“I opened the door,” I say. “You walked through it.”
She exhales, then laughs again, shaking her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever had something that was just… mine.”
I take her hand without thinking. She laces her fingers through mine.
“You do now,” I say.
She squeezes my hand, and as we walk back toward the truck, the town quiet around us, I know this isn’t just a job offer.
It’s a beginning.
And watching Faith step into it, on her own terms, with her spine straight and her voice calm, might be the best damn thing I’ve ever seen.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Faith
February 14th
If there’sa checklist for “How to Accidentally Become the Town’s Valentine’s Day Hype Woman,” mine would look like this:
String lights you bought in bulk at the hardware store? Check.
Hand-cut paper hearts that may or may not be symmetrical? Check.
Hot cocoa station that smells like childhood and will absolutely ruin someone’s white sweater? Check.
A woman with a phone in her hand who is not spiraling? Miraculous, blinking, neon check.
It’s barely nine and my fingers are already cold, but my phone is warm from being in my hands for the last twenty minutes because apparently, I’ve become the kind of person who says things like “Okay, wait, hold that pose… no, don’t look at me, look at each other!” without immediately wanting to crawl under a porch and live there forever.
The town square looks like it’s trying.
The lights zigzag between storefronts, a little crooked in places, as if whoever hung them got distracted by a conversation halfway through. Snow has been shoveled into uneven banks that sparkle in the morning sun. There’s a chalkboard sign by the diner that reads:
LOVE IS IN THE AIR
…AND SO IS FRY GREASE.
Which is either Jet’s best work or proof she’s finally stopped tolerating my attempts at “clean branding.”
I lift my phone, line up the shot, and catch the sign with the diner glowing behind it and a couple of kids racing past in puffy coats like tiny, chaotic comets.
Click.
I check the photo and immediately grin because it’s perfect.
Not perfect like the city. Perfect like real life, where the corners don’t match, and that’s the whole point.
My thumb hovers over “post,” and for a half second, I feel the old reflex tug at me. The one that whispers,Wait. Double check. Make sure it’s okay. Make sure it won’t make anyone mad.
Then I picture Dallas in his kitchen, watching me pace in circles last week while I stressed over font choices, and he said, very calmly, “Honey, it’s Buckhorn. If the font’s crooked, they’ll probably like it more.”
So I hit post.
Happy Valentine’s Day from Buckhorn!
Come warm up with cocoa, cookies, and the cutest small-town chaos you’ve ever seen.
