Page 95 of The Goat Next Door

My jaw goes rigid.

Davis is my right hand, but he has the biggest mouth in the county. And if he’s talking about Ember, he’s thinking about her, too. And I don’t like it.

“Davis talks too much.”

“Davis talks the right amount for a man who knows I like the truth.” She turns back toward the house. “Come inside. I’ve got tea.”

The house smells like it has since I was six—yeast, dried lavender, and the faint, sugary tang of sun-brewed tea. Nana moves around the counter, watching my reflection in the microwave window.

“Davis says she’s a good worker,” Nana says, setting the glass down with a sharp clink. “Says she doesn’t complain about the flour, and she doesn’t use too much sugar in the icing.”

“She’s efficient,” I say, taking a swallow. It’s ice-cold and syrupy sweet, cutting through the dry taste of ash that’s been in my throat all day.

“Efficient,” Nana repeats. She sits opposite me. “That’s a word for a tractor, Brooks. Not for a girl who sings songs to your daughter.”

I look down at the dark rings the glass is leaving on the oilcloth.

“She’s from Manhattan, Nana,” I say. “She’s here for the season. She’ll be on her way before the first frost.”

Nana lets out a sound that’s half snort, half sigh. “Is that what she told you, or is that the story you’re telling yourself?”

“Nana—”

“I watched your grandfather try to outrun a good thing for three years because he thought his lot wasn’t big enough.” She leans forward, elbows on the table. “She’s painting the shed, Brooks. A person doesn’t buy five gallons of paint if they’re planning to leave.”

I don’t answer. I can’t.

Because the truth is, every time she’s close enough that I can hear her breathing, or see the way she’s already halfway into a moment like she belongs there, something in me recalibrates without permission.

Like the world briefly stops assuming she’s temporary.

For a second, everything feels simple. Like she’s already part of the rhythm of the house, part of the spaces I move through without thinking. Like she didn’t arrive—like she was always just… here.

And then my mind catches up.

Years of learning how quickly things can disappear settle back into my chest. Not dramatic. Just heavy. Familiar. Unforgiving.

I can’t do this to Sophie, and frankly, I can’t do this to myself either.

“She doesn’t know the valley,” I say softly. “She doesn’t know what it looks like when the gap closes in November and the snow stays in the ditches until May.”

“Then you show her,” Nana says, her voice dropping its teasing edge. “You don’t tell her about the winter like it’s a threat. You just build the woodpile high enough that she doesn’t even feel the draft.”

From outside, the screen door clacks. Sophie bursts into the kitchen, green bucket replaced by a massive, yellowed zucchini.

“Look what I found!” she pants, hoisting the vegetable like a trophy. “Nana, it’s giant. It looks like a whale.”

Nana’s face dissolves into a soft, wrinkled grin that makes her look eighty years younger. “Good heavens, Sophie. That thing’s big enough to use for a fence post.”

“Can we make zucchini muffins with it?” Sophie asks, her eyes fixed on her grandmother. “Ember likes muffins.”

Nana looks across the table at me, one white eyebrow lifting in a slow, deliberate challenge.

“Well now,” she says, her voice humming with hidden meaning. “We’ll have to see if your father has enough gas in that old truck to drive down to the bakery later. He’s always been very particular about his schedule, you know.”

I look at the two of them—the stubborn set of Sophie’s jaw and the dry, knowing spark in Nana’s eyes.

“We’ve got the gas,” I say as I reach over to take the giant zucchini from Sophie’s hands. I focus on the vegetable, refusing to look Nana in the eye. “But I’m not driving all the way down there just to drop off a snack.”