The second I thought it, she smiled and straightened up, seeming to find herself. “They’re not very sneaky, are they?”
Her eyes were on my brothers, and I glanced over at them too, the smug bastards. I shook my head.
“’Bout as sneaky as your sisters were the other day when they roped you into showing me where the barn is.” Another shake of my head. “My brothers have it in their minds that they’re clever, but don’t worry. I’ll make sure they know they’re not.”
Her laugh was small and light, the sound a wonder for what it did to me. “May as well humor them.” She inched a little closer, and I took her invitation, bringing her flush against me so I could step us into a spin without losing her.
Again, she laughed, this time with her face up to the ceiling, partly from the force of the spin, I supposed. Her long neck was exposed—my eyes hung on the pale column for a brief moment.
I was smiling. How long had it been since I’d smiled at a woman like this? I couldn’t remember and did my best not to math it out.
“How’s all that going with Sophie?”
A heavy breath. “Julie’s custody was temporarily revoked for leaving Sophie alone all night. Happened the day I came up to the farm.”
“Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you, but it’s all right. Worse for Sophie than anybody.”
“So will y’all have her permanently?”
“For a while, but Julie always manages to get it together before the custody hearing. Ten bucks says she shows up with a signed letter from a therapist, a brand new steady job, and a log of AA meetings.”
“Poor Sophie. Does she want to go see her mama?”
“Hard to say. I think Julie scares her a little, but what little girl doesn’t want her mama? Any kid, for that matter. The rest of us hate her for what she puts Sophie through.”
“And the judge won’t do what Sophie wants?”
“Julie’s her mother, and Sophie is eight. If Julie can prove she’s trying to get her life together, they’re going to side with an adult over a kid who doesn’t understand the adult perspective. Otherwise they’d have kids picking their parents over who made them eat less green beans.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It guts me every time. Never mind what Cole goes through.”
“And here everybody in town thinks Cole’s the one without feelings.”
“Well, the people who constitute everybody in town don’t know much, do they?”
A soft laugh escaped me. “No, they sure don’t.”
“I’m surprised to see you here tonight,” she said.
“Good surprised or bad surprised?”
“Good surprised. But you got roped into that too, didn’t you?”
“Am I that predictable?”
She laughed. “Only in that nobody ever sees you. Breaking from seclusion grants you automatic unpredictability. Anything could happen.”
“You overestimate me.”
Her eyes sparkled in the low light of the room. “Oh, I don’t know about that.” She glanced away, her cheeks flushing.
For a moment, we danced, and I did my best to collect my thoughts. “Staying away is easier than not, I’ve found. Here, there are too many eyes. Too many questions. There’s too much pity, and I hate the way it makes me feel.”
“Sure, but what about everything you miss?”
I chuckled. “Town gossip and conversations I don’t want to have?”
“No, I mean dancing with Sophie. Or this.”
The way she said it—not this, but us—plucked a string in my chest, the sound tuned to her. “This makes it easier.”
Her smile was hope and understanding. “You told me once that everything abandoned deserves a new story. Do you remember?”
I nodded, the stone in my throat heavy.
“Does that apply to you too?”
The question struck me hard enough to stun. Not because I’d never considered it. But because I hadn’t realized until then that I didn’t include myself in the things that deserved a new life. I’d been living the same story for so long, somewhere in the past when things still made sense. Here, today, now was an enigma to me, one I hadn’t even tried to grasp.
We fell into silence, not because we had nothing to say, but because there were too many things I didn’t know how to say. Unspoken wishes, questions beyond what she’d asked hung between us. No one had ever breached the walls I’d built myself into, which was by design.
I wished she’d ask them.
“I’m sorry,” she said lightly, laughing in a self-deprecating sort of way. “None of that is any of my business. Please, don’t answer that.”
“No,” I answered. “It doesn’t apply to me.”
Quietly, she said, “Maybe it should.”
I was snared in that thought when the song ended, and we came to a stop, motionless for a protracted moment, our bodies pressed together. Daisy stepped back, and I felt the space between us with every nerve.
The request for another dance brushed my lips when I saw her family heading for the stairs, their eyes on us, approving smiles on their faces. Jo called her name, and she turned to the sound before looking back to me with a smile, stepping backward in their direction.
“Thanks for the dance, Keaton.”
I nodded. “Pleasure was mine.”
She turned for the stage, and I stood there like a fool and watched her walk away, finding my feet before she caught me looking. I bid them to turn me toward my brothers, who watched with smug looks on their faces.
And I fought every urge to look back at her, unwilling to give them the satisfaction.
Unwilling to give it to myself, either. I was too broken to get close to anyone no matter how I might want to. My edges were jagged and dangerous, likely to cut up anybody who dared get close. And I couldn’t bear hurting someone I cared for. Including her.
So I packed up any illusions of hope I had and locked the box up tight, convincing myself it was better this way.
But it didn’t work.
12
IT’LL BE FUN, THEY SAID
DAISY
I felt Keaton’s touch long after we parted, felt his gaze from the crowd all night, though I didn’t see him again. It was late when the dance ended, and I guessed they took Sophie home to get her in bed at a decent hour.
But oh, how I wished Keaton had stayed.
I didn’t hear from him or see him until Monday morning, and the next few days passed without incident. There was something behind his eyes that hadn’t been there before, something dark and quiet, but he had such a tight hold of it, there was no other indication of change. He’d mastered himself, leaving me feeling like the conversation had never happened, if not for that roiling darkness he tried so hard to hide.
As for the site, after the first protest, we were able to feed the whole crew, thanks to Bettie and her biscuits, and by the time everyone left, Doug and his gang had left the premises. Finally, after a long day of them yelling and us turning up the Kenny Rogers.
The next morning, there they were again, and though they didn’t cause any actual trouble, their presence was felt deep and wide. Tension was thick enough to swim through—the crew had one eye on the commotion beyond the gate all day. And the day after that. And so on.