Page 86 of Always Meant for You
I lift the goat from her arms and lower him into the basket. He stirs but doesn’t wake. My fingers brush the edge of the quilt, then fall away as the screen door creaks open behind me.
“It’s me,” Elias says, stepping into the living room.
I straighten and glance between him and Mabel, then toward the board still propped beside the chair.
“We were working,” I say, suddenly feeling caught.
He studies the room, then his daughter. “Looks like Mabel Ruth ran out of steam.”
“It’s been a full day.” I shove my hands deep in my pockets, unsure where to stand.
Elias and I always keep our conversations simple—crops, repairs, forecasts. But this, having his daughter asleep in my house, her scent still in the air—it’s personal.
Elias’s gaze moves to the whiteboard. He tilts his head, then looks at the laptop. “I can tell you’ve been working hard. It would be a shame to wake her. Might as well let her bunk on the couch.”
I hesitate. “You sure?”
He shrugs. “She’s safe here. That’s enough for me. You don’t mind, do you, Cal?”
“No, sir.”
But I’m thinking of what Jamie once told me. After her sixteenth birthday, Elias kept a shotgun close in case any boys got ideas.
I nod toward the goat. “That’s another reason we’re still up.”
Elias folds his arms. “Kenny and Abe filled me in. Sounds like Mabel took over. You know how she is when she sets her mind to something.”
I glance at her, and I feel it again, that slow tightening in my chest. She’s surrounded by warmth. Duke at her feet. The cats curled around her.
My beautiful country girl.
“Yes, sir,” I say softly. “I do know.”
Elias nods toward the board. “Is that her plan?”
“So far.”
“You think it’ll work?”
I stare at the messy scrawl in pink, and even withPassportandChicagowritten there, pressing every bruise I thought I’d buried, I know the answer.
“It might. She’s got a vision, and she’s got a plan to get there.”
Elias rolls his head from side to side and nods. “It seems Mabel came home right when she was needed.”
“It does.”
We stand there, the silence sinking in. Then he steps outside. The door shuts behind him. I don’t move. I watch Mabel sleep and feel the kiss echo down my spine. The rain, the heat, her hand in my shirt, every part of it still lingers. She came back when this place needed her most. What she doesn’t know is, I need her more, and I love her.
The M glints like it’s winking my way.
And I know what I have to do.
I’ve got eight weeks to show her that she belongs with me. I pray I don’t let my demons get the best of me and send her running again.
Chapter Seventeen
MABEL
