"Opening day. Just come."
"Done. Easy."
She picked her fork back up. Went back to her Cobb as if nothing had happened.
"Three weeks." She shook her head. "I'm gonna need a drink before opening day."
"You're gonna need many drinks."
"That's the spirit."
Saturday, we walked the river trail.
The dogs were ahead of us off leash, Moose loping, Penny doing her unhurried version five paces behind him. The leaves were going—not all the way, but enough that you could see the color coming in at the edges.
I was in jeans, a fleece, and a mood I couldn't put down if I wanted to.
Easton was a half step ahead of me, hands in his jacket pockets, watching the dogs more than the trail. He had a look when he didn't know he was being looked at—softer at the mouth, easier in the shoulders.
"Penny's keeping up," he said.
"Penny's a champion."
He looked over at me, held it a second, and didn't say anything else.
A blue heron lifted off the water on our left, and we both stopped at the same time. Wings slow and heavy, climbing without seeming to try. Penny stopped, too. Moose kept walking with his nose down, because that was Moose.
"There he goes," Easton said.
"He's big."
"They're always bigger than you think."
The heron cleared the trees. We watched him until he didn't need watching anymore.
We walked on.
A few yards further, I stepped over a root, and his hand was under my elbow before I knew I'd need it. I looked up at him. He was already looking at me. He let his hand drop and went back to the dogs.
You're together whenever he's not on shift. You're at his house when he is. That's dating.
Whatever I had with Easton Ford was making me happier than I'd been in a long time, and I wasn't ready to put a word to it.
We kept walking.
CHAPTER 9
Easton
I was walking three paces behind her on purpose.
Three paces was the distance a man could keep without it looking like distance. Any closer and I'd have my hand on the small of her back. Any further and I'd have lost the sound of her boots on the trail, which I'd been listening to for half an hour without admitting I was listening.
She'd pulled her hair back at the nape with one of the elastics she kept in her kitchen drawer. Honey-brown, a color that turned toward red in the fall light. Her cheeks were pink from the cold. Her breath came out in a small cloud every other step.
Moose was ahead of us, doing his loops, nose down and ears flagged. Penny was at my hip, matching the only pace she had now—slow and careful, every step a small negotiation with her hip. The river ran below us off the left side of the trail, low enough you could hear it under the wind. The lake was a quarter mile up, where the river widened, and the bottom went flat. Locals called it the swimming hole. Half the town learned to swim there.
It was the first Saturday in October, and the air felt like it.
