“We knew,” Mitch stated.
“How?”
Mitch’s voice took on the sound of a man quoting something verbatim. “Because you said home, and Sterling Callahan does not say words he doesn’t mean. You barely say words you do mean. Every syllable is load-bearing.”
“I said that,” Caleb murmured.
“He’s quoting you,” I said.
“Quote me correctly,” Caleb said.
“It was verbatim,” Mitch insisted.
“It was close.”
I looked at the ceiling. The pine boards absorbed my gaze the way they absorbed everything—steady, patient, giving back nothing except the warmth of wood that had been holding heat for a very long time.
“The bed is acceptable,” I said. Flat. Certain.
“You’re welcome,” Mitch said.
“I didn’t say thank you.”
“The sentiment was implied,” Caleb said without opening his eyes.
I put one arm around Caleb. My other hand found Mitch’s wrist where it rested across my chest, and I didn’t move it. Just held it. His pulse jumped under my thumb, steady and warm, and he turned his wrist until our fingers linked, and the contact was deliberate and grounding and exactly what I needed.
The new house settled around us. Beyond the window, the eastern ridge held the dark the way it always did, patient and certain, and somewhere out there Rawley’s light was probably off and the bunkhouse was empty and none of that mattered half as much as the fact that Mitch’s fingers were tangled with mine and Caleb’s breath was warm against my ribs.
“The sourdough starter’s still alive,” Caleb said. “On the counter. In the blue jar.”
“It tried to escape last Tuesday,” Mitch added.
I turned my head. “How does a sourdough starter escape?”
“Over-proofing,” Caleb explained. “The jar was too small. It expanded. Lifted the lid. Very dramatic.”
“It happens when it misses you,” Mitch said.
“That’s not how fermentation works,” I said.
“I don’t know that,” Caleb said.
“I do.”
Mitch’s grin was audible in the dark. “The starter’s named after you, and it keeps escaping. Make of that what you will.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. The words were there, lined up behind my sternum the way they’d been lining up since Nebraska, and what came out was quieter than I’d planned and more direct than I usually allowed.
“I missed you both,” I said.
A beat. Caleb’s hand pressed flatter against my chest. Mitch’s fingers tightened around mine. The silence held, warm and certain, and then Mitch said, “Yeah.” The way he meant things all the way down. The way that carried no performance and no armor, just a man who had been holding the line for three months and was finally, actually allowed to put it down. “Yeah. We know.”
I closed my eyes. The new house held all three of us in the dark, solid and warm and exactly right. Beyond the window, the eastern ridge was starting to lighten along its crest, the thin line of gold that said morning was coming whether we were ready for it or not, and for once in my life I didn’t care what time it was or what came next.
I stayed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
