.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked.
He stopped. The humor left his face all at once.
"Because I want to," he said. Simply. Like it was that obvious. Like it should have always been that obvious.
He stood. Came around the table. And instead of standing over me, he crouched. Lowered himself until he was looking up at me, forearms on his thighs, his face level with mine. Eye to eye. The way you'd approach something easily startled.
"Because you called and I answered," he said. "That's it, Callie. That's the whole thing."
My hand moved before I decided to move it. Up from my lap, across the space between us, to his face. My fingers touched his jaw — the dark stubble there, rough under my fingertips, warm — and he went completely still. Not pulling away. Not leaning in. Just letting me.
I traced the line of his jaw to his chin. His lips parted. My thumb found them — the lower one, the full one — and I drew it across slowly, feeling the shape of his mouth the way a blind person reads a word. His breath caught. A muscle jumped in his jaw under my palm, but he didn't move. He stayed crouched in front of my kitchen chair with my hand on his face and his eyes on mine, and he waited.
"Stay," I said. My thumb still on his mouth. "Not because I need rescuing. Because I don't want you to leave."
His eyes searched mine. Left, right, left — the same way I'd searched his on the hilltop.
"Yeah," he said. Against my thumb. I felt the word more than heard it. "I can stay."
We moved to the couch. He sat first, arm along the back, and I sat beside him — close but not touching. The lamp was on low. Down the hall, Maisie's nightlight glowed under her door. Thehouse settled around us the way houses do at night, ticking and humming, making room.
"Tell me something," I said. "Something I don't know."
He turned his head on the cushion. "Like what?"
"Like — what were you afraid of as a kid?"
He thought about it. "Tornadoes. Momma had a storm closet, and every time the sirens went off, I'd carry Maggie down the stairs because she was too little to go fast enough. I was nine. I thought if I didn't get her there in time, it was my fault."
"You've been carrying people since you were nine."
He shrugged once, unbothered. "Runs in the family. What about you?"
"Disappointing people." I pulled my knees up. Wrapped my arms around them. "I was the kid who cried if I got a B-plus. Not because of the grade. Because of the look on my mother's face."
He was quiet. His hand found the back of the couch behind my head, fingertips just grazing my hair. Not pulling me in. Just there.
"What's your favorite sound?" He asked.
"Maisie's laugh. The big one — the one where she throws her whole body into it, and you think she might tip over." I paused. "And you? Favorite sound?"
"Rain on a tin roof. We had one at my grandmother's house in Hill Country. I used to lie in bed and just listen." I tipped my head back against the couch. His fingers brushed the nape of my neck. Accidental, or not. My skin prickled.
"What do you think about before you fall asleep?"
"Used to think about the next ride. Strategy, the bull's tendencies, where I needed to be. Now I think about the yearlings. The breeding program. What the ranch could become." A pause. His voice dropped. "And you. I think about you."
My breath caught. I turned to look at him. He was already looking at me — steady, unguarded, his face in the lamplight so open it hurt.
"What do you think about?" I asked. Barely above a whisper.
