Page 9 of Into the Fire
She shrugged. “As long as I’m not hauling bags of grain or bales of hay, I think my car can handle it.”
Levi scratched the backof his neck. “I’ll call ahead, have ‘em put together what I need.”
“Perfect.” She smiled at him. “I’ll bring them by after drop-off and a few errands. That work?”
He nodded, slowly. “Yeah… that works.”
Just then, the sound of tiny footsteps and yawns drifted in from the hallway. June shuffled into the kitchen in her matching pajama set while still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She paused, spotting Emery already halfway through packing her lunch, and blinked.
“You’re here again?”
“Sure am,” Emery said with a smile.
Levi watched the two of them, his coffee cooling in his hands. He didn’t know what exactly he’d agreed to when he let Emery into the house, but for the first time in a long while, the morning didn’t feel like something he had to rush through alone. He ran a hand over his face. She made it look easy. Natural. Not like a threat to the way he did things. Just a little easier.
And that? That might just be the scariest part.
???
Emery tapped out a quick text before pulling out of the feed store parking lot.
EMERY:Headed your way now. Got the supplements and a few groceries too. Should be there in about 10 minutes.
She barely made it two blocks before her phone buzzed.
LEVI:Meet you at the house
No emojis. No punctuation. Completely on brand with Levi.
By the time she pulled into the gravel driveway, the sun was high, and the house looked quiet and peaceful in a way that made her chest loosen a little. She parked near theporch, grabbed the feed store bag in the passenger seat, and then popped the trunk to grab the groceries she’d picked up after noticing the pantry looked like it was doing its best impression of Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.
She was halfway through unloading the bags when she heard boots crunching over gravel.
Levi.
He rounded the side of the house in his usual work uniform, dusty jeans, but his flannel was now missing as the day was already hot. The same shirt that had started the day white was now mostly a patchwork of sweat and dust, with his ever-present scowl on his face.
“You didn’t have to do all that,” he said as a way of a greeting, eyeing the grocery bags in her arms.
Emery shrugged, hoisting the last of them onto her hip. “You were out of milk and toilet paper. That’s a crisis waiting to happen.”
That earned her the ghost of a smirk.
She handed him the smaller bag from the feed store. “Supplements are all inhere. The guy at the counter said the dosage information is inside, but if not, I told him you’d come yell at him in person.”
Levi took the bag and nodded. “Thanks. Appreciate it.”
There was a pause, long enough for Emery to wonder if he’d just disappear back into the barn again. Instead, he shifted the bag under one arm and reached to take a few of the grocery bags from her.
“I can carry some,” he muttered.
She arched her brow. “Is that your version of a thank you?”
“No, that's me not letting you break your neck on my porch steps carrying all of that yourself.”
She smiled to herself as they stepped inside together.
The house felt different with just the two of them moving through it. Levi set the feed bag by the door, then silently started to help unpack one of the grocery bags while Emery stowed away the cold stuff.
