"More."
"Mais, there's a legal limit on cheese-to-egg ratio. I think there's a law."
"There isnota law. Mommy's a pair-a-legal, and she would know."
"Paralegal."
"That's what I said. More cheese."
He added more cheese. This enormous man in my tiny kitchen with his bad knee braced against the lower cabinet, spatula in one hand, cheese grater in the other, taking orders from a five-year-old in ladybug pajamas who couldn't reach the salt.
I swallowed hard and walked in.
"Something smells illegal," I said.
Maisie beamed. "Mommy. Clay is making the eggsmyway."
"I can see that. Your way appears to involve an entire block of cheddar."
"Enough cheddar," Clay said, and his eyes ran over me slow — the shirt, the bare legs, the messy hair — like he was seeing right through the fabric to what was underneath. Like he'd had his hands on every inch of me six hours ago and was replaying every single second. Heat climbed my neck, and he saw it, and his grin got worse.
"I made you a pot of tea," he said. Casual. Like he hadn't just undressed me with his eyes over breakfast.
I turned to the counter so he wouldn't see me smile. A pot of tea. Not a cup — a pot. Already steeping, already the right color,the Earl Grey tin sitting on the second shelf. The one I could reach without the step stool. I hadn't mentioned the step stool. He'd just noticed.
We sat at the kitchen table — the small one from the Copper Creek thrift shop that fit exactly three people if two of them didn't mind their elbows touching — and Maisie narrated her plans for the day between bites.
"First, school. Then horses. Then Starlight. Then the dog."
"Sully," Clay said.
"Sully." She nodded. "He licked inside my ear last time. It was horrible, and I need it to happen again."
Clay's foot pressed against mine under the table. Just that. His sock against my bare foot, warm and steady, while Maisie talked about Sully's tongue and the cheese disappeared and the morning moved around us like water around stones.
We'd talked about what Maisie said at the gas station. The questions Preston asked. Clay had been quiet for a long time afterward, jaw working, hands on the steering wheel, and then he'd said:We don't let him take this from us.I'd nodded. Filed it. Tucked the fear into the locked drawer in the back of my brain — the one I checked at two a.m. when nobody was watching.
In daylight, at this table, with this man's foot against mine and my daughter's laugh filling my kitchen, the drawer stayed closed.
Saturday at the ranch. Maisie in the paddock with Clay and the yearlings, and I was sitting on the fence rail watching something I didn't have a word for — something that looked like the life she was supposed to have.
He had her by the south paddock where the yearlings were getting their morning work. Jack on one side, keeping them tracking, Clay on the other, coaching Maisie through what she was seeing.
"Watch her ears, Mais. See how they're forward? What does that mean?"
Maisie squinted. "She's paying attention."
"Good. Now watch — when they go back flat, what's that?"
"She's annoyed."
"Or?"
"Listening to something behind her."
"That's my girl." He high-fived her without looking, eyes still on the horses, and Maisie's grin split her face wide enough that I could see it from thirty feet away.
He quizzed her on names. On temperaments. On which horses liked which treats, and which ones would nip your pocket if you weren't careful. Maisie answered like she was taking an exam she'd been studying for her entire short life, and every time she got one right, Clay's face softened — not a grin, not the charming version. Something underneath.
