Page 48 of The Hometown Heartbreaker

The trail back to the stables felt shorter, the wind more expectant, like even the weather was waiting to see who’d speak first. She let Penny set the pace, giving me a good five yards of space, and I didn’t press it. We rode in parallel, not tandem—two stories with divergent endings.

She didn’t look my way, not even when Rooster stubbornly tried to sidle up to her horse at the last bend before the paddocks. I wondered if she was replaying what I’d said, or if she was already mentally drafting a checklist for the next meeting.

At the stables, she dismounted in a single easy motion, looking every bit the girl who’d grown up on a working farm, who’d learned to throw her own hay bales and drive a tractor by age ten. I got down slowly, my legs stiff from the ride and the nerves. She led Penny toward the gate, pausing just long enough to glance my direction.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said, plain and polite, like it was an Uber drop-off instead of an hour-long trip down memory lane. Her eyes lingered on me, but only for a heartbeat, and all the things she wasn’t saying hung in the space between us like fog.

I wanted to ask her if she’d heard me, if she remembered being thirteen and thinking love was simple and forever, but I bit it back. Maybe it was enough that I said it again, even if she never answered.

She led Penny into the barn and back into her stable in one efficient gesture. I trailed after, unsaddling Rooster and stowing the tack in its usual place. When I stepped out into the stable aisle, she was already halfway across the yard, her stride purposeful and her ponytail bouncing against her back. For a second, I thought she might turn around and say something, anything, but she just kept walking, head down, shoulders squared against whatever storm she was carrying inside.

I watched her go, my hand still on the stall door, and wondered if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life telling her how I felt. But the thing was, after years of pretending otherwise, I wasn’t sure there was anything left to lose.

18

THE CASE OF THE FLIRTY SUCCULENT

Sadie

“He had a bad night, but he was still transferred out of ICU.”

That’s the voicemail that I had on my phone from Gio when I got off my work call this morning. I wasn’t sure what Buddy’s “bad night” entailed, just that it hadn’t stopped him from getting to move down to the second floor.

By the time I made it to the hospital, Buddy was sitting up in bed, wires and tubes trailing from under his gown like he was being held together with duct tape and spite. You’d think a man who had been that close to meeting his maker might come out the other side with a little gratitude. A little softness. Instead, he’d apparently spent the morning tossing off his blanket and pitching his applesauce at the wall.

“Thought I was done with chrysanthemums and hospital beds after your mama passed,” he rasped as I walked through the door, scowling at the flowers crowding the room as if they’d personally offended him.

Chrysanthemums were my mom’s favorite flower, and because they were and so many people got them for her when she was sick, Buddy didn’t like them because that’s what they represented to him.

“I can clear these out for you if⁠—”

“Looks like a damn funeral in here.” He waved a hand trailing an IV line, dismissing both me and the flowers in one efficient gesture.

I started moving the arrangements behind the curtain without another word—three identical bouquets, one from the VA, one from the ladies of St. Anthony’s, one from the police department. Half the town had shown up in flowers.

Then I got to the final potted gift, which was not a flower. It was a stubby succulent with a Post-it that read: STAY ALIVE, OLD MAN! Signed with a looping cursive T and a cheerful XO.

“Leave that one!” Buddy ordered gruffly.

I looked at him. Then at the plant. Then back at him.

“Who is this from?” The ‘XO’ certainly snagged my attention.

“Just um…a friend.”

The way he said friend—like the word had a locked door inside it—made my jaw drop straight to the linoleum.

Was Buddy seeing someone?

Who was T?

Why was she giving him hugs and kisses?

My mind was flipping through the directory of people I knew in town who had a name starting with T. Tammy Porter worked at the post office. She was a widow in her late sixties, but I think she would be too young for him. Tina Jacobson, the middle school librarian. Never married in her mid-seventies. I suppose the age would be doable, he was only a few years older than her. She was so quiet though, and how would they have even connected? Tonya Wallace, the eighty-year-old long haul trucker turned dairy farmer. I could see the two of them having a lot in common, I just couldn’t imagine them having any chemistry. From what I remember, Tonya had a four pack a day habit and Buddy couldn’t stand cigarette smoke, now tobacco chew, he was all about, but smoking it, that was a hard no.

But maybe she’s changed. I didn’t know, but what I did know was that this mystery was going to drive me crazy until I discovered who “T” was.

“You see the doc out there?” he asked, shifting in his bed restlessly. “He needs to spring me outta here.”