"You must be Millie," he said, like she was exactly who he'd been hoping to meet.
Millie blinked. "Yes, sir."
"Adam," he said warmly, pulling out the chair on her other side and sitting down like they'd been introduced years ago. "Sir was my father. He's been gone twenty years." He reached past her for the bread with absolutely no ceremony. "Gage talks about you."
"Dad," I said.
"Good things," he said, serenely. "Mostly."
"That's what Wyatt said," Millie said, and she looked between them with bright eyes.
"Wyatt and I are aligned on most things." My father began building his sandwich the way he approached everything asan art form—lunch included. "What do you think of the Hill Country?"
"I think it's beautiful," she said. "I grew up in San Antonio so I knew the terrain, but it's different out here. It feels—" She paused, searching for the word. "Older. Like it's been here a long time and it knows it."
My father set down the mustard and looked at her.
"Yes," he said. "That's exactly it." He looked at me. "I like her."
"Dad—"
"Stating a fact." He picked up his sandwich. "The land has memory. Most people can't feel it. She felt it in two days."
Millie had gone pink and was looking very intently at her plate.
Sawyer caught my eye across the table and his mouth twitched.
Haven dropped into the chair next to Wyatt like she'd been doing it since she was fifteen—because she had been—and loaded her plate with the single-minded efficiency of a nineteen-year-old who'd been working since dawn. She was dusty from the field and her braid had mostly given up and she smelled like horses and she didn't apologize for any of it, which was very Haven.
Then she noticed Millie.
She looked at her for a second—not unfriendly, just taking stock—and then she looked at me, and then back at Millie, and something in her expression went warm and curious all at once.
"Hi," she said. "I'm Haven. I work the ranch."
"Millie," Millie said, smiling. "I'm—well. I live in the cottage."
"I know," Haven said. "Everyone knows." She said it without any particular weight to it, just fact. Small town. Ranch. Word traveled. "It's really nice to meet you. We don't get many new people out here."
"Is it that small?" Millie asked.
"Briar Hill?" Haven considered. "It's not tiny. It's just—" She glanced around the table. "Everyone already knows everyone. New people are exciting."
"Haven," Wyatt said, without looking up from his plate. "Don't overwhelm her."
"I'm not overwhelming her," Haven said. "I'm welcoming her." She turned back to Millie with a bright, unhesitating smile. "See? That's just Wyatt. He's like that with everyone."
Wyatt said nothing. Kept eating.
Haven's smile didn't waver. Years of practice at Wyatt saying nothing, and she'd stopped expecting anything different.
Millie, I noticed, had clocked something and filed it away for later.
She caught me looking and raised her eyebrows just slightly.
I shook my head, just slightly back.
Later.And she seemed to understand it, because she turned back to her sandwich and let it go, and that small wordless exchange sat in my chest like something I wanted to keep.
