Page 41 of Apple of My Eye

“You don’t have to go—” Ivy started.

“Yeah, stay,” Sage called.

“Need a shower. Change of clothes.” He shrugged into his jacket, unhurried. “Colt and I are meeting my folks halfway to Billings to return Dad’s truck.” His eyes met mine briefly. “I could drive by later tonight and check in on you, Daisy.”

Sage, standing beside me, said nothing but elbowed me. Which, from her, was its own loud kind of communication.

“If you want. Don’t go to any trouble though,” I said, nonchalant.

Sage clicked her tongue, shook her head, and walked him to the door in the manner of a woman providing an escort, whether or not one was wanted. I watched while starting the dishes as they huddled with low voices on the porch for a minute.

When she came back in, and his truck disappeared down the drive, she had the expression of someone absolutely not minding her own business. She exchanged a glance with Ivy.

“Don’t even,” I warned them both.

“We didn’t say anything,” Ivy protested.

“You were about to.”

She put the casserole into the oven, and turned to face me, hands on hips. When she spoke there was no teasing in it. Just Ivy, telling me the bold truth.

“He’s a good man, Daisy. That’s all I’ll say. The world doesn’t have enough of those. Believe me, I know.”

I knew that, too.

“Why are you still in denial about Knox’s attention?” Sage admonished.

“We’re friends. Stop pressing, please.” I left it at that, and went to the fridge to assemble a salad. They sighed almost in unison.

We ate dinner without acknowledging a thing about Knox and me. I couldn’t. Things between us were too new, nothing defined, and I needed my sisters to be okay before I ever examined my own life. Right now, with someone breaking into our house, things were definitely not okay.

After dinner, they headed to their rooms to put things back in order.

I stood in the entryway for a few minutes, admiring the new deadbolt on the back door, thinking about Knox. How handy he was, and there was a very long list of things that needed fixing around here that I had been managing without for too long. And how his lips heated against mine in the cottage this afternoon. How sleeping in the circle of his arms last night had been some of the best sleep I had gotten in as long as I could honestly remember.

My sisters were not wrong. Knox was a good man.

I wasn’t entirely ready to say so out loud to anyone yet.

It wasdark when Sage and Ivy finally left for the last Cowboy Night at the Sapphire Saloon. I made them go. Told them to stop hovering, that I was fine, that I had done nothing but take care of myself and this property for years, and one break-in was not about to change that.

I apologized to Ivy for not being up for joining them for her last triumphant night at the Sapphire Saloon. She waved it off and told me to text Knox.

I laughed in her face. He had been planning to attend himself, I was sure of it.

Maybe he would meet someone there.

The thought arrived uninvited and sat directly in the center of my chest without apology. I swallowed it down and watched their taillights disappear down the drive, almost regretting now not going with them.

After putting the living room back together, I baked apple dumplings using Mom’s recipe. I popped open a can of lemon-lime soda, a trick she taught me for the rich syrup the apples baked in.

While they cooled, I settled on the porch swing with a blanket and what was left of my coffee, and my loaded rifle leaning in the corner. The night was brisk and clear, the stars out in the particular thick way they appeared over open land with no competing light. The scent of apples and cinnamon wafted through the air.

For a little while, it was peaceful. Inside me lived thesatisfaction that came from working land you knew and loved and had kept alive through a few hard seasons.

The loud snap of a twig stole that thought right out from under me without warning.

My heart lurched into my throat. I fixed my eyes on the dark at the line of trees toward the sound, watching for shapes, for movement, for anything that did not belong. The rifle was in the corner, three steps, maybe four, away. Why had I not laid it across my lap in the first place?